Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bit Devine on April 22, 2014 at 10:58am

No digging folks up, unless its figuratively. It is a simple cheek swab for saliva.

Permalink Reply by Bernard Raymond O'Brien on April 23, 2014 at 3:47pm

Thanks but since I wouldn't know who to swab, it sounds ...

Permalink Reply by Bernard Raymond O'Brien on April 28, 2014 at 7:16pm

Go to your courthouse and look in all available records:   census, death, tax, property, miliary etc.   like we all did.l

Permalink Reply by Melanie Costello on April 30, 2014 at 2:51pm

You can sign up to search for two weeks for free on ancestry.com - last month I did it for the first time and I cannot believe what I found. It really works. I am going to sign up for a monthly membership so that I can keep looking, but the tree I created and all the documents I attached to it still exist within the site. I actually got in contact with another descendant of my line who lives in another state...she was unbelievably helpful as well. Keep your tree public (like she did) so that others can find you and you can find people in your line who have public trees. It's amazing what census records tell you as well. I started with my husbands grandfather and ended up with 76 people in my tree by the end of the two weeks. It's no joke! I was able to go back to County Kerry 5 generations! My goal now is top find about the two children (possible) who stayed behind in Kerry and also a ship manifest / naturalization papers or records for Martin and Ellen Costello(e) and see what else I can find out about the trip/year they came to the US. I have possible 1852. It's worth spending the two weeks on ancestry.com. Good luck!

Permalink Reply by michael dunne on October 13, 2016 at 2:33pm

Melanie,

Happy you struck oil with Ancestry.com I have done my own research and as a rule avoided paying sites as much of the information is in the public domain today. Genealogical researchers and paying sites are largely for the gullible or the lazy. The real buzz and a classical introduction to local histories is in doing ones own research and getting incredible satisfaction from the hits of finding a long lost relative or breaking down a wall of ignorance. Aside from being blessed being connected to Kerry you are doubly so from a genealogical perspective. Today you can freely search

Irish Genealogy.ie (Another is Irish Genealogy Church Records..which is the same thing)

which is through the government site and through thr National Archives Bishop Street Dublin. This online site chronicles all Roman Catholic and COI from 1900 back to 1700 and the names run in a kind of cluster making it relatively easy with a little intuition or attention to the detail of the parents for the marriage and birth records. Other counties included in these records for this site include Cork, Dublin and Carlow. The government ran out of money after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger and had to shelve plans to record all county records. I have a relative through marriage named Costelloe from Tralee.

Ironically Kerry and Cork had the worst publicly available records, attributed to hoarding and unfairly blaming the clergy for the non availability of Marriage and Births. It was the genealogists who were more to blame than anyone or anything else. So the Ministers of the different political parties responded to public pressure and released these records through the co ordination of the National Archives for the information of the Irish public and its diaspora.

A good tip is to familiarize ones self with the Irish custom of naming the first born son after the paternal grandfather the second born son after the maternal grandfather and the third born son after the father. The same pattern for girls i.e. first daughter after paternal grandfather etc etc. This helps when you are searching family records and the pattern of Christian names becomes familiar. Go nÉirghidh an tÁdh Leat

Permalink Reply by Kieron Punch on May 1, 2014 at 5:44am

Katherine,

I would also recommend using the Ancestry website because in addition to providing access to their excellent collection of census records they also have a fine collection of emigration/immigration records, including ships' passengers lists that date back to the early 1800s.

For Irish records I would recommend the Irish Family History Foundation's http://rootsireland.ie/ website which has made great progress in making the surviving Irish births, deaths and marriages records available online (records for some counties are still being added). Be aware, though, that using the Roots Ireland site can be very expensive as you have to pay to view each record on a search result list. As limited information is provided on this list you may be required to pay to see a number of records before finding the correct person. This can be a nightmare if your ancestor had a common name, such as, Michael Murphy.

Permalink Reply by Kieron Punch on May 1, 2014 at 8:55am

Katherine,

I would also like to recommend the following site http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/ which provides access to many Irish birth, marriage, death records free of charge. So far, they only have records for Dublin, Kerry and Cork, the bulk of which are from the 18th and 19th centuries, but some records go back to the 1500s. A nice touch is that for a growing number of the records there is a link to a scanned image of the actual original entry in the church register, such as this record of the baptism of my Great-Grandfather, Michael Punch, on 25th February, 1860 (on the right page, two-thirds of the way down) http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/reels/cork%20%26%20ross.st.%...

Permalink Reply by michael dunne on December 26, 2015 at 6:48pm

Kieron,

Solid advice on the site going from 1900 back to 1700 in Ireland which as you know includes COI as well as Roman Catholics.The site you mention now also includes Carlow. That site tends to change its email address as each new Minister is appointed to that dept. In Ireland. the current email is Irish Genealogy.ie.  The rule of thumb to keep in mind is that a lot of this information has been made free in Ireland because for too long it was too expensive or too awkward to locate. That is the main reason the various governments made it available to American Irish and now to the Irish who are as keen to learn of their ancestry. While ignorant of the DNA aids I remain a little skeptical and wait to be convinced. From what I have read, they appear to be very expensive. 

For convenience of access go to the official government site of The National Archives Bishop Street Dublin. These archives have a huge amount of online sources and are very helpful and free. They include the online 1901 and 1911 Census returns which are a good starting point once you have exhausted the living members of your family.The importance of carefully noting each morsel of information they give will later save you months of exhaustive research. The National Archives also include Griffith Valuations which records the poor who were landless and would otherwise never have been recorded in 19th C. Ireland. Griffith Valuations is included in "askaboutireland"

Avoid all the spin of other sites offering free info which is free anyway. I have found My Heritage to be good value and very helpful in setting out and storing info and photos for about 75 euro p.a. 

Permalink Reply by Annie Vercimak on May 7, 2014 at 1:08pm

Most libraries in the US maintain a subscription to Ancestry.com.  You can typically use it if you are in the library but there is no fee.  Also, many libraries offer Heritage Quest for your use.  The libraries I am familiar with allow you to use Heritage Quest at home as long as you use your library pin and a password.  I teach courses here for beginners but our librarians are very good to help anyone.  I'm sure you have a genealogical society close by.  As members, we help people in their searching. 

Permalink Reply by The Wild Geese on May 16, 2014 at 9:01am

Hello again, everyone.  Just wanted to let you know that Nicola Morris (who is one of our trio of genealogy experts now contributing here in The Wild Geese community) has just posted a great article with important tips and suggestions to help you get started (or maybe re-started, as the case may be):

Searching for Your Irish Ancestors – Getting Started

Nicola is the genius behind Timeline Irish Genealogy and would be a great choice to help get you further along given all her experience and expertise.

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