My wife is trying to track her lineage on her mothers side, They were part of the Connells from Ireland that came over to Canada in and around the great depression.
At one point an author wrote about her family biography around the 1930s, he was given a room in Annie Connell Fergusons residence during this time.
We are trying to track down a copy of this book it was ridiculously large as the Connell family side was very prolific.
does anone have any ideas where I could search for this biography?
Some questions for you to answer that will help with your searches. To clarify; I will not search for you (I have more than enough archive work of my own :-/) but these are the standard questions I would be asking myself to narrow down a search:
Do you know the author of the book?
Was the book published, printed, or a single manuscipt?
Any closer idea on dates? Was this in Canada or Ireland? Did he write the book during or after his stay?
Do you know where the book was likely to have ended up? Ie. stayed in Ireland, private collection, given to a Library? Did the family have any other books - were they likely to have given a bequest to any institution that could contain books?
The Library at Trinity College (http://www.tcd.ie/) is Ireland's national deposit Library so that'd be a good place to start if the book was published. Alternatively, try the National Library of Ireland (http://www.nli.ie/). If it's in Canada, then you'll have similar institutions there. The archivists at the national libraries are usually incredibly helpful, if overworked - any information you can find is really helpful for them.
Good luck!