The Whelan family tree (as it stands at the moment)

To make it clearer to any readers (and to myself to be fair!) I've decided to put up the actual family tree's to keep track of all the names I'll be talking about. The easiest way for me to do this is to create four family trees, thus tracing my family tree back from each of my grandparents:

1. Harry Whelan (paternal grandfather)
2. Catherine Walsh (paternal grandmother)
3. John McKenna (maternal grandfather)
4. Bridget Berrill (maternal grandmother)

This post relates to the Whelan branch. Below is an image of the family tree thus far:
The image isn't as clear as I would like, but as long as you can read the names then that's the main thing. The writing below are notes I've made to help me in my research.

Christopher Whelan was a labourer according to his marriage certificate, but the 1911 census records him as a van-driver. Christoper was involved in World War I, and I'm going to leave that story for another post. Both Ancestry.com and the UK National Archives have wonderful resources to trace the military career of relatives. Below you can see a picture of Christoper (centre) with his children.
I remember that there was a picture of Christopher and his wife Elizabeth in the front room of my grandsparents house. It was a memorable photo to me when I was very small because Christopher had lost some fingers in an explosion during the war. I'd love to find that image again because although I can still remember Christopher's face, I've completely forgotten about what Elizabeth looked like. Elizabeth (née Gavin) was a house-keeper when she married Christopher. She was also a minor at the time of the wedding, 7 years younger than Christopher. So far I've only managed to find out her father's name, Henry, and he was a labourer. I shall be picking up Elizabeth's birth certificate in a few days so more details will arise from that.

Christopher's father was Thomas Whelan, a fishtrader according to his marriage certificate and a salesman according to the later marriage certificate of his son. He was living at 11 East Arran St., Dublin at the time of his marriage to Catherine Cullen. She was resident at 14 Fisher's Lane. They were both minors when they wed in 1866. Catherine's father was Patrick Cullen, a labourer, while Thomas's father was also called Thomas who was a fish-trader.

As you can see I've managed to get the name of two of my great-great-great-grandfathers - Thomas Whelan Sr. and Patrick Cullen. It get's more difficult from here because I have to work with parish records, microfilm, and dodgy illegible handwriting. But I'll keep digging.....