Do you know anything about your family tree?

Rufeo · 07-02-2020 9:49pm #1

Or your ancestors? I don't know much about mine. One thing I learned the other day was that my Granddad fought in the War of Independence, but I don't know anything beyond four or five generations of our family. So boards, has anyone on here got an interesting ancestry?

Upforthematch · 07-02-2020 9:53pm

I loved that Jackie Healy Rea genealogy test which showed his ancestors were 100pc Cork

Feisar · 07-02-2020 10:01pm

BeerFarts · 07-02-2020 10:04pm

Managed to trace my ancestry back to find mostly farmers from Tipperary who did f^ck all. Disappointing but I suppose at least they weren't total bastards.

spurious · 07-02-2020 10:06pm

If you can find your lot in either the 1901 or 1911 census, you can use the many free online resources to get further back.

irishgenealogy.ie (births marriages and deaths)
and registers.nli.ie (RC parish records)
Hours of fun.

Come visit us in the genealogy forum.

Feisar · 07-02-2020 10:06pm

Dev didn't do us any favours burning the Customs House the clown.

corner of hells · 07-02-2020 10:11pm

Yes ,its a hobby of mine.

corner of hells · 07-02-2020 10:12pm

spurious wrote: »

If you can find your lot in either the 1901 or 1911 census, you can use the many free online resources to get further back.

irishgenealogy.ie (births marriages and deaths)
and registers.nli.ie (RC parish records)
Hours of fun.

Come visit us in the genealogy forum.

I'm on my way over for a look.

Your Face · 07-02-2020 10:16pm

Feisar wrote: »

Dev didn't do us any favours burning the Customs House the clown.

Probably got rid of a great many inconvenient truths for a lot of people.

Gloomtastic! · 07-02-2020 10:19pm

Managed to trace mine back to 1680 so far. There’s relatives all over the world - UK, NZ, Aus, USA and India!

One of my forebears built the first steam engine in Ireland, another ‘had the pleasure’ of throwing Pearse and Connolly into a pit after they were executed and covering them in lime (He may have been bull****ting).

Fascinating stuff, passing forenames on to generation after generation can be confusing but when you find a new link it’s such a buzz.

L1011 · 07-02-2020 10:20pm

Back to the late 1700s on a few arms; famine era on nearly all the rest.

At the other end of the scale I'm dead ended in the 1920s (well, I know someone was alive and was ~40 then but nothing else, so could argue 1880s) on one.

Rather worried about the data safety of the DNA firms which would possibly get me past that 20s hump.

NickNickleby · 07-02-2020 10:27pm

THe research for this wasn't done by me (well, I looked at the 1911 census which bore out what I later found out), a distant cousin discovered that following my mother's line, a few generations ago we were German, and our great-great-grandmother was a German Jew married to a German 'non-Jew'.

On my father's side, we can got back to Co Cork, via inner city Dublin - Trim Co Meath and Waterford.

You should hear my accent :pac::pac::pac:

Water John · 07-02-2020 10:31pm

Yeah one side we have traced back to early 1800s. French Hugenot but became Catholic around that time. One was transported for action with the White Boys, also evicted around that time. Farming on both sides.
Our house would have been a safe house in the Civil War. My mother remembered a machine gun on the landing of the stairs.

BTW was it the shelling of the Four Courts in the Civil War destroyed a lot of the records?

Immortal Starlight · 07-02-2020 10:42pm

Two of my mothers gran aunts were on the titanic. They survived and lived in America for the rest of their lives. We are also related to an old Irish actor who was in some films and my mother remembers him visiting.

spurious · 07-02-2020 10:46pm

Water John wrote: »

BTW was it the shelling of the Four Courts in the Civil War destroyed a lot of the records?

Yes. I think the story was they had stored ammunition/explosives beside the Record treasury? Maybe someone else knows for sure, but all the census records, Church of Ireland parish records going back centuries, centuries of wills and deeds and all manner of documents, up in smoke. I believe bits of burnt pages were flittering around for days in the air.

L1011 · 07-02-2020 10:50pm

Water John wrote: »

BTW was it the shelling of the Four Courts in the Civil War destroyed a lot of the records?

Yes, but all birth/marriage/death survived and the missus mid Victorian censuses were already mostly missing. '41/'51 I think were lost but '21/'31 and '61-'91 were already gone. I probably have at least one of those years wrong.

07-02-2020 10:53pm

Mine goes back to the 15th century.

Im descended from a French knight.

Puts me under pressure to have a couple of kids because otherwise it dies out with me.

0lddog · 07-02-2020 10:56pm

spurious wrote: »

Yes. I think the story was they had stored ammunition/explosives beside the Record treasury? Maybe someone else knows for sure, but all the census records, Church of Ireland parish records going back centuries, centuries of wills and deeds and all manner of documents, up in smoke. I believe bits of burnt pages were flittering around for days in the air.

My understanding is that the main exception is the 1841 census for the parish if Killeshandra / Killashandra. My Great Great Great grandfather is listed in that census ... born before the french revolution:) ....

I really hope this thread is moved to Genealogy before its poisoned by chatbots.

Thepillowman · 07-02-2020 11:17pm

It needs a good bit of surgery.

07-02-2020 11:21pm

I always wanted to research my family tree, but I'm from leitrim & my family name were kings of breffni back in the day, so I'm guessing there's not really much to see here!

Ipso · 08-02-2020 12:00am

Unfortunately I have some Scottish ancestry, distant but not distant enough.

josip · 08-02-2020 12:42am

Descended from one of Cromwell's Ironsides.

alchemist33 · 08-02-2020 12:46am

According to my cousin, we're distantly related to the current Monaco royal family, by way of Princess Grace. It's not too implausible as I believe her forebears were from Mayo and we're from a county next door, but I keep swearing to look into it some day.

cannotlogin · 08-02-2020 12:58am

My cousin did. Supposedly great great grandfather was absolutely loaded but had a fondness for wives, mistresses, procreation, drinking, fighting and gambling.

Life would be so different if he had any sort of self control at all!!

js35 · 08-02-2020 1:06am

My great great uncle was a carpenter who worked on the titanic

08-02-2020 3:06am

I've only ever managed to get as far back as one pair of great-great-grandparents. Most of my ancestors are from "up the road somewhere". I'm from Cork and the most exotic place my family tree goes to is Kerry.

Raconteuse · 08-02-2020 4:33am

Mother's side goes back to the Normans - she has a French maiden name.

Witchie · 08-02-2020 8:02am

My mum is descended from the ancient Donnelly clan of Tyrone and my favourite character we found in the family tree was Shane Bernagh Donnelly.

The Donnelly land was given to a Caulfield chap during the Ulster plantation and he built a castle (Castlecaulfield) on the Donnelly Fort. Shane's dad burnt the castle.

Share went off to live in the woods nearby and became a Robin Hood figure stealing from the British soldiers and wealthy coaches that passed through on the Dublin/ Derry route.

Legend has it he gave the money to the poor in the area.

I love that my family were bards and my granddad's uncle was a writer and poet in America. Another uncle was an editor of an American newspaper and my grandad wrote articles for the local historical society in his time.

I now make my living writing and editing, one of my cousin's has written a book and my youngest son is considering a career in writing. The genes continue.

Another story from my mum's family is about her grandmother during the famine. They didn't have much but a small farm that they owned so she had grown other vegetables on the land. Daily she made big pots of soup and brought it to the end of her lane.

People travelling from Monaghan would pass by on their way to Derry to emigrate and she would feed them so they didn't have to take the Protestant soup. Apparently when they buried my grandad in the early 80's her right hand, the soup giving one, hadn't decomposed.

My dad's side, my grandad was an IRA driver coz he owned a car and my grandmother's uncles, apparently started a big fish market in New York.

Gynoid · 08-02-2020 8:27am

Being facetious for a moment, and no disrespect intended, but it is noticeable in reincarnation stories how everyone is King David or Queen Nefertiti or some such and never the cleaner of said Kings royal chamber pot, and similarly geneology always unearths notables. Especially so in the case of Americans.
I would say my geneology traces back to nameless fumbling peasantry, a good scatter of whom had twisted eyes and gammy legs, lost all their teeth by the time they were 30, but were admirably fertile, and grunted things like Uuh feckn argh when noticing fantastic celestial phenomenon.

But to be serious one of my siblings has traced us back some ways and we come from a solid line of prodigious drunks.

D3V!L · 08-02-2020 9:09am

My great grandfather fought in the war of independence as well, his name is on the wall in Glasnevin Cemetery to commemorate it.

gozunda · 08-02-2020 9:19am

Our lot seem on both sides seem to have been involved in shipping. One branch apparently helped organised boats for the Flight of the Earls - whilst another lot shipped King James out of Waterford after his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne. Every now and then another interesting maritime story shows up - not all which would pass censorship :pac:

Ush1 · 08-02-2020 9:21am

Paternal grandfathers family were settled travellers I believe and my maternal great grandparents were Prods from the North, originally Scotland so my ma has a very planter maiden name.

Graces7 · 08-02-2020 9:29am

Unfortunately, yes. Sorted it as I was sure there were Irish connections... to find there were indeed but of a kind n no one of any nationality would want in their family tree .. wish I hadn't found it

gozunda · 08-02-2020 9:33am

Graces7 wrote: »

Unfortunately, yes. Sorted it as I was sure there were Irish connections and wish I hadn't...

Charming ...

Graces7 · 08-02-2020 9:47am

gozunda wrote: »

Charming ...

Ah sorry; miswrote that! Meant there were Irish connections of a kind no-one could be proud of.. I mean NO ONE! Interpret that how you like.I was horrified

L1011 · 09-02-2020 8:58pm

D3V!L wrote: »

My great grandfather fought in the war of independence as well, his name is on the wall in Glasnevin Cemetery to commemorate it.

Mine was slightly too old, so he just was a trial judge (in the areas where the IRA had forced out the British system they had to replace the basic legal system with their own courts) and did inspections of battalions instead. And he lived til the 50s, so he's not on the wall.

The recent Bureau of Military History release has a lengthy report he did on the state of the IRA in Mayo at one point as one of two inspectors.

Well obviously I've 4 great grandfathers but the other 3 weren't involved as far as I know. Ones third wife has now outlived his first wive by 102 years (she's 103, first wife died at 19 in childbirth) though which is odd.

Trigger Happy · 09-02-2020 9:04pm

Mine goes back to the early 1800s. My grandparents were from Cork, Laois, Leitrim and Monaghan as we’re there ancestors. Farmers the lot of them.
Did a dna test last year and my blood is pure Paddy.

Witchie · 10-02-2020 12:08am

Trigger Happy wrote: »

Mine goes back to the early 1800s. My grandparents were from Cork, Laois, Leitrim and Monaghan as we’re there ancestors. Farmers the lot of them.
Did a dna test last year and my blood is pure Paddy.

Mine 100% Irish too with my whole DNA being located in Ulster and a tiny bit of Louth. Glad I mixed the gene pool for my sons.

Redneck Reject71 · 10-02-2020 12:15am

On my mother's side,her ancestors were force marched on the trail of tears.On my father's side his ancestors fought along side Pancho Villa.

arybvtcw0eolkf · 10-02-2020 12:17am

My great grandfather fought in WWI with the 9th battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, I knew this for many years but I was serving on a post in Lebanon a number of years back and got talking with the lad on duty with me.

It turns out that his grandfather also served in the 9th Bn RDF.

So it turned out our grandfathers served together both at home and abroad, thinking they were fighting the war to end all wars little knowing that their grand children would also be serving in the same home unit and serving oversea's in someone else's war, they didn't fight the war to end all wars after all.

Other than that, my great grandfather on my mother side was supposedly a medic in Europe during WWI but I know very little of him.

I remember something about my fathers family coming to Dublin from Limerick during the famine but I've scant details except that the surname is common enough in Limerick. I've seen a few shops in Limerick with the surname and wondered if we're somehow related because I don't really come across it in Dublin but have come across it alot in Limerick, Galway and Sligo.

ShatterProof · 10-02-2020 12:28am

I checked all the registered historical facts
And I was shocked into shame to discover
How I'm the eighteenth pale descendant
Of some old queen or other

Church on Tuesday · 10-02-2020 12:33am

Grandfather on my Mothers side fought in War of Independence.

Great (Great?) Grand Uncle was a RIC constable.

Have traced my Father's people back to just after The Famine were two brothers settled onto a plot of land they bought and then divided and the family is still on that site today.

Redneck Reject71 · 10-02-2020 1:17am

Fascinating to read so many of your ancestors who fought for Independence here.You should be proud of that and their struggles.Thank you for sharing mi amigos.

endacl · 10-02-2020 1:32am

Genealogy is a bit daft. Go back not as far as you might think and everybody is related to everybody else.

Practically everybody who reads this post is an descendant of everybody in Northern Europe who produced offspring in the 10th century. Just pick anybody you like and claim them as your great great great........ grandfather/mother. You won’t be wrong. Because maths.

Greentopia · 10-02-2020 2:45am

I've done some research but would like to do more when time allows. Mum's side seem to be solidly Waterford going back to great grandparents-small holders living in rural poverty, nothing remarkable.

Dad's side I traced back to great great grandfather who came over from England, was a watchmaker who married a Catholic in Belfast (Shankill, which seemed to have been mixed community then in late 1800s), had six kids and at least three of them were photographers and one a watchmaker as his father. The family then moved south to Tipp, Limerick and Waterford. One of his daughters I was named after and by coincidence was born on the same day of the year as me!

Family members said he was Church of England and converted to Catholicism to marry my great great grandmother (scandal!

) but would love to know what part of England he was from (English surname), but I couldn't find anything on UK geneology websites.

Had one aunt-also on fathers side who was the first woman in the country to own a photographic studio and she was a prosperous business woman and land owner. Until she went mad, started tearing up her money and was sectioned in a psychiatric hospital. Sad

Widdershins · 10-02-2020 2:58am

No further past my grandparents. One grandmother was a nurse with QARANC and present at the liberation of Bergen Belsen. She was also awarded medals for bravery . I know almost nothing of the other grandmother who died and was replaced by a stepmother (after whom I was named) when my mother was very young. I know she was Jewish but only discovered this by accident as I was raised atheist. Grandfathers weren't interesting although one was very well loved by seemingly everyone, still remembered fondly by the few remaining men who knew him who say he gave them a start in life (working for him). Apparently I'm the image of him. I've only seen a black and white photo in which he had jug ears, thousands of freckles and very lively eyes.

Widdershins · 10-02-2020 3:55am

On relatives no one would be proud of. My friend is a niece of the original founder of the BNP. Her lineage is interesting and quite impressive in a way but imagine the s***e she gets for that family connection.
Just to add I know one other family fact : my surname is a Norman one. Boring. I was really disappointed as a child when I was told only "the Mc's and O's" can hear the bean sidhe.

"The thumb, not the bull "

I just a proper tea snort

Graces7 · 10-02-2020 9:03am

On the Uk side...( I am English, but was asked if I had Irish ancestry when I was moving out here..) One grandmother had a backstreet grocery shop and the other was a "pit brow lass" who caught the eye if a colliery engineer and "married up" She gave birth to at least 8 children ( it was tradition to use the name of a dead baby for the next one so hard to be exact) She raised only 3. TB took the rest. some living into their late teens. She died of diabetes. Lost both legs.

Life in urban Lancashire was hard indeed.

Graces7 · 10-02-2020 9:05am

Widdershins wrote: »

On relatives no one would be proud of. My friend is a niece of the original founder of the BNP. Her lineage is interesting and quite impressive in a way but imagine the s***e she gets for that family connection.
Just to add I know one other family fact : my surname is a Norman one. Boring. I was really disappointed as a child when I was told only "the Mc's and O's" can hear the bean sidhe.

"The thumb, not the bull " I just a proper tea snort

Pales in comparison to my dark secret!

rainbow kirby · 10-02-2020 9:16am

Mum's side appears to have bounced back and forward between England, Scotland and Dublin (I'm a distant descendent of James Watt, of steam engine fame) and dad's side is entirely Dublin and Wicklow.

cherryghost · 10-02-2020 10:03am

My relations lay in England. Am related to William Brereton who was executed under suspicion of adultery with Anne Boleyn. On his wifes side there is royal blood going back to son of King Edward III

Do you know anything about your family tree?

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