Top 10...

Coolnabacky1873

A bit of craic, but what do you think are the top 10 websites/books/blogs that are most important, in order, for Irish genealogical research?

My take:

10. Sean Ruad townland database: I turn to this a lot.
9. Griffith's on askaboutireland.ie: So important for mid 18th century and finding exact house.
8. Claire's Irish Genealogy News (and toolkit): up to date news is important.
7. John Grenham's Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: every discipline needs a definitive book.
6. Findmypast.ie: They have been very innovative and are providing access to many record sets.
5. proni.gov.uk: Don't use it a lot myself but it must be the most important site for Northern research.
4. Irishgenealogy.ie: Freeeee parish registers and an example of what might have been:(
3. Familysearch: still the first place for Civil Reg indexes. Lots of other transcripts and indexes too.
2. RootsIreland.ie: a close one with Familysearch but sooo many parish registers.
1. NAI genealogy website: The digitization of 1901 & 1911 was such a breakthrough and showed what could be done. Plus, they have, and will, add more.

Honorable mentions: IGP archives? Boards.ie genealogy forum? Rootschat.com? Irishnewsarchive.com? Ancestyireland.com? Some of the many graveyard websites? Irish Times Irish Ancestors? OSI maps?

shanew

pretty much the same list, the order depends a little on which area and date involved...

10. FindMyPast
9. IrishTimes/John Grenham (website & book)
8. Irish Geneaology News (Claire Santry)
7. Griffiths on AskaboutIreland
6. RootsIreland (get as much as I can from the free search)
5. Ryans Irish Records
4. IrishGenealogy
3. My own townland database!
2. FamilySearch - Index and Extracted Records
1. National Archives - Census/Wills/Tithes etc (more to be added soon hopefully)

honourable mentions to PRONI (Directories, Will calendars etc) and Cork and Clare libraries (directories, maps etc), also a book of maps that I dont remember the name of at the moment civil & RC parishes, baronies etc by counties ...

pinkypinky

Very similar list, not sure how I'd rank them differently. Census definitely remains up top. I'd probably put FMP a little higher because I do now maintain a sub for it and find it convenient for a lot of things in one place, but not having the maps for Griffiths is a let down (unless I'm being a twit and not able to find them). I also use the Limerick library website a fair bit for my country ancestors. I really like Rootschat too, even if I'm mostly lurking these days.

shanew

that book I couldn't remember is New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland (2nd Ed.) by Brian Mitchell and completely forgot about Google Maps and OSI Historic maps, which I use without even thinking.. and also Lewis 1837 which is on AskAboutIreland - so maybe my no. 7 should bump up a place

Hermy

Ancestry.co.uk
FamilySearch.org
1901/ 1911 Census @ nationalarchives.ie
parish records @ Irishgenealogy.ie
Calender of Wills @ nationalarchives.ie
GlasnevinTrust.ie

The above six sites are probably the resources I rely on most.

Lots of other online sites have proved invaluable including Boards genealogy forum, LandedEstates.ie, IGP, swilson.info, OSI maps, ThePeerage.com, Wikipedia, Facebook...the list goes on.

Mollymoo19

My top ten most used are:
10. FreeReg.org.uk (for the stints in the UK).
9. Parish registers on microfilm in the National Library (too many errors on RootsIreland to rely on their transcriptions)
8. Irish Genealogy News
7. Findmypast – especially prison and petty session records.
6. Glasnevin Cemetery (incl. free index),
5. Griffiths on Askaboutireland,
4. FamilySearch Irish collections,
3. NAI Genealogy website,
2. RootsIreland.ie (especially free index).
1. IrishGenealogy.ie

I find Ancestry.co.uk great for those who left the country and their best 'Irish' function is the marriage finder tool. I also like the various miscellaneous collections in the National Archives and Pearse Street Library.

KildareFan

Some of the county & city libraries have great online resources including images, directories, maps, local histories etc:

Cork city library: http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/

South Dublin library: http://www.southdublinlibraries.ie/local-studies

City of Dublin Library: http://www.dublincity.ie/RecreationandCulture/libraries/Heritage%20and%20History/Family%20History/Pages/index.aspx

Dublin Heritage has access to the 1908 and 1939 electoral lists [run by Dublin City Library] http://www.dublinheritage.ie/

cobham

I use FreeBMD site a lot for UK records especially more modern ones.

As a resource, I recommend the Gilbert reading room upstairs in Pearse Street library which is open all day on a Saturday. They have full set of Thoms Directories on open access and much more. Also database of Dublin electoral register up to 1960's. Some newspaper archives are digitalised and can be printed off as needed.

pedroeibar1

Entering the responses by positions 1 – 10, adding the position scores and dividing each by the number of its responses would give a very rough idea (no. of responses is v. small) of usefulness. Lowest number is best. Single mentions omitted.


Sean Ruad Townlands 10
Griffiths/Askabout Ire 7
Claire Santry 8
J Grenham book 8
Findmy past 7.5
Irish Genealogy 4.3
Family search 3.7
RootsIreland 3.3
NAI Genealogy 2.7

Hermy

Interesting that Ancestry doesn't feature on your list pedro.

pedroeibar1

Thanks Hermy, I should have been clearer - I did not include single mentions (like ancestry, libraries, etc) as they would skew the results. Personally I am surprised that Familysearch did not come higher, but perhaps that is because the 1901 & 11 censuses are not of much use to me. There is not one grave in Glasnevin with my family's name on it.
It should be noted that to date the small number of responses on this thread does not allow for much, we would need a lot more for it to be meaningful.

Hermy

It wasn't meant as a criticism. Just interesting that the 'biggest' website out there should only garner a couple of mentions. I suppose it all depends on your area of research whether a site can help you or not. Glasnevin Trust being another example of an invaluable source for me, yet as good as it is, it doesn't help you at all.
Griffiths Valuations comes in second on your list yet I rarely if ever use it.
Which begs the question, why do people use Griffiths and what am I missing by not using it.

pinkypinky

Griffiths can be enormously helpful in locating mid-19th century ancestors, in the absence of the census.
I find it less useful in Dublin than I do in the countryside.

Ponster

Hermy wrote: »

It wasn't meant as a criticism. Just interesting that the 'biggest' website out there should only garner a couple of mentions.

What does Ancestry offer to Irish research that can't be found elsewhere ?

Hermy

Ponster wrote: »

What does Ancestry offer to Irish research that can't be found elsewhere ?

I don't know about everyone else but the other users family trees on Ancestry have proved invaluable to me, bringing me into contact with distant relatives, providing me with photos, and just generally helping me with names, dates and places, especially when trying to identify the various in-laws and the distant relatives from the current generation.

Jellybaby1

Its taken me a while to add my list as I couldn't decide how high or low some of them should be. Anyway these 9 sites have given me the most information so far and for me they are the most important:

National Archives (census and wills)
Irish Genealogy.ie
FamilySearch
Irish Newspaper Archives
Ancestry.co.uk (I found real live people here!)
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
National Library of Ireland (wills and manuscripts)
Askaboutireland (Griffiths valuation)
Google

I also use any relevant graveyard records which I find online. I keep up with John Grenham and Claire Santry as well for news.

Edit: Just wondering if anyone ever found anything relevant to genealogy on Facebook?

Hermy

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Edit: Just wondering if anyone ever found anything relevant to genealogy on Facebook?

I don't think I've found anything revelatory on Facebook but it's been useful when trying to identify distant living relatives. However, it doesn't work so well as a point of contact as anyone I've private messaged on Facebook hasn't responded to my genealogical queries, no matter how well worded.:(

Jellybaby1

Hermy, that's what I was afraid of. FB seems to be the place to find people in other circumstances like old school friends, but genealogy seems to fail there. People are just too nervous to respond.

Hermy

Sometimes I think Facebook is just too casual as even first cousins haven't bothered to follow up on requests for dates of birth. But then again sometimes that casualness is just fine as I may not want to enter into correspondence with the particular individual who's Facebook page I've been stalking. There may be enough information visible without 'friending' them to be able to ascertain whether the individual is married or their children's names or whatever.

Jellybaby1

Hermy wrote: »

Sometimes I think Facebook is just too casual as even first cousins haven't bothered to follow up on requests for dates of birth. But then again sometimes that casualness is just fine as I may not want to enter into correspondence with the particular individual who's Facebook page I've been stalking. There may be enough information visible without 'friending' them to be able to ascertain whether the individual is married or their children's names or whatever.

Hmmm, I must try a quick 'stalk' and see if I come up with anything. I don't use FB very much so am not familiar with what you can do there. Thanks.

L1011

If you message someone on Facebook that isn't an accepted friend they rarely see the message as its blackholed to a secondary inbox you get no notifications on.