ROI - tracking down grandparent's birth/death certificates

[HCHQ]

Hi, just looking for advice/experiences of tracking down Irish Grandparent's birth/death certificates. I have my mother's birth certificate, which names them but doesn't have their DOB and no idea where in ROI they came from. Is it best to go via a site such as Ancestry? I'm only looking to go back as far as my grandparents, for purely passport/residency related reasons.

I don't think needle in a haystack even touches this conundrum!!

Any suggestions greatly appreciated, thanks.

The Irish heritage site (can't remember proper name now) was more useful for me for this. It's free and let's you filter a bit. Going to be quite hard though if you don't know which area to start looking in. Is it an unusual surname?

This site takes a bit of figuring out but good and free I think.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/agreement.jsp

Or
https://www.rootsireland.ie/

Their names unless a bit unusual are probably not going to be a lot of good without having some idea where in Ireland. Has no one ever mentioned any part of Ireland in the family, any holidays to any particular part of Ireland in their post, photos that might pinpoint something? You could search the site given above for a marriage matching the two names of parents, that might narrow it down giving a bit of a guess for ages, you can put in rough parameters to get a listing. Also consider joining Irish Genealogy site on FB and give what details you have, there are some very good amateur detectives there!

From your mother's BC you can get a reasonable guess of your grandparents marriage date, helpful if you also know years of birth of any siblings often marriages are within a year or two of birth of first child. Searching for two connected names in a marriage gives more unique results than just looking for one name, and if you find their marriage it may give their DOB, place of marriage and their father's names. That then makes it easier to search for their individual births. Step by step is the best way to do it.

Irish records can be a bit hit and miss, but at least you're not going back too far!

If you are really stuck for a general area, by joining ancestry and doing a DNA test you will get the general areas within Ireland your ancestors came from.

That's the site I was referring to. Even if you know the surname, the spelling may vary a lot so need to search and eliminate as many as you can.

I did some digging recently and found it surprising easy.

if they were alive for the 1901/1911 census all that data is available.

many graveyards have detailed online records too.

Church baptism/marriage/death records are also increasingly online.

do you have siblings names? Aunts, uncles etc?

if they are younger- post 1950, records become harder to find. I think I used graveyard records for the most recent relatives. They often record date of birth.

Thanks everyone.

There aren't any relations to ask I'm afraid, and with such a common surname and no idea of which Irish county they were from I feel it's an impossible task. Maybe I should start with something like ancestry.com to start my family tree and get a dna test then see what it turns up.

I did a tree on ancestry but there is a load of false leads for want of a better description on it. Have you the names of both parents and if so have you looked for a marriage with those names? That would be a good start.

I would advise doing a DNA test on Ancestry though many have privacy concerns about doing DNA tests.
DH's father's identity was confirmed via an Ancestry DNA test.

What year was your mother born? Did she have any siblings? Were they born in Ireland or England? It might be best to start by looking for her parents' marriage certificate.

The Society of Genealogists sometimes have online talks about tracing Irish ancestors which might be helpful if you’re still stuck (I’ve not joined one as I haven’t found an Irish connection so far, so can’t recommend a specific one ☺️).