Hardship and tragedy plagued the people of nineteenth-century Ireland. Famine, religious persecution, and bigotry forced millions to emigrate while others were exiled on prison ships to Australia for petty crimes. Families were torn apart and lives forever altered.

Fourth-generation Irish American John F. Welsh Jr. sought to uncover his own family's part in that dark history. Using old family letters and records, as well as in-depth research at Irish heritage centers, Welsh discovered an incredible story of a distraught immigrant who abandoned his eight children to a St. Louis orphanage,...