How did you start (also info in Ireland?)

[JuniorH]

I've got some info going back to my great grandparents but thats about it so far. I've seen genesreunited and ancestry.co.uk what do you guys use?

Also, my family moved to England in the 1950's and to my knowledge (and my grandparents) were all in Ireland prior to that. Anyone been looking at records in Ireland? I have a feeling that the records were held at individual parishes until a certain point in time..

Thanks in advance!

i use ancestry.co.uk - mainly cause I am in Aus. I am first generation aus on my dad's side, 2nd and 4th generation on my mum's side.

I started with what I knew - spoke to living family etc. I then did the ancestry, purchased some certificates.

Here in Aus I also used the national archives - very helpful for things such as WW1 records - all digitised for online viewing. I also used the state archives. Did internet searches for genealogical sites. I am lucky too as some cemetaries here in Aus have lists of people buried here - you can get information as to what is on the headstone.

Used things like commonwealth war graves commission for any one that may have died and be buried somewhere in the world.

I have looked at parish records where I could find any, posted asking for help on ancestry community and some groups here in Aus.

I have some irish on dh's side but is it way back and I am yet to try that - am trying to firm up the scottish/english journey.

Hope that gives you something to ponder and perhaps some things to try. Not much help I know.

not really taken with genes reunited.

Have a look at some of the (rather pricey) family history magazines - several of them are running items on Irish family history. There are big gaps in Irish records (very patchy census data if it survives at all for the 19th c.). I've found it useful to look at GENUKI's Irish regional pages.
Try this site:
Irish Family History Foundation

And try this site (it doesn't cover all counties): Irish Genealogy Ltd

HTH

It can be quite tricky JH. A lot of records were deliberately burned and destroyed by (I THINK) DeValera or it could have been before him - my Irish history is patchy.

Also, records held by the Parish can be flakey at best because many of the poorer Irish families were at bit hit and miss about recording stuff. Sometimes, even names are not the same as those used by the family. Dates of birth were often recorded as a 'near as we can remember' date because babies were born and no one paid much attention to the date! Baptismal records were written up by the Parish priest or clerk and they would often change information on a whim.

That said, we were given access to the Parish records and allowed to sit in the Priest's house, pouring over them. There was a lot of cross referencing and a fair bit of guess work to fill in the gaps and a few surprises as well. It's worth asking for access in the Parish where you think your Great GP's and beyond were from.

There are also County records, held in the capital of each county. Ours are in Sligo and we got quite a bit of info about land ownership and rents and stuff.

Good luck

Thanks for all your replies and the links!

I had an old login for genes reunited and I had 2 really old messages from people about the same line of my family. My Nan thinks they are related, how strange is that!

Anyway, going to have a look at the links you have given me and I'm off to Ireland in October so might have a root around while I'm there

1911 census is online for Dublin and kerry
www.census.nationalarchives.ie

I'm up on genesreunited, but largely because that seems to be where you get the greatest number of people contacting you. I don't use it for research and so far I've not proactively contacted anyone through it. I mostly use ancestry, or scotlandspeople for Scottish ancestors, plus nationalarchives as they are getting more stuff online.

Even in 1919 in Ireland my grandmother was officially baptised (according to baptism certificate) the day before she was born (according to birth certificate), which is quite impressive. I haven't really even tried to tackle all the Irish links yet (and for most of them all I have is a name, not even a general area, so those are a washout to begin with. There are a few that are more promising, though).

This website has the irish census information for 1911 so might be of interest and it's free (as previously posted) - it definitely covers antrim too as that's where my search has been focused.

www.census.nationalarchives.ie/

I'm mainly doing research into my northern irish ancestors but I do have some sites that cover the whole of ireland although most seem to be subscription based. If you'd like some more links then let me know.

Another tip is to put the placename into google and you can sometimes come up with interesting information.

you could also try this website

here

I use ancestry.co.uk as it's free at my local library. I also use Scotlands people and I post messages on Rootsweb.

I also have family from Ireland but they were in Britain by the 1860's so I've got them here, but I can't find them in Ireland because I don't know where in Ireland they were from. All it says on census records are that they are from Ireland, not where about!

A lot of Irish records are missing, I think most of them are so I've been told. So I can't even do a search on names to try and match up a family to mine as there is nowhere to search.

The mormons website(familysearch) is useful but must be taken with a pinch of salt as anything you find should be double checked there are a lot of inaccuracies. I have ancestors on there, the wife died and the husband remarried and the second half of the family aren't on the mormons website at all.