The Wolfes: A Family History.

 

I’ve been researching the Wolfe (Woulfe) family for many years and use this site as a repository of what I’ve learned and the records I’ve collected.

Here you’ll find biographies of family members on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a portrait gallery, a collection of interesting obituaries, an exhibit of fascinating family stories, a glossary to help you understand some of the history and geography involved, and, of course, a family tree.

This site remains a work in progress; as knowledge accumulates or my understandings change, I update entries. And if you have something to correct or add (I’m especially grateful for letters and photographs), please be in touch: brendanwolfe@yahoo.com.

This project takes time and money. You can help support it by donating here. Thank you!

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Brendan Wolfe

I am a professional genealogist living in Charlottesville, Virginia. I’m also a writer and editor, having authored or contributed to several books, including Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend (2017), Mr. Jefferson’s Telescope: A History of the University of Virginia in 100 Objects (2017), and Man in the Moon: Essays on Fathers & Fatherhood (2014).

I grew up in Davenport, Iowa, not far from rural Clinton County, where my father was raised and where my great-great-grandfather, John R. Wolfe, came with his wife, Honora, in 1852. My interest in family history began with them but has since expanded to West Limerick and North Kerry, where the Woulfes continue to live and in some cases farm.

Thanks to them and to Wolfes everywhere for their help with this project. And if you’re doing your own work, let me know how I can help.

 

“There was Joan Grogan of Athea who, one night at the Glen, called on the dead of previous generations naming each individually as they came in—one after another, out of the dark in response to her call until my grandfather, then a young man, was driven into a fire-place corner by the press of the weird, if friendly visitors.”

— Dollie Woulfe, in a letter to a relative, 1956;
the Glen was the family farm in Cratloe, Athea