Standing on the hilltop that my ancestors abandoned slightly more than a century ago, it’s easier to understand why they left. The view is gorgeous, but the land is water-logged and ankle-twistingly lumpy and, as my cousin, Gerry, puts it, no good for growing anything but children.

Gerry, who brought me to this spot, is the grandson of Thomas Daniels, the since-deceased younger brother of my late great-grandmother Cecelia Daniels. Thomas, the youngest of four, remained in Ireland -- in Loughrea in County Galway, to be precise -- even after Cecelia and two other siblings left for America around 1900. Apparently there was no further contact. Until now.

The story behind how I came to be standing on that hill with Gerry recently goes back about five years. Shortly after the birth of my first son, I decided it was no longer enough to know only that I was a descendent of Irish immigrants who rarely spoke of the country they fled. I wanted names and dates and explanations, so that my children would know more about themselves and their history than the vague and superficial ethnic pride I grew up with. So I posted what little my relatives knew about our ancestors on an Irish website, and waited.

Almost a year later I received an e-mail from an Oliver Daniels of Galway. The details I had posted were consistent with what he knew of ancestors of his who had left for America generations before. We exchanged more information -- I assembled the bits and pieces that my relatives could recall, and Ollie consulted his brother, Gerry, who'd amassed a great deal of family history over the years -- and eventually became convinced that we were related.

Any lingering doubts were erased when I finally traveled to Ireland to meet them in late May, courtesy of US Airways' new direct service from Philly to both the Shannon and Dublin airports. Ollie and Gerry could easily pass for my mother's brothers; their hair is darker, but the shape of the eyes is strikingly similar. In their children's faces I saw other reflections of my immediate family: my grandmother's deep-set eyes and brow in one of Gerry's daughters; my sister's eyes and freckles, and my son's chin, in his other daughter; glimmers of one of my uncles in Ollie's son; and hints of my own face in those of his daughters.

Even more amazing were the nonphysical similarities. Gerry is a kindred spirit to my late uncle John; he has the same passion for Irish history and culture, the same love of good coffee and good conversation. He even drapes one arm absently over his head when ruminating, just like John used to. They would have gotten on famously.

I heard no whispered voices, experienced no moments of clarity or peace, as I stood on that hill with Gerry, looking at the remains of a tiny stone house once occupied by my great-grandmother's closest neighbors. (The site of my family's old house is in an area now covered with an impenetrable forest of evergreens, part of a national reforesting project.) And yet there was something almost mystical about making that connection to my family's past, and to history. Our reunion would not have been possible even a generation ago, before widespread use of the Internet and affordable overseas flights, and yet meeting Ollie and Gerry and their families showed me just how close the past really is, how it lives in us and speaks to us, if we choose to listen.