The Devine Book

Susan Devine Napoli is my first cousin, and I couldn't be more pleased that someone in the family has finally written this book. It was long a goal of her father, Professor John E. Devine, to produce some sort of family history, and now his daughter Susan has fulfilled her father's dream. Ours is hardly an aristocratic family, with more than a few proverbial horse thieves to be found perched in the family tree, but it is also a story of one family's brave struggle to make it in America under sometimes very unfavorable circumstances. Yet, sometimes even the less than flattering facts are welcome because, as my cousin says at one point, "The truth is always better than the silence."

I had always believed that my family came to this country from Ireland around 1880, but my cousin's book reveals that it was a half century earlier, in 1832. Wow, the Devine's have been in America for nearly two centuries and we're still broke!

This book is also a good starter guide for anyone who wishes to research their own family background. Devine-Napoli details the process which she used to unearth her family history, offering tips that anyone engaged in the same historical endeavor would find useful. Of course, the nature of family history research is such that the more one learns, the more questions are raised. Despite that conundrum, future family researchers of the Devine saga will be forever grateful to Susan Devine Napoi for this foundational effort from which all future family historical inquiries will begin.

To order your copy click here.