Cloonagh, Co. Sligo. The Dodd homestead and farm, bought in 1896 by Michael Dodd (b. 1854) from infamous landowners the Ffolliots for £700.

Family Histories was born out of years of passionate genealogy research, investigative work, and storytelling started by Sinéad Andrews from Dublin, Ireland.

After almost two decades working at the United Nations in New York, Sinéad exposed a series of workplace abuses that led to a number of dismissals. Deeply disillusioned by what she witnessed, she turned to the past, determined to lift the silence on her own revolutionary grandmother, Mary Coyle.

Mary Coyle, Sinéad's grandmother

Meet my grandmother, Mary Coyle. With this old photo, some family anecdotes and letters discovered in my brother's attic, the story had only just begun.

Her discoveries astonished her - so much of Mary's story was buried in the archives. That revelation ignited more than a decade of relentless research, meeting with historians, finding distant relatives, attending civil war conferences, and uncovering fascinating new information.

British intelligence reports found in Ireland's Military Archives revealed that Mary's family home was under surveillance by the British Army during Ireland's revolutionary years. Knowing she had worked in Guinness during this time, it was thrilling to find in their archives a series of letters she wrote - one describing in vivid detail the night she narrowly escaped a raid on her home.

From Research to Storytelling

Combining these discoveries with her digital expertise and creative vision, Sinéad has now turned her passion into a service that helps other families bring their own ancestors to life - through AI-generated video storytelling, detailed genealogy reports, and beautifully illustrated family trees.