Barbara Scanlon is the Genealogy Specialist at the Kansas City Irish Center. In addition to that role she is the Genealogy Committee Co-Chair of the Kansas City Irish Festival. Barbara was born in Lexington, Nebraska, attended grade and high school in Overton, Nebraska, then graduated from Kearney State College, and was later married in Kearney. Her work in genealogy started at age 12 with an interview of her grandfather there in her grandparents’ living room in Eddyville, Nebraska. The curiosity of a 12-year-old grew to a life’s passion for genealogy. Barbara has learned so much about her family history in the past 10 years. Her father was 100% Irish with Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic and Irish Quaker ancestors. Her mother has three Irish lines: Roman Catholic, Irish Quaker, and Scots Irish Presbyterians, discovered in January of 2013. With Barbara’s Irish heritage and her husband Ed’s Irish roots, Irish genealogy and history has grown to a labor of love. Barbara is a member of the National Genealogy Society. She also is a member of the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History. For the past six years she has attended the “British Institute” in Salt Lake City which is a weeklong class on Irish genealogy. Barbara has also traveled to Ireland twice to attend the Ancestral Connections weeklong conference at the University College Cork.
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