Searching for Isum: Over Genealogical Brick Walls

From "Searching for Isum": "I recall vividly as a ten year old going with my father to visit Grandpa McCormick at his home on Mechanic Street in Macomb, Illinois. After eating some of his wonderful Concord grapes off the vine, Grandpa wanted to show us the family bible that was ‘brought over from Ireland during the potato famine.’ His story was that Grandpa’s grandfather Isum was an Irishman, one of ‘five Irish brothers,’ who came to America escaping the potato famine. I got the impression that Grandpa was offering the bible to my father for safe keeping. I, as an audacious – or obnoxious - ten-year-old boy, had the temerity to thumb through the huge bible and to take a look at the copyright date. It was old but not from Ireland. It was copyright 1876 in the United States of America. My father had a good chuckle, and Grandpa was obviously embarrassed."

Years later as if suddenly possessed by Isum's spirit, the author began a search to find out just who Isum McCormick was and where his family came from. The search led through hundreds of documents, court houses, National Archives, cemeteries, DNA tests and thousands of miles of travel only to yield the fact that the author’s grandpa had no clue about his own grandfather.