Visiting Historical Sites, Living History Museums, and Folk Parks

Kilaned Cottage at Glencomcille Folk Park represented how my ancestors might have lived in Ireland, circa 1850s.

Have you ever visited a heritage park, living history museum, or folk park where your ancestors lived? If not, I recommend you add it to your next genealogy trip to gain some incredible insight into what their lives, homes, occupations, and traditions were like.

In the past year, I've visited several of these sites and came away with a much better understanding of where my ancestors lived, what they saw or did in their everyday lives, even what kinds of tools they used or clothing they might have worn. I find it's one thing to read in books about life during the times they lived, but it's quite another to walk through a cottage, sidle up to a sheep, step on a ship, or peek into a hedge school replica to bring that book learning to life.

 

Western New York & Canada 

On my visit last year to Western New York and St. Catharines, Ontario, to research my Schiltz, Baker, Cailteux, and Sheridan lines, I visited the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village in Tonawanda, Erie, New York, not too far from Sheldon, Wyoming, New York, and the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Center in St. Catharines, Ontario. 

My western New York ancestors were primarily farmers, so the visit to the Heritage Village was a great opportunity to see examples of typical log houses of the area, as well as farming implements and tools that they might have used.

Interior of the Smith Log House, built about 1840, now located at the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Center. My ancestors who moved to western New York might have lived in a similar home. 

A display on agricultural tools helped me picture what my ancestors who lived in nearby Sheldon, Wyoming, New York, might have used.

A scythe, hay fork, corn planter, and sifter displayed at the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Museum.

 

In St. Catharines, it was hard to miss the influence that the Welland Canal would have had on my ancestors who lived there and in neighboring Port Dalhousie—they would have seen the ships or worked in industries or shops that supported this busy shipping hub. Though they likely did not see any vessel the size of the ship that was locking through at the time of my visit, it was still very interesting to see how quickly the ships changed levels in the Welland Canal.

Another benefit to visiting historical parks and museums is that some have archives or research rooms. The St. Catharines Museum & Welland Canals Centre had both in addition to a museum. In the museum I spied a photograph of the St. Catharines Armory, c. 1910. Not to be macabre, but the photo caught my eye as my great-great-grandfather Charles Cassidy collapsed and died in front of the building in 1926.¹

The St. Catharines Armoury, where my ancestor Charles Cassidy died.

 

In the St. Catharines Archives, I was fortunate to see an original photograph of my great-grandfather and his championship lacrosse team from 1906 which the museum staff had helped me track down the year before.

The original photograph of the McKinnon's championship lacrosse team from 1906. My great-grandfather, Edward Baker, is pictured in the middle row, third from right.

Ireland 

On our recent trip to Ireland, the Hubs and I visited several museums and folk parks—what we might call a heritage village or park in the U.S.—which helped me experience some of the same sights, sounds, smells, etc., that my ancestors did.

• We visited the Dunfanaghy Workhouse to gain a better understanding of the Irish Famine from the narrative of one young girl named Hannah Herrity who lived in the workhouse during the worst of the Famine. 
• At the Glencomcille Folk Park, we not only saw several furnished cottages from various eras, but also replicas of a Mass rock and a hedge school, which might have been familiar to my ancestors. A Mass rock was an outdoor table made for the secret celebration of Catholic Mass in the 17th and 18th centuries when gatherings of the faithful were illegal. Hedge schools were casual meeting places literally hidden in hedges to allow Irish children who were not Church of Ireland members to attend school when their education was also outlawed due to the Penal Laws.
• The Museum of Country Life provided great information on occupations my Irish male ancestors practiced—blacksmith, turner, shoemaker—as well as insights into traditions surrounding birth, death, marriage, and religion, through a combination of interpretive plaques and antique tools, clothing, and artifacts.
• Among our very favorite stops were to the Dunbrody Famine Ship (which I wrote about recently), and the Irish Wake Museum, which offered a really fascinating look into Irish beliefs, practices, and traditions surrounding death through history.

A simple cottage at Glencomcille Folk Park displayed tools, cooking utensils, hearth, crockery, etc. The bed nearest the fire was reserved for the eldest members of the family.

 

The Museum of Country Life's display of blacksmith tools, anvil, and bellows. My second great-grandfather, Charles Cassidy, whose parents were Irish, might have used such tools in his shop in Ontario.

This interpretive plaque discusses the blacksmith's place in an Irish community and is written in both English and Gaelic. 

This recreation of a wake at the Irish Wake Museum offered an opportunity for our guide to discuss traditions, myths, folklore, and more surrounding death.

 

Of the many photos I took on our trip, many are of interpretive plaques from these sites that explained something in particular I wanted to remember. So, while they are not necessarily your typical travel pictures, they document a source that I can use in my research.

I'm a big fan of taking photos of interpretive plaques—like this one from the Dunfanaghy Workhouse—which can serve as a research resource.

Connect to Your History 

Living history museums, folk parks, and other sites help us "travel back in time" to experience a taste of our forebears' lives. To find these parks and museums near you or in a research locality, search the internet using keywords "living history CITY," for example. A search on "living history Texas, brought up several great resources in my home state. The Texas Historical Commission's Texas Time Travel website features "Living History at a Site Near You," an interactive map of sites across the state.

The Texas Historical Commission's Texas Time Travel site features this living history site map.

 

Whether it's in Texas, Ireland, New York, Canada, or beyond, there is bound to be at least one historical society, museum, or heritage park in an ancestor's homeland. Learn more about their lives by checking out one of these great resources when you're next in that locality.

Until next time...

© Nancy Gilbride Casey, 2026. All rights reserved. 

 

IMAGES

All photos by author.

 

NOTES

¹ Ontario, Canada, Death Registrations, County of Lincoln, Division of St. Catharines, 1926, p. 268 (stamped), #92, Charles Francis Cassidy, 3 April 1926; imaged, "Canada, Ontario, Deaths 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6X83-79F; accessed 6 July 2026); citing Record Group 80, Death Registrations, Container 1033, Archives of Ontario, Toronto.