How far back have you got back?

Free-2-Flow

How far have you got? Im as far back as my 11th Great grandparents in 1520.
Kent in England

_Brian

Similar on my wife's side.

Free-2-Flow

_Brian wrote:

Similar on my wife's side.

My Irish side is a disaster, I'm from Dublin myself but can only get back to 1850, English records seem to be very well kept

_Brian

Free-2-Flow wrote: »

My Irish side is a disaster, I'm from Dublin myself but can only get back to 1850, English records seem to be very well kept

It would be easy here too if the records hadn't been systematically destroyed.

Free-2-Flow

_Brian wrote:

It would be easy here too if the records hadn't been systematically destroyed.

Whats the story behind that? I know the IRA burned the custom house with a lot of paperwork but each individual church has it's own documents No?

Hermy

Although the fire in the Custom House in 1921 did destroy a lot of administrative paperwork it was not the major loss genealogically speaking. The real catastrophe was the destruction of the Public Records Office the following year which meant the loss of among other things the 1821, 1831, 1831 and 1851 census returns, the Anglican church registers and several centuries of wills.

L1011

Late 18th century births. One missing link would get me to the 16th if I can prove two people are brothers (and trust a 1920s pamphlet someone wrote on his genealogy from before records were lost), but no such luck.

spurious

All Irish.
Father's paternal side (Laois/Tipp) 1810, 1812, abt. 1800, 1808
Father's maternal side (Laois/Tipp) 1810, abt. 1785, 1807, 1817
Mother's paternal side (Clare) 1803, abt. 1808, 1820, 1837
Mother's maternal side (Armagh/Tyrone) 1820, 1830, 1831, 1838

carolinej

Early 1800's through church records. I have a several times great grandfather who died in 1790 on the family headstone but the church records for the cemetary only start in 1822.

Kalimah

I've gotten back as far as 1760 on my Dad's side - they were from Cavan. The 1821 census for Cavan survives and I got a huge amount of information from that. Funnily although I had been on the 1901 and 1911 databases since they went up online, I had never noticed that the 1821 for Cavan was there!

I've gone back as far as the early 1800s for the other branches of the family. Not too bad really.

I could cry when I think of how badly kept the records are in Ireland compared to the UK. The church ones are appalling particularly for deaths.

pinkypinky

Kalimah wrote: »

:mad:
I could cry when I think of how badly kept the records are in Ireland compared to the UK. The church ones are appalling particularly for deaths.

This comment tries my patience.

The Catholic Church didn't exist to keep records for our use. They were interested in recording their sacraments. Death is not considered a sacrament, so therefore, they weren't bothered with records of it.

Furthermore, they weren't allowed to keep records under the Penal Laws, which were a British ruling.

Kalimah

I don't expect death records to be held in the same detail as marriages and baptisms, as of course death is not a sacrament. I do have objections to what amounts to shopping lists of names in burial records. There's not even an address or any other information in those records.

It's totally disrespectful to those people and in addition the Latinisation( that's probably not even a word) of names in church records is an absolute work of fiction for the most part.

Mind you the church never had a whole lot of time for those without money or influence.

Hermy

None of the surviving records referred to were kept with genealogy in mind so despite much weeping we must be thankful for what we got!

srmf5

My earliest paternal ancestor was born in 1819 but I have both of his parents' names so the late 1700s.
My earliest maternal ancestor was born in 1788 but I have both of his parents' names so the mid to late 1700s (the men on this side had a habit of marrying in their 40s).

It's a shame that we don't have earlier records but it was hardly the obligation of the church to keep records and then of course they couldn't until after the Penal Laws. It's great that the churches have allowed access to their records. The most disappointing line in my family is where the parish didn't start keeping records until 1858 which wasn't much earlier than the state records.

The frustrating thing for me is that early records did exist in terms of the censuses. If in 1821 there was an elderly ancestor that brings you back to the mid 1700s and on every line it should have allowed you to get back to the 1700s. Alas, there's nothing we can do about it now.

With regards to the names being recorded in Latin, it was the language of the church so it's understandable. Even on my dad's baptism and parents' marriage, my dad's name is recorded in the Latin form. He wasn't even aware of this until I pointed it out. I know that in primary school, our names were recorded on the roll call in Irish. I assume it was like that in every school.

oceanclub

The earliest date I've managed to hit is c. 1796 for the birth of a great-grandfather (estimate from his death cert). Not sure I'll have any more luck given my ancestors are 100% Catholic peasant/working class Irish! (Still, better than my wife whose ancestors are from Sri Lankan and there's nada online)

P.

Irishweather

1740's Paternal side.

pedroeibar1

Kalimah wrote: »

I don't expect death records to be held in the same detail as marriages and baptisms, as of course death is not a sacrament. I do have objections to what amounts to shopping lists of names in burial records. There's not even an address or any other information in those records.

It's totally disrespectful to those people and in addition the Latinisation( that's probably not even a word) of names in church records is an absolute work of fiction for the most part.

Mind you the church never had a whole lot of time for those without money or influence.

To add to what Hermy has said - registry of a life event is not predicated on it being a ‘sacrament’ – it just happens that baptism and marriage are two of the seven sacraments. The role of the RC Church then as now is to ensure only those who were baptised into its branch of Christianity were entitled to be married under its aegis. These events were/are recorded to give a green light of permission and a red light to prevent bigamy. It is frequent to see alongside a baptism a written entry such as “Married NYC 18XX ” indicating that the church where a baptism took place had received a request for a ‘letter of freedom” (to marry) and recorded that marriage in a margin note.

The Penal Laws generally were not enforced against the vast bulk of the population. For example no fines were levied in Ireland for recusancy and the RC priest-to-parishioner ratio actually was higher here in 1710 than the ratio today. However, the RC Church was not an official religion, so it got no financial support from the state until after 1800. As a result church buildings were poor (‘mass houses’), clergymen were semi-vagrant and travelled about on horseback so records – if maintained – often did not survive damp, mice, beetles and carelessness.

As for Latin, it was the language of educated folk, academics and the RC Church. It was a working language in universities around the world and even in my time necessary to get into TCD and the law & medicine faculties in most colleges. The Latinisation of names generally was quite good (although not always consistent) and even in the 13th century European academics were referring to St. Fergil as 'Virgilus' which is a fair effort for a makey-uppy word.

The Church had time for everyone, including those without influence - it just used a different scale of fees, also to be seen in the registers where a labourer might be charged 6d for a marriage and a shopkeeper 10/-.

4ensic15

Hermy wrote: »

Although the fire in the Custom House in 1921 did destroy a lot of administrative paperwork it was not the major loss genealogically speaking. The real catastrophe was the destruction of the Public Records Office the following year which meant the loss of among other things the 1821, 1831, 1831 and 1851 census returns, the Anglican church registers and several centuries of wills.

The census returns had already had been destroyed. Unlike in England they hadn't been copied.

Hermy

4ensic15 wrote: »

The census returns had already had been destroyed. Unlike in England they hadn't been copied.

The 1821 to 1851 census returns were destroyed in the Public Records Office fire of 1922.

It was the later census returns - 1861 to 1891 - that had already been destroyed many years before.

DunnoKidz

I'm not very far back, must rely on Ancestry and haven't located as many records as I'd hoped for, there. Noticed some family associations don't really match up with other's trees, so am leery of making connections I haven't personally researched. I'm just beginning, I'd say.

pinkypinky

DunnoKidz wrote: »

I'm not very far back, must rely on Ancestry and haven't located as many records as I'd hoped for, there. Noticed some family associations don't really match up with other's trees, so am leery of making connections I haven't personally researched. I'm just beginning, I'd say.

Very sensible to not rely on other people's research.

Ancestry isn't the best resource for Irish records. I think FMP has more currently.

Free-2-Flow

DunnoKidz wrote:

I'm not very far back, must rely on Ancestry and haven't located as many records as I'd hoped for, there. Noticed some family associations don't really match up with other's trees, so am leery of making connections I haven't personally researched. I'm just beginning, I'd say.

I'm on Ancestry but haven't used it for any research, I've got this far by using Geneology.ie, the Irish census, Dublin city voting records, and then I was lucky enough to find 2 people on Ancestry who I'm related to (Unknowing to me) who had been researching for years and had my family tree back a lot further than I had, it was just a case of copying and researching each new tree member

Kalimah

srmf5 wrote: »

My earliest paternal ancestor was born in 1819 but I have both of his parents' names so the late 1700s.
My earliest maternal ancestor was born in 1788 but I have both of his parents' names so the mid to late 1700s (the men on this side had a habit of marrying in their 40s).

It's a shame that we don't have earlier records but it was hardly the obligation of the church to keep records and then of course they couldn't until after the Penal Laws. It's great that the churches have allowed access to their records. The most disappointing line in my family is where the parish didn't start keeping records until 1858 which wasn't much earlier than the state records.

The frustrating thing for me is that early records did exist in terms of the censuses. If in 1821 there was an elderly ancestor that brings you back to the mid 1700s and on every line it should have allowed you to get back to the 1700s. Alas, there's nothing we can do about it now.

With regards to the names being recorded in Latin, it was the language of the church so it's understandable. Even on my dad's baptism and parents' marriage, my dad's name is recorded in the Latin form. He wasn't even aware of this until I pointed it out. I know that in primary school, our names were recorded on the roll call in Irish. I assume it was like that in every school.

I wouldn't mind so much if the Latin was correct! I remember my name in Irish in school was completely wrong and I only found that out much later. Lazy carry on by my teacher at the time.

tac foley

1658 on my mother's side, thanks to a series of impeccable parish records. On my father's side I don't even know my grandfather's full name.

tac

KildareFan

I've traced back most of my ancestral lines back to the late 1700s to early 1800s. One branch could be dated to the early 1700s in Dublin if I could prove the great great grandfather born in 1813 was the son & grandson of of two individuals with the same name located in Dublin from the early 1700s.... who look like they are related, but I can't find any proof....

srmf5

Kalimah wrote: »

I wouldn't mind so much if the Latin was correct! I remember my name in Irish in school was completely wrong and I only found that out much later. Lazy carry on by my teacher at the time.

I don't think that I've ever come across the Latin being wrong. It's always been pretty accurate when I've been searching records. The spelling might not always be 100% correct but I know what the name is meant to be. We have to remember that they were priests in the 1800s that couldn't just look up a name on the internet to check if they're spelling it right. Some people can struggle with spelling. They were people, not perfect computers.

pinkypinky

But also depending on what format the record is written in, the name might be conjugated into the dative or genitive versions.

pedroeibar1

KildareFan wrote: »

I've traced back most of my ancestral lines back to the late 1700s to early 1800s. One branch could be dated to the early 1700s in Dublin if I could prove the great great grandfather born in 1813 was the son & grandson of of two individuals with the same name located in Dublin from the early 1700s.... who look like they are related, but I can't find any proof....

I have that problem also on my paternal / male line - if I can link a couple of 'probably related' generations in the 1700's I go back with certainty to an ancestor living in the 1400's. I've started the DNA route but I'm the only person of my surname/variants in the Y-DNA databases; I've now started to collect contact names from saved emails to try to get them to test - however most of them are female, so no use for Y testing purposes. Excluding that line most of the others are back to late 1790's - 1800

pedroeibar1

"It's a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word."

Have a read of this

tac foley

Even William Shakespear(e) was wobbly when it came to writing his own name the name way twice in a row.

tac

P. Breathnach

One half of my ancestry is from the Gaeltacht, and if I go back prior to 1900, most of my people were pretty well monolingual and illiterate. The number of variant spellings that emerged as priests tried to make records in English is astonishing. Placenames also: I collected 27 versions of one townland name, none of which accorded with the official English name.

RGM

P. Breathnach wrote: »

One half of my ancestry is from the Gaeltacht, and if I go back prior to 1900, most of my people were pretty well monolingual and illiterate. The number of variant spellings that emerged as priests tried to make records in English is astonishing. Placenames also: I collected 27 versions of one townland name, none of which accorded with the official English name.

It's understandable. Back then, they would be going entirely by ear. Most of the population were Irish speakers and illiterate as you say, so I put it like this - most names did not actually have any spelling at all. They were purely oral, passed down by word-of-mouth for centuries. So there wouldn't have been a rule book for recording them.

Not sure what you mean by "official" English name there. Even common English names would have variant spellings. I would say the importance of precisely spelling names didn't come about until the 20th century in most places.

P. Breathnach

RGM wrote: »

...
Not sure what you mean by "official" English name there. Even common English names would have variant spellings. I would say the importance of precisely spelling names didn't come about until the 20th century in most places.

I was commenting on a placename. Placenames got some official status when the Ordnance Survey drew up their first maps.

endacl

Free-2-Flow wrote: »

How far have you got? Im as far back as my 11th Great grandparents in 1520.
Kent in England

All 8192 of them, presuming no incest?

Fair play...

RGM

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I was commenting on a placename. Placenames got some official status when the Ordnance Survey drew up their first maps.

Ah, ok. Misunderstood.

KildareFan

KildareFan wrote: »

I've traced back most of my ancestral lines back to the late 1700s to early 1800s. One branch could be dated to the early 1700s in Dublin if I could prove the great great grandfather born in 1813 was the son & grandson of of two individuals with the same name located in Dublin from the early 1700s.... who look like they are related, but I can't find any proof....

And just a day after I posted that message, a DNA connection has popped up in Ancestry which makes it look like I have the missing link. About four separate DNA links all point to a family which migrated from Wicklow in 1834 and ended up in Canada. Their surname is fairly unusual - and that's the surname of a Wicklow woman who married a Dubliner in Baltinglass, Co Wicklow in 1804. I had a feeling that this couple produced my great great grandfather, born in Rathdrum around 1813, but who spent most of the early part of his life in St Marks Parish in Dublin.... so I'm off on what I hope is not another wild goose chase....

Jellybaby1

KildareFan wrote: »

And just a day after I posted that message, a DNA connection has popped up in Ancestry which makes it look like I have the missing link. About four separate DNA links all point to a family which migrated from Wicklow in 1834 and ended up in Canada. Their surname is fairly unusual - and that's the surname of a Wicklow woman who married a Dubliner in Baltinglass, Co Wicklow in 1804. I had a feeling that this couple produced my great great grandfather, born in Rathdrum around 1813, but who spent most of the early part of his life in St Marks Parish in Dublin.... so I'm off on what I hope is not another wild goose chase....

Now this is a stab in the dark. The Wicklow woman with the unusual name......does it begin with H?

Free-2-Flow

Jellybaby1 wrote:

Now this is a stab in the dark. The Wicklow woman with the unusual name......does it begin with H?

Just say the Surname Haha, I doubt data protection applies here

Jellybaby1

Free-2-Flow wrote: »

Just say the Surname Haha, I doubt data protection applies here

Sorry, reason for subterfuge is that our families are a private bunch and I'm forbidden to publish it.

Free-2-Flow

Jellybaby1 wrote:

Sorry, reason for subterfuge is that our families are a private bunch and I'm forbidden to publish it.

My 10th Great Grandmother has an unusual Surname, Her maiden name was Caycoate, not even a Google search will bring up anything about the Surname

Hermy

When this question was asked in a previous thread four years back, pinky mentioned completeness.

Back then I had identified 24 of my 32 g-g-g-grandparents but that figure has now increased to 29 so only 3 to go.

Since then I have also opened up a possible avenue back to the year 1600 in Co. Meath on my mothers maternal line but while the ancestor is not in doubt the path back to him remains incomplete.

As I am adopted I also have a second area of research to establish my blood relatives and while I still know nothing about my fathers identity I now know all 8 of my maternal g-g-grandparents.