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.

A family legend told to my mother by my grandmother was that there was an ancestor, “Jane Gray”, who had an affair with a landed gentry which resulted in an illegitimate child. I had uncovered a fair bit about my grandmother's ancestry and hadn't found anything that confirmed my grandmother's story. After I realised I had made a mistake with one my ancestral lines, I soon discovered that the legend could be true after all.

When the 1911 census of England and Wales was released a year early, it was great news for genealogists as for many, it could crack unsolved mysteries or knock down brick walls. I had relative ease finding most of my ancestors (those of whom were still living) in 1911, but there was one person who I initially could not find for the life of me — my great-great-grandmother, Ann Cummings Gray. I tried searching for every variation of her names I could think of, "Ann", "Anne", "Annie", "Grey", "Gray", etc. and all combinations thereof. I found a couple of records that were close, but I was pretty sure none of them were correct.

This is how I managed to solve the mystery and find Ann in the 1911 census.

Although it is probably still possible to carry out family research without the use of the internet, it would certainly be a much more difficult and labourious task doing so. There are a number of websites that are essentional to any amateur (or professional) genealogist and I have listed them below. They are generally geared towards someone researching ancestors in the United Kingdom, but many are worldwide resources.