Irish Ancestry search

My library has an ancestry.com subscription. When we're there looking for books, I use the site to trace some ancestry.

So far I haven't looked at anything overseas so I don't know if they carry any of that. If you can pinpoint your ancestor's arrival here, though, that should make your search there a lot easier.

Do you know where in Ireland your ancestors came from? The National Library of Ireland is unlikely to offer much help in the same way that the British Library does not help with UK family history research. You are more likely to get help from the local history library in the area.

I am a librarian and often do family history research from overseas enquirers. I am sure those records are available online, but you may not be able to access them free. For example we have library access to ancestry.co.uk, but we would not be able to give our American enquirers access. We therefore have to do the searches for them.

I have an English/Irish background have been playing with genealogy for some time -- not very successfully I might add. It is very time consuming.

I found Tracing Your Family History, Stella Colwell. very useful It sounds broad but it is strictly English/Irish. It lists nearly every web site, indexes, church registers, etc. that is available and most are searchable via the web. It was published in the UK but McGraw-Hill distributes it in the US. Mine has an 08 publishing date so it should be update.

Here's what I did: I found from the probate records in the county where they died that my great-great grandparents came from County Waterford. Have no idea where they entered the country or when exactly just a vague idea from the census, knew it had to have been before a certain date. I had the luxury of doing a study abroad in Ireland and spent my afternoons in the national library archives researching microfiche records of the parishes in county Waterford. the staff and the library itself are not much interested in genealogy it appears and weren't terribly helpful. could have saved myself a whole lot of trouble because the county libraries are much more helpful. The national library is a big bureaucratic agency just like here in the states. Many of the parish records have been destroyed by floods, fires, etc. but some still exist. the folks in waterford were very helpful. good luck. I believe I did find the town where my ancestors came from and even visited it. Good luck

The Mormons have a massive database of genealogical information, all compiled by volunteers over the decades, and it's all free. It's not 100 per cent accurate, and its records can't be used in legal affairs (to prove your ancestry for wills, etc) but it's a great place to start. Click here to access the site.
A volunteer group called GenUKI keeps a very extensive collection of links to sites available for personal research.
Enter your surname and other details on genealogy sites like ancestry.com...you may get lucky and come across a distant cousin whose information intersects with yours, opening up a whole new avenue of research. These sites also offer surname discussion groups where you can post questions and monitor for any possible linkages that may come up.

Snicker,

I spend way to much time and money on genealogy.

Your best resources are family members. Speak to your oldest surviving relatives first. Right everthing down, even if it seems unimportant now. This will provide your starting point from which to start going back in time.

As mentioned by others, there is a vast amount of information online, sometimes too vast. US census records are a strong source that can connect you back to your ancestors. Some are available for free, many others (including helpful state census records) are available on ancestry.com.

The challenge many of us face is connecting the dots back to Ireland. If your ancestors came during the famine, civil records are few and parish records (if RC) are spotty and hard to access from the US (though not impossible). Also, many civil records were destroyed in a fire.

If you PM me with some basic info, I can help you get started.

hallO,
AS an ex.patriot, i would suggest going to
www.ancentry.co.uk of they lived in northern ireland
otherwise contact the town hall where they lived they might able to guide you to the local archives etc.
yours sincerely
j.martin

As others have suggested, find as much as you can from your living relatives, and then use that information to help you take the next step. For example, once I had a place of death for a great-grandparent (or grandparent) I obtained the death certificate from the County or town clerk. That gave me his or her parents names and some idea of where the person was born. I started out with only the name of the county in Ireland for my ancetors, but I obtained some surnames from the death record, and I used the index to Griffith's Valuation to find where my ancestor came from. This was a like a tax list done in the early 1850's, and it has the name of men and women who were paying rent on land or a cottage everywhere in Ireland at that time. Talk to your local family history society or Mormon ancestry resource for help--the records are on microfiche and free to use.
I found the exact farm where my ggreat-grandparents came from. Good luck to you! Teddi

Thanks to all the info...You are wonderful. Happy travels!