Irish American (prove it)

major_pain

Hey, not sure if this is the right thread to post or not but here goes.

I started of thinking about tracing my family tree after hearing of Barack Obama's Irish heritage. However I was told something interesting from a friend who is in college and hoping to get into the genealogy side of things when she’s finishes.

Apart from the fact that a lot of records were lost back in the war of independence/civil war, I’ve been told that a lot of parishes don’t have full records of births due to records not being kept for births of illegitimate child, to an un married mother or the child of an affair etc. etc. (There a heap of reasons why the church may not of kept records but thought I’d keep it short.)

So my question is this.... How can all these American presidents and politicians manage to trace their history back to the 18 and 1700's, when the majority of Irish people find it difficult to get information from pre 1900's?

ejmaztec

major_pain wrote: »

Hey, not sure if this is the right thread to post or not but here goes.

I started of thinking about tracing my family tree after hearing of Barack Obama's Irish heritage. However I was told something interesting from a friend who is in college and hoping to get into the genealogy side of things when she’s finishes.

Apart from the fact that a lot of records were lost back in the war of independence/civil war, I’ve been told that a lot of parishes don’t have full records of births due to records not being kept for births of illegitimate child, to an un married mother or the child of an affair etc. etc. (There a heap of reasons why the church may not of kept records but thought I’d keep it short.)

So my question is this.... How can all these American presidents and politicians manage to trace their history back to the 18 and 1700's, when the majority of Irish people find it difficult to get information from pre 1900's?

Check a couple of posts here from No 27 onwards

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055355489&page=2

pablomakaveli

With the american presidents i think they tend to trace irish ancestors who emigrated to america as there would have been a record made of them when they arrived in america.

il gatto

Many of the earlier Irish presidents were of Scots or Protestant backround and tended to have a more detailed and better recorded backround. Later presidents such as Kennedy, Reagan etc. were from more "working class" backrounds, but their families left much more recently. Also as mentioned above, Ellis Island has records, many with precise address' depending on the literacy of the immigrant in question.
Overall it's hit and miss. I've heard of Americans who've come for a week and found dozens of cousins with little effort and I've heard of people who've come repeatly and hunted high and low, finding nothing even though their family may have arrived in America in the 20th century.

il gatto

By the way, Griffiths Valuations are a great resource as well as Tithe records if you can find them. I have my father's side back to 1833 at the moment.