Researching Irish ancestors
It may be obvious to some visitors that my name is of Irish origin. I have always known that my paternal grandparents were Irish, and although both myself and my father were born and raised in England, I do consider myself part Irish and I am both proud of and interested in learning more about my Irish heritage.
Although when I began researching my family tree, I originally stuck to my maternal line, it was natural that I would move onto tracing my Irish ancestors; something I knew would present more of a challege due to an assumption that at least some records would be available only in Ireland. It wasn't until that I started researching this line that I realised the extent of how much harder Irish research is to English/Welsh.
This article is to give anyone researching their Irish ancestors some tips on how they can find out more about them.
My personal experience
I have been quite fortunate with the information available about my Irish ancestors, and many other people may similarily be able to relate to my personal experience. My grandparents both died in 1974, fifteen years before I was born, so I never knew them personally. My father was the youngest of his siblings and was orphaned aged just 13, so he too knew little about their backgrounds. He was consequently brought up by his eldest sister, my aunt, who is the family treasurer of sorts and has an incredible knowledge of pretty much every member of the family. As well being able to provide dates and places of births, marriages and deaths, she also has numerous documents and photographs that have been instrumental to my research.
As the oldest child, my aunt knew three of her four grandparents personally. Therefore she was able to tell me who my great-grandparents were, and more than just their names; she has plenty of stories to tell about them and as a result, I feel I have got to know them after hearing about their lives back in Ireland and seeing photographs of them.
If you have someone like my aunt in your family, especially those of an elder generation, they might be able help a great deal with your research. If they knew the people you are researching personally, they might be able to tell you about them in detail. They might even already have some documents that you would eventually send off for copies of. As with any genealogical research, this is the first place you should start. Note down everything you are told, sometimes the smallest detail that may seem insignificant at the time could help confirm something later when viewed in context with some other document or piece of evidence.
Where to start
First of all, you need to find out where in Ireland your ancestors are from. Even knowing just the county can help a great deal. If you are Irish yourself and researching your family background, it's more likely someone in your family will know where your predecessors are from. If you live in Ireland, then you have an advantage over researchers further afield, as you will have better access to records. However, if the first sign of your Irish ancestors is appearing on a census return for England & Wales, the USA or some other country, you may find that their place of birth is simply listed as “Ireland”, without a county, or a more specific place name. If you don't know what part of Ireland your ancestors are from, finding more about them could be a problem, especially if they have a common name. You may want to look for other documents that could provide details of their birthplace; more recent death certificates will often list where the deceased was born, for example.
Once you know what county they are from, you can begin to look for BMD registrations or census records.
Birth, marriage and death registrations
Like in the UK, civil registration of births, marriages and deaths are required in Ireland by law. Registration of all non-Roman Catholic marriages began in 1845, with registrations of all births, deaths and marriages starting in 1864. You can search the civil registration indexes for free, for records between 1845 and 1958, on the FamilySearch website, run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Irish certificates all provide the same information as they do in the UK: a birth certificate will give the date and place of birth, name of the child, parents' names (including mother's maiden name), occupation of father and signature of the informant; a marriage certificate will give the date and place of marriage, the couple's names and ages, the names and occupations of both of the couple's fathers, and the names and signatures of witnesses; a death certificate will give the name of the deceased, the date and place of death, the cause of death and the signature of the informant.
By visiting the General Register Office of Ireland's website, you can apply for certificates either by printing and sending off an application form or by ordering the certificates online. I found the online ordering system fairly restrictive; at I couldn't always select the correct year for the certificate that I wanted. I have always been much more successful by sending off an application form. You don't necessarily need to know everything about the subject of the certificate either, as long as you put as much information as you know, even if you aren't 100% sure. The prices are more reasonable too; for a photocopy of a certificate (which is more than suitable for research purposes), the charge is only €4.00, compared to the £9.25 cost in the UK. Note that you can either include your card details on the applcation form or send in cash (Euros only), but you can only send a cheque if you have an Irish bank account. I found sending cash was a great way to use up those left over Euro coins from holidays.
Census records
The England & Wales census collection ranges from 1841 to present day (with the exception of 1931 and 1941, due to WW2). The US census collection (of which are useful) ranges from 1850 to present. However, we aren't so lucky when it comes to Ireland. Censuses were taken every year from 1841, like the rest of the United Kingdom, but during the Irish Civil War, in June 1922, part of the Irish public records office was destroyed, and sadly the majority of its record archives were destroyed in a fire. Some records dated back over a thousand years.
The only census records that survived the fire were the 1901, 1911 and 1926 censuses (the scheduled 1921 census wasn't taken due to the Civil War, and was taken instead in 1926 in the Irish Free State). In line with the law in Ireland, census records are only available to the public after 100 years has passed since it was taken. Therefore the 1926 census — and those taken after — are not yet available to the public. However, the 1901 and 1911 censuses are available and searchable for free online.
Immigration and emmigration records
My grandparents emmigrated from Ireland to England in 1937. They married and died in England, so I was able to get their marriage and death certificates from the General Registry Office of England as I normally would for my English ancestors. I do not have exact details of my grandparents' emmigration, as there are no records online of their journey. Southampton would be my best guess at their port of arrival as it is the closest to where they settled in Surrey. There is a collection available on Ancestry, UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, but I don't think arrivals from Ireland were part of this collection. All the records seem to be from further afield, such as the USA or Australia.
Perhaps your ancestors emmigrated to the USA or Australia from Ireland. Depending on how long ago they emmigrated, there are a number of collections that can help you:
- Irish Immigrants: New York Port Arrival Records, 1846-1851 — This collection on Ancestry contains specifically arrivals of Irish immigrant passengers in New York. The records however only cover a very small timeframe of 5 years.
- New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 — If you ancestor(s) travelled from Ireland to the USA, it is likely they would have gone to New York and therefore would have landed at Ellis Island. If so, this much larger collection is likely to contain a record of your ancestor(s).
- If you managed to find your ancestor in the collection above, you should also be able to find them on the Ellis Island website.
Parish records
In addition to civil registration, you will be able to find out more with baptism, marriage and burial records that were recorded at your ancestors' parish church. This is especially true for events that happened before civil registration began, but sometimes a certificate might not be able to be found, so it could be the only way of finding that link to another generation. If you know which village or town your ancestors were from (and often, families stayed put for a while) you could find it fairly simple to track down your ancestors and their siblings if they were all baptised at the same church.
Once again, the FamilySearch website is there to help, with three collections available of Irish births, marriages and deaths, with records ranging from 1619 to 1898.
If you have had no luck with finding records online, then your only choice may be...
Visiting Ireland
To get the best access to records, you may have to actually make the trip to visit Ireland and the parish churches themselves. Some church records may have not yet been transcribed and available online and only available for you to physically view. They may still be at the parish churches, but more likely older records will have been moved to a local history centre. You may be able to see where your ancestors lived, worshipped and were buried. You even still have distant cousins living out there too that could help fill in those gaps.
Visiting the homeland of my grandparents and their ancestors is something I haven't personally done yet, but I plan on doing so very soon.
Hints and tips
- Some things to consider when searching the Irish censuses; as with any census, try different variations and spellings of a name, especially short or nicknames such as “Peggy” or “Maggie” for Margaret. One thing to consider specifically in Ireland is the age of a person; don't expect there to be exactly 10 years between the censuses. My aunt told me that birthdays were not generally a big deal in Ireland and weren't often celebrated. As a result, some people didn't often know exactly how old they were. The parents would likely know the order in which their children were born, but (for example) don't be surprised to see an ancestor aged 27 in 1901 and then aged 40 in 1911! Try a search with +/- 5 years, and then look for a match with the same names and order of birth for siblings instead.
- If you are trying to discover a further generation back of your ancestors using the censuses, and you find a widow or widower, you may have trouble trying to find the name of their deceased spouse. Especially so if you have gone back as far as you can to the 1901 census. You can try and search for a marriage if you know one of the spouse's names, but only if you know the female's maiden name. You may have to order a birth certificate for one of the children to confirm both parents' names.
That's about all I know when it comes to Irish genealogy. Hopefully this article has been of some help. Feedback welcome.
