How the Internet has opened up Irish roots

The modern day Irish roots hunt

At one time or another, many of us have sketched our family tree, either for a school project or for our own pleasure. But, despite the help of my grandparents, I could only trace back to my great great-grandparents’ generation.

The rest seemed lost to history or accessible only to professional genealogists. However, the Internet has opened up a whole new world to the amateur sleuth.

In the past decade, the growth of genealogy Web sites has made roots research more and more accessible.

There are still some challenges. For instance, fires during the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland damaged the original records in some locales, contributing to a somewhat erratic Irish historical record.

But new developments in roots research are gradually lifting the barriers to DIY scholars, and there are several ways to accurately and successfully trace your Irish roots.

The most recent breakthrough is the digitization of the 1901 and 1911 Irish census records. The project, lead by the National Archives of Ireland and Library and Archives Canada, will see the creation of two online indexes: a topographical index based on street location/townland, and a nominal index to every individual listed in each census, featuring first name, surname, age and sex. All information will be free and fully accessible.

 So far, four counties’ census records from 1911 – Antrim, Down, Dublin, Kerry – can be viewed on the Web site (http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/).

Publication of the other Irish counties will be available in the following order by mid-2009:

• Donegal
• Cork
• Wexford
• Galway
• Offaly
• Limerick
• Mayo
• Waterford
• Armagh
• Carlow
• Cavan
• Clare
• Fermanagh
• Kildare
• Kilkenny
• Leitrim
• Derry
• Longford
• Louth
• Meath
• Monaghan
• Laois
• Roscommon
• Sligo
• Tipperary
• Tyrone
• Westmeath
• Wicklow