Top ten tips on tracing your Irish roots - NY Irish Center’s third session shares a passion for genealogy

Recently I came across one of Irish Central's publications listing ten websites to discover Irish roots and requesting if anyone had any more to add to the list. I found census.nationalarchives.ie excellent as after finding my way around it was able to download my grandfathers dwelling from the Census form.

it's another resource for me to use to try and find my grandparents' ancestral home and the relatives that I know are still over there in Ireland....

an occupied people with records burned or lost by design have a real challenge to make sense of themselves. Topping off the muddle was the forced requirement of those with gaelic names across the middle band of the island to select English names. Such a mess up while great care was being taken to account for every pig sty - chicken coop - livestock - acreage of every household.

Irish genealogy research is a pain, let us be frank. So many Irish Americans with fairly common Irish surnames often do not have a clue where their family was from in Ireland. Knowing where your family lived in Ireland is essential for doing Irish genealogy research. With a very uncommon English surname in Ireland my genealogy research has been relatively "easy". Have recently been doing genealogy research on men who enlisted for service in the Union Army in the USA Civil War from Washington, Connecticut, USA, including a number of Irish born lads. One Washington, CT Irish family by the name of Black had three sons who served in the USA Civil War. This Black family were Protestant and may have been from Co. Sligo in Ireland. I have recently been in touch with a descendant of one of the Black lads (James Black) who served in the USA Civil War from Washington, CT.