How to research your Irish family - first post updated.

pinkypinky · 31-05-2009 12:30pm #1

I'm going to do this post in sections so the first couple of tranches will go up today and then there'll be more to come.

Some general pointers to begin with:

The first thing to do is record everything you know already. Your own family’s birth, deaths and marriage dates. Get your parents to give you the details for their siblings and parents.

Talk to the oldest people in your family. Take a Dictaphone if possible and record them. Have some questions ready but be prepared that older people can’t always recall straight away so you might need to lead in by looking at photos or asking them about a specific event like their wedding.

You don’t need to spend money on family tree software. There’s several free programs out there.

Genopro is an excellent free (also a cheap pro version) program as is Personal Ancestral file from the LDS Church. Ancestry.com (and its localised subsidiaries, we share with the .co.uk) is the Microsoft of the genealogy world. They push an excellent but expensive program called Family Tree Maker.

I wouldn’t recommend putting your family tree on the internet, especially not for living people. It’s far too easy to steal an identity with the information in a family tree like birth date, place, mother’s maiden name, etc. But that’s my personal opinion.

In this topic, the Mormons are your friends. The LDS church does a vast amount of scanning, microfilming and indexing of worldwide vital records (births, deaths and marriages). Their website www.familysearch.org and its pilot site of the Irish BMD indexes is invaluable. http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#c=1408347;p=collectionDetails;t=searchable

The main places you spend your time to do family research are:

National Archives – censuses, Griffith’s Valuation, wills, trade directories
National Library – church parish registers
Births Deaths & Marriages research room in the Irish Life Mall, Abbey St in Dublin or by post/fax application to their head office in Roscommon. This is a place where you spend a lot of money so make sure to read the information below on it before going in there.
The internet: checking message boards and the BMD indexes on Familysearch.

The 1901 census is now also available at www.census.nationalarchives.ie
Please also note there are some ongoing problems with Familysearch.org and if you can't find what you're looking for, check back in a couple of weeks. They are working on it.

pinkypinky · 31-05-2009 12:34pm

The first census taken in Ireland was in 1821 and they proceed on a 10 yearly basis until 1921 when there was a gap due to the civil war. But don’t get excited! In two separate incidents of tragedy and destruction, the first complete census of Ireland is from 1901. We also have a complete 1911 census. The censuses thereafter (starting in 1926) are subject to a 100 year rule, so there’ll be no new census data until 2026. There are some fragmentary census returns for parts of the country held in the National Archives of pre-1901 censuses. The good news here is that the NA is slowly scanning the microfilmed (again thanks to the Mormons here) 1911 and 1901 censuses and putting them up on their site free of charge: www.census.nationalarchives.ie At the time of writing, they have 9 counties done with the rest to come online during the summer of 2009 and then will progress to complete 1901 by December of the same year. They started with the places where it’s most difficult to find people: Dublin and Belfast. A word of warning: watch for spelling variants and commas. If you’re not getting any returns for your ancestors, mess around with the spelling.
Until they get this finished, it’s back to the microfilm reader. For all the country, the National Archives are the place to go. They are only open Mon-Fri during business hours. Reader's tickets are free but refer to their website for what you need and what you cannot bring in there before going. Each county has a county library and they will usually but not always have the relevant returns. Dublin’s county library is Pearse St library and they have an excellent collection of genealogical source material and, crucially, open on Saturday.
To find a person using the microfilm, you must know where they lived. If in Dublin, we’re talking about a street or in the country, a village or townland. If you don’t know that, you’ll have to wait for the online. The National Archives has a computer where you enter in the name of the town/street and select either census: it will then tell you the DED (District Electoral Division). Then you use the self-service microfilm room to get the relevant roll, and pop it on a reader. The staff are very helpful.

So what’s on the census and how useful is it?
Once you’ve found your correct people, you’ll get a list of all the people living in the house, which would include any lodgers or servants. People are listed with their relationship to the head of house who is usually first on the list. Religions, gender, age, ability to read and write, occupation and marital status is given. On 1911 but not 1901, if there is married woman, details are given of how many children born and how many still alive and how long they’ve been married. Also ability to speak English and Irish and any infirmities such as deaf, blind, dumb are listed.

A word of warning about age and spelling
100 years ago people were not as age conscious. Ages will be guessed at and when you extrapolate a year of birth, don’t be surprised if the corresponding birth cert is as much as 5 years either way out. The old age pension was first given in 1908. Some miraculously aged as much as 20 years in the ten year period between 1901 and 1911. People are also just wrong. I have one census return in my family were the head of house incorrectly records how long he’s been married, his daughter’s age and his son in law’s age. As many people were still illiterate, spelling was variable. So you might find your McCormack ancestors using Cormack or a slightly different form of your own surname.

pinkypinky · 31-05-2009 12:38pm

So you’ve looked at the census and hopefully found some ancestors. Using the birth dates as a starting point, you can start searching the LDS site. Be very glad for this site. Prior to January 2009 when it went online, it would take hours of searching indexes in book form (at a cost) in the GRO research room or for free on microfilm in the Pearse St library. The site takes a bit of getting used to.

Dates covered:
CoI marriages 1845 - 1958;
All other religions marriages: 1864 - 1958
Births 1864-1958,
Deaths 1864-1958.
1922 - 1958 is the Free State/Republic of Ireland counties only.

What will theses indexes yield and what should you do with them?
When you’ve found an index that you think is your ancestor, you will have the following information

Year of birth – will be correct as registered on a birth but beware that it is only extrapolated from a year of death on a death cert from information provided by whoever registered the death.

Registration district

Volume

Page number

After 1878, the year’s worth of births, deaths or marriages were registered and broken down by quarter (March, June, September, December). Prior to then, there’s no quarters.

So a sample record might look like this:

John Joyce
Registration district: Oughterard (Galway)
Year & Quarter: Jan-Mar 1885
Estimated birth year: 1813
Age on death: 72
Film number: this is only relevant if you are using a Family History Centre in the LDS church
Volume: 4
Page: 299

Or in short hand: John Joyce, Oughterard Q1 1885 4/299
Important things to note:
It is best to put the county in the place box, rather than a specific location. The indexes are sorted by registration districts and these overlap counties. EG: Rathdown covers both south Dublin and north Wicklow.

If you don’t know where your person came from, you can just put in Ireland and it will give you the whole country’s returns for that name.

It’s better to put in a range of years and not select a particular event (birth, death, marriage). When you get the list of possibilities, you can sort by event, place, date, gender, etc up the top. Use these to narrow down what you are looking for (i.e. eliminate deaths and marriages if you’re looking for a birth).

Marriages are the easiest to find because the bride and groom will appear separately and their registration district, year and quarter, volume and page will match exactly. The site doesn’t yet have the ability to cross reference names so you do need to search both names individually. If you only have one name, you’ll just need to narrow down as much as possible and then try ordering the various certs.

Birth indexes post 1922 (i.e. Free State) include the mother’s maiden name so if you know that, you’ll find the correct reference much quicker.

I suggest looking for a birth, a death and a marriage that you definitely know the date of and the relevant people’s names so that you can see how it works.

So this site only gives you a reference and you need a cert to increase your knowledge. There’s 2 ways to do it.

The GRO website is somewhat antiquated and does not yet include online ordering but you can download the forms for ordering a birth, death and marriage cert. The form is unfortunately set up for living people ordering their own certs and not for research purposes. You’ll see that it includes PPS numbers and specific birth date, etc. What I do is put down whatever information I know and write in the “Oughterard Q1 1885 4/299” where ever there is space. I also do a cover note to explain. This form can be posted with a Euro cheque (drawn only on Irish banks) or you can put in your credit card details. It can also be faxed. I have used the fax and cc details safely several times but I realise that lots of people will not be happy with that. There are several types of cert but the relevant one for research is the cheapest €6 option. It’s a full photocopy of the registry entry.

The other way to get the cert is to go into the Research room in the Irish Life mall on Abbey St in Dublin which is a branch of the GRO. It is an expensive place so it’s best to have your references already. They have forms you can fill out with the same details as above. At a cost of €4 per cert and a limit of 5 certs a day, you can have your cert in about 10 minutes. It’s very frustrating to be limited to 5 so if you can co-opt friends to order some for you at the same time.

Birth certs will have: DOB, place of birth, name of child, gender, father’s name, occupation and address, mother’s name including maiden name, signature, qualification (i.e. present at birth) and address of informant. Mother’s occupation was not added until the 1960s.

Death certs will have: DOD, place of death, name of person, gender, marital status, age last birthday, profession, cause of death, qualification (i.e. present at death) and address of informant.

Marriage certs will have: date and place of marriage, name of both parties, ages (though this often says “full” which meant 21 or over), professions, addresses of both parties prior to marriage, fathers’ names and occupations. If the father’s name is left blank, it probably means he is dead.

dubtom · 04-06-2009 11:57pm

Thanks for that Pinky. The forum here has been a great help to me in researching my family and a thread like this can only make it easier. I had great luck on my first try in the Irish life and turned up a birth cert for a grandmother and three marriage certs,two for great grand parents,which in turn gave some details of GG grand parents. I couldn't have been happier. I hope this thread gets stickied.

brianthebard · 05-06-2009 12:05am

I'll sticky it now, pinkypinky did a great job and I don't think I can improve on it. Thanks pp.

pinkypinky · 05-06-2009 10:01am

Thanks! I'm working on a third section on parish records and should get it added over the weekend.

pinkypinky · 05-06-2009 2:31pm

National Library
http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx

The NL has microfilm copies of most Catholic church parish registers up to 1870 or 1900 in some cases. Parish registers are important because they pre-date the civil registrations of births and marriages, sometimes by 100 years. Their website has a list of which ones and relevant dates, by diocese and gives the corresponding microfilm number. Also refer to their website for the form to get a reader’s ticket. 2 passport photos are required for the ID. The NL has a genealogy advisory service who have their own room up the main stairs to the left. They can help you get started but if you know what parish and what microfilm number, you can just get started on your own. Where the NL is excellent is with computers. They have banks of computers where you can access Irish Origins online Irish resources including the best online version of Griffiths Valuation (see below), a set of census returns for the Rotunda Ward in Dublin of 1901, and a lot of other secondary sources like trade directories and an index to wills. Irish Origins is a subscription site but is free in the NL because they provided the source materials for Griffiths. They also have links to the LDS civil register indexes amongst other useful databases.

A word of warning about parish registers. They vary greatly in content and handwriting and quality. The microfilms are decades old. It’s wise to bring a magnifying glass and definitely glasses if you need them. The readers are not the most up to date models so they can make things harder to decipher too. Dublin parishes were the richest and if you’re lucky, you’ll get a register done on pre-printed books with details like mother’s maiden name and address of parents.

Did I mention the headings are in Latin at lot of the time?
And there’s a lot of abbreviations. Take a few mins on the internet before you go to make a list of the following words in Latin to help once there: son, daughter, mother, father, baptism, date. Or just wing it, you’d be surprised how easy it is to work out the meanings.

Basically, you’ll definitely get on a baptism: date of baptism, child’s name, sex, parents names (may just be John & Mary Murphy, but often mother’s maiden name), godparents (listed as “sp” for sponsor) and maybe an address and the birthdate too.

For marriages, they can often be more helpful than the civil cert because you usually get the bride and groom’s mothers’ names, which didn’t appear on civil certs until the 1960s. It’s often the only place you’ll be able to find a mother’s maiden name.

Burial registers are far sparser and less helpful. Death certs are much more useful.

Sometimes you get little notes in the margin that the priest has added in. Examples I’ve seen included a note beside a baptism of when the child married and who she married. I’ve heard of even better ones like “father is really Mr X”.

Also worth noting that for Dublin only, www.dublinheritage.ie has a name only index of parish registers (not every church is there though). The full transcription of these registers can be viewed on computer in Pearse St library. It was done as a FÁS project, I think. For Dublin ancestors, it’s worth doing a surname search there first, as it could cut your time in the National Library significantly.

CoI parish registers

These are more tricky. Only 2/5s of them survived the 1922 explosion in the Four Courts where they were kept. The National Archives has a list on their website of what they have, all stored on microfilm. Other registers survive in the Representative Church Body library in Braemor Park as well as local custody in the original parishes. Refer to their website for further details.

http://www.library.ireland.anglican.org/

Other religions will have their own specialised links. In particular, the Quakers keep very good records. The small Jewish community in Ireland, mainly in Dublin, has a good museum that will also be able to help.

http://www.quakers-in-ireland.org/
http://www.jewishireland.org/museum.html

pinkypinky · 05-06-2009 2:37pm

GV is a land valuation that was done in the late 1850s and early 1860s in Ireland. It goes right down the social scale and you have a good chance here of finding an ancestor if they were a lessor or land owner. It has been estimated that approximately 70% of heads of household are on it. Today we mostly use it as a census substitute. The bad news is that it’ll only tell you the lessor and not their wives or children but it does allow you to pinpoint where they lived, and in the case of farming ancestors, show you exactly on a map where and what size their land holding was.

There’s a free, beta version of it on www.askaboutireland.com and a superior version on a subscription site called Irish Origins, with free access to it in the National Archives. Be aware that placenames are repeated so be sure you’re looking in the right county.

I hope these posts will help you on the way to find your Irish ancestry. Please do ask if you need more specific help.

Ostrom · 11-06-2009 3:48pm

Excellent post pinkypinky!

Just one thing, I think the institutional subscription for griffiths valuation runs through the National Library - I know it is free to access in the genealogy room, but I dont remember seeing an access point at the national archives (this is about two years ago). Have they since installed one?

pinkypinky · 11-06-2009 10:22pm

That's right, Efla. It's just in the National Library as they provided the source material. You're unlikely to see one in the National Archives ever, I'd say.

g5 · 17-07-2009 1:39pm

Hi.
I am trying to trace my Mothers (birth) birth cert.
I have found your detailed review excellent on how to trace,
A question,do u know if all births have been registered on the site provided,and how accurate?
The sight in question,Family search record sight..I know its up to 1958,which covers the years I need,
Strange thing found my Dad and grandfather records and marraiges,but not their female partners,
Again thankyou so much for suct a excellant post,
Gill

pinkypinky · 17-07-2009 3:33pm

Hi Gill,

Glad to be of help.

Afaik, every birth, death and marriage that was registered are there. There'll always be oversights but the LDS is meticulous. What could have happened is that the birth itself was never registered. There's no accurate statistics on what percentage of bmds went unregistered. I have 2 definite cases of unregistered births and deaths but both are in the 19th century. The other possibility is that you don't have the right year but given that it's your mother, I'm sure you have a reasonably accurate idea of when she was born.

If you know the birthdates in question and are in Dublin, then I recommend going in and looking at the physical indexes. It's €2 to search a 5 year period of births or deaths or marriage indexes and then €4 per cert. If your mother was born post 1922, then her own mother's maiden name should be on the index to help you be sure you've got the right reference.

Best of luck,

Pinky

g5 · 17-07-2009 3:52pm

Thanks a million you have helped so much..
Gill

g5 · 17-07-2009 5:15pm

Hi again,
You have created a monster,
Another question,I hope you dont mind...
Do the orignal birth entries,hold the address,for the registered birth,time period 1946.
Thanks again gill.

pinkypinky · 18-07-2009 1:18pm

They do indeed. They have the date name and sex of the child, parents' names including mother's maiden name, place of birth, address and occupation of father and the signature and qualification of the informant (ie, present at birth).

g5 · 19-07-2009 12:39pm

Again,thankyou.
I posted a question you had already covered.Sorry
The imformation and help you have provided is and was excellent,Gill

Dob74 · 05-08-2009 3:00pm

Thanks for the info. Was able to look up the 1911 census in cork city library very interesting. But it was mostly info known to the family

pinkypinky · 05-08-2009 4:33pm

Do you know Cork is online now?
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

It might help you find other ancestors. I found several by just searching relevant surnames.

Dob74 · 06-08-2009 12:46pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

Do you know Cork is online now?
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

It might help you find other ancestors. I found several by just searching relevant surnames.

Thanks
Just saw that yesterday. Was able to look up two of my grandparents families.
It's amazing to see that nearly everyone in the countryside was a farmer or a farm labourer.

DayDreamer · 17-08-2009 12:53am

Hey Pinkypink

Thanks for all this info. You've been a great help to me.

I've got a question regarding applying for a birth cert from the GRO. I'm currently living in the UK so I'm sending a fax to them with my credit card details however I'd like to get certs for about 6 relatives. Is it ok to send the completed forms along with one copy of my payment details or do I need to send payment details with each form?

Besides the online census form, is there much else I can do from the UK or will I have to make a visit to Dublin to complete my search?

Thanks x

pinkypinky · 17-08-2009 10:49am

Hi Daydreamer,

What I do with multiple orders is:

I complete the top section with my own details, and the bottom section with the credit card details. I do a separate cover letter explaining I have multiple orders and I do out an excel table like so, using their categories on the form:

Surname: Long
Forenames: John
Date of Death: 1st quarter 1921
Volume: 2/536
Date of birth/approx age: 1846/75
PPS number: NA
Place of death Dublin South
Sex: Male
Occupation: Butcher?
Marital status: Married

Regarding working from the UK - if you give me a little more information regarding what period you're searching and what county, I can narrow down the details. Griffiths Valuation is also online but it may be too early to help your search yet.

Regards,
Pinky

yaya* · 17-08-2009 8:17pm

Hi all,

Just looking for some help with some family research I'm doing so thought this would be the best place to post!

We know my great-grandmother and great-grandfather owned a pub for short time in the 1930s in Dublin from stories we heard etc but we have no idea how they came to own it -no money in the family etc and my great-grandfather did not have a great job so there's no way they bought it themselves - we're assuming it was given to them in a will or something -is there any way we can find this out for sure and if so, who gave the pub to them?

Any help greatly received!

Judgement Day · 17-08-2009 8:36pm

Doing family research myself, when not stirring it here, and just found this useful link this evening: http://www.failteromhat.com/lo1876.php

Masses of useful info here and if anybody in your family owned 1 acre or more of land anywhere on the entire island of Ireland in 1876 they will be here.

DayDreamer · 17-08-2009 10:58pm

Hi Pinky,

Thanks for your reply. I'm looking for information on my great-grandmother but I've got very little details for her. I know she was born in Dublin around 1890-ish and she died around 1972, she's buried in Deansgrange cemetry. I've looked up the 1901 and 1911 census but cant find anything at all ...I suppose it would help if I knew her parent's details as she may have been very young when these census forms were completed. I cant find any details on any sites relating to Deansgrange either. Its so frustrating!

I applied for some birth cert today ...then tonight my mother informed me that my gran was registered under a different name! :mad:

pinkypinky · 18-08-2009 11:58am

Daydreamer,

If you know the correct name for your gran, then once you order her birth cert, it will have her mother's maiden name on it and you should be able to trace her own birth cert. The familysearch site is a great resource. I've gotten so used to it that from just names and location, I can make whole family trees now!

P.

pinkypinky · 18-08-2009 12:13pm

Yaya,

That is a tough one.
I'm presuming you know the name and location of the pub?
If so, I think the best place to start is Thoms directory. There's one issued every year. The National Library has a full set and Pearse St Library (which has better opening hours) also has them. You can search by name/address. You can also look at the electoral register for the whole of the 30s there so that might help too.

Another possibility is the valuations office, in the Irish Life building.
You can look at the address of the property back over the decades and see who owned it before.

Have you looked at the pub's address on the 1911 census to see if anyone was living there? If you get another name, that would open up other avenues (again like Thoms).

Best of luck - I'm interested to hear how you get on.

Pinkypinky

Judgement Day · 26-08-2009 11:31pm

Well pinkypinky this is probably something you won't be able to help on but here goes:
1. My grandmother was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1899 and while I have her fathers names I only have a 'possible' surname for her mother. I have tried searching for marriage info, my grandmother's birth certificate - anything - death certs for her mother who died in the US in 1908 - no joy.
2. My grandmother returned to England with her father in 1908 on the Mauretania but I can't find any trace of their entry into England on Ancestry.com or elsewhere, whereas her father (and his 2nd wife) pop up regularly on shipping manifests from 1890 to well into the 1930s.

I am trying to do too many things and probably not going at it in an methodical fashion but do you have any advice - especially on cracking the US records for births, marriages and deaths?

pinkypinky · 27-08-2009 9:49am

Judgement Day,

It's true my knowledge is very Ireland based so I just have some general thoughts.

Are you certain on her date of birth? People were often quite vague and rounded up or down as suited their purpose.
Do you know what religion she was? Maybe there is a baptismal record. Also what about a birth announcement in a local newspaper?

Re: passenger manifests. Again are you sure it's the Mauretania?

Best of luck,
Pinkypinky

Alicat · 01-09-2009 2:30pm

Pinky answered the question only a few lines up, sorry! Totally didn't see it when I skimmed through the first time

Are you charged to view the Thom's directories?

pinkypinky · 01-09-2009 3:51pm

Alicat,

Re: Thoms
You can join the library in Pearse st and see them for free or do similar at the National Library. Pearse has better opening hours though!

Pinky

yaya* · 08-09-2009 12:59am

pinkypinky wrote: »

Yaya,

That is a tough one.
I'm presuming you know the name and location of the pub?
If so, I think the best place to start is Thoms directory. There's one issued every year. The National Library has a full set and Pearse St Library (which has better opening hours) also has them. You can search by name/address. You can also look at the electoral register for the whole of the 30s there so that might help too.

Another possibility is the valuations office, in the Irish Life building.
You can look at the address of the property back over the decades and see who owned it before.

Have you looked at the pub's address on the 1911 census to see if anyone was living there? If you get another name, that would open up other avenues (again like Thoms).

Best of luck - I'm interested to hear how you get on.

Pinkypinky

Pinkypinky,

Thanks so much for your help above - I went to Pearse St library and I've found the previous and subsequent owners through Thoms, however, I've checked with family members who were alive at the time (although not directly related to my grandparents) and the previous owners names are not familiar to them- I'm at a dead-end!! Wondering is there anyway to look at the sale of the pub, if it was indeed sold to my grandparents, or possibly the will of the people who owned the pub before them? Probably not, but the question is really bugging me and my mum now, so I'd love to answer it!

Thanks again for all your help -I'm sure you're sick of my questioning now!

How to research your Irish family - first post updated.

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