Irish Family History




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IRISH FAMILY HISTORY



Irish Family History

Problems past

Irish genealogical research has long been dogged by myths and stereotypes: the records were all destroyed in 1922, what's left is impossible to get at, nobody in Ireland cares about family history, everyone is descended from Brian Boru anyway and whatever you're having yourself. Brian Boru excepted, there may have been a scrap of truth in fables like these once, but the fact now is that It has never been easier or more rewarding to research Irish ancestors. The past two decades have seen a veritable explosion of interest in local history and genealogy in Ireland, and this is reflected in improved access to records, better facilities and more help for genealogists at every stage of their quest.

Where to start

Some of the basic facts of family history will never change: where you can go depends on where you already are, what you can find out depends on what you already know. So the first thing to do is to make sure that you know everything you can find out from your family. However enjoyable research might be, talking to your family is likely to be more enjoyable, and easier.

The records

At some point, though, you will be faced with research in the records, and you will need to know what records there are. The major Irish family history sources are:
  • General Register Office records of births, marriages and deaths (from 1864);
  • Census returns and census substitutes;
  • Church registers;
  • Griffith's Valuation, a massive country-wide property survey carried out from 1848-1868.


Apart from these there are of course many other less comprehensive sources. Anything with a name on it, from a headstone to an envelope, can be a genealogical record. Genealogy deals in the minute particulars of history, so no generalization about it is ever completely true, but in most cases the minimum information you need before approaching Irish records or research services is your ancestor's county of origin in Ireland.

Doing it yourself

For many people, the thrill of the chase, so to speak, is an essential part of research, and there is no doubt that the satisfaction of finding an ancestor in the original records is unique. The best places for hands-on research are the major record institutions in Dublin and Belfast, the Genealogical Office, National Library, National Archives and General Register Office in Dublin and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast. All have responded well to the growing demand for family history research facilities and welcome researchers. There are also a number of magazines dedicated to genealogy in Ireland: the quarterly Irish Roots, and the annual journals The Irish Genealogist, Irish Family History, and, for Ulster Familia. In addition many local family history societies publish excellent regional magazines - the best overall contact for these is through Irish Genealogy Ltd. (see below). In North America, the largest and oldest Irish family history society is the Irish Genealogical Society, Intl, based in Minnesota, who publish The Septs. Many excellent how-to books are also widely available. Anyone researching their ancestors in North America will at some point use the Family History Centres of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons. Their sets of microfilms of Irish records are enormous, though of necessity less comprehensive than the collections in Ireland. One new resource perfectly adapted to the kind of information exchange involved in genealogy is the Internet.

Getting help

In many cases, the simplest and surest way to find your ancestors is by commissioning research, and this is the area in which the biggest advances have been made over the past few years. An umbrella organization, Irish Genealogy Ltd. (IGL), formed with the support of the Northern and Southern Irish Tourist Boards, the International Fund for Ireland, and the Northern and Southern governments, co-ordinates funding, marketing and the distribution of work for all of those involved in providing family history research services, North and South, professional genealogists and local heritage centers. To date, much of the focus has been on these heritage centers, with the creation of a 32-county network to computerize the major sources - the church registers, the birth, marriage and death records, and census returns.

The undertaking is huge, and the commitment of the many voluntary and state bodies involved has been sustained for the best part of a decade; the results are now coming through, with many of the local centers nearing the end of their task, and offering commissioned research services to the public. Anyone who has ever faced the prospect of manually searching the registers of, say, all 64 Catholic parishes of Co. Limerick will appreciate what it means to be able to have them searched at the press of a button. In addition, a country-wide Master Index based on the local databases is planned. With this, it will be possible to pinpoint the place of origin even of those who have left no record of their homeplace. For the moment, though, the minimum information needed before contacting IGL remains the county of origin.

Although IGL acts as a co-ordinator and clearing-house for the professional genealogists and the local centers, allocating the research needed for each client as most appropriate, the groups concerned retain their independence and can of course be contacted directly. The Irish Family History Foundation is the local centers grouping - with a World Wide Web home page at http://www.irish-roots.net, while the professional genealogists are represented by the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland, at http://www.apgi.ie.

Every family history is unique, but, however you go about it, there remains one common element in all family history research - the pleasure of truly answering that essential question of childhood "Where did I come from?".