Searching your Irish roots online - Genealogy sites 101

Thanks for the informative article. It might be worth also mentioning that Griffiths valuation is available for free at www.askaboutireland.ie and provides townland maps. For Ulster ancestors I use the Public records Office Ni website at www.proni.gov.uk as it has a wealth of online genealogy records. Emerald Ancestors www.emeraldancestors.com is pretty good for BMD records in Northern Ireland, especially marriages.

Some years ago I prepared a site online http://postmanbill2.tribalpages.com/tribe/browse?userid=postmanbill2&view=78&rand=998510500&storyid=616 called Irish Genealogy - "A Family History Primer" by Liam Martin © Worth a look for listers starting to look up their Irish Roots

Dompredo you make a good point. Searching your Irish Ancestors can be very exciting but also fustrating trying to understand the various land divisions and multiple variants of names etc. On-line resource are invaluable but often it is necessary to employ the resouces of an Irish based genealogist - to get to the root of the problem so to speak. Peter www.irishfamilyancestry.com

Hey Maybe I missed my Name on the List or maybe O' Sullivan is not an Irish Name ??? Idon't think is German or Polish Iknow from History Julius Caesar Had a Italian General named Sulla Close huh ?? lol

Thank you Irish Central for the Records info. We (my sister & I) will now have more sources to search for Our Gunning,& Fenton families. Ancestry.com has helped very much but you need as much information as you can get your hands on especially when you hunt for what seemed like an easy beginning turnes out to be a very complicted ball of yarn, especially when you work on all 4 sides.(grandparents both sides). You go from one to another when you come to a "brick wall" in one, then you try to fine the Kin folk in the other 3, when you hit a "brick wall" in all of them then you start bactracking,checking for info that you may have missed. Don't let this scare you off from tracking your family because I've found it is the best theraputic medicine in the world,you don't think about any of the "junk" that went on that day it's just, YOU & Your Family,Cousins,Aunts,Uncles,Greats&More Greats so very much fun.

things are not quite as simple as IC would lead one to believe -- RootsIreland, for example, has merged or transfered its records to Irish Family History, where you can indeed search for many kinds of records for free, but where you cannot -SEE- any records without a fee, which is five pounds or punts or eus per record, and then the record for which you are looking may not be there, after having paid your fee: as far as they know, my 170 year old great-grandfather is still wandering around Ireland, and it cost 50 bucks or more to find out! .... Irish Genealogy is actually four counties (but, of course, includes the Kingdom): Ancestry Ireland really is Ulster ..... I have had good results with the county societies, but not with individual Irish based genealogists, who commonly just don't answer E-mails or other correspondence .... census records are neat and informative, but such a short period (rumor says, and we all know him) that the 1925 census may be available soon .... Griffith's also is helpful, but is some times dense (five or six "versions" of one OS map, many with handwritten changes in parcel numbers)

My great great grandfather John MacAndrew came to Lawrence Co. Illinois from Killala in the 1830's. Great great grandfather Thomas Byrne came at the same time, bought land adjoining and married GGGfather MacAndrew's daughter Mary. I looked on Killala Bay and the Ox Mountains in 2006. I felt I was seeing through their eyes the home they left so long ago. From the mountains of Ireland to the prairies of Illinois.

My ancesters left Ireland in 1750 and so many records have been destroyed it makes it difficult, sure these sites are great if your family left after the mid 1800's

A good summary of online Irish genealogy resources. I am always amazed doing family history research on people related to me that I find them having some Irish ancestry. Like anything else with genealogy research it is location, location, location. If you just know your ancestors came from Ireland frankly you will likely not "find" them. If you know where your Irish ancestors came from you will likely "find" them. Not everything is online. Parish registers are often not on line. Catholic records can be found at the Irish National Library in Dublin. Protestant parish registers are a bit harder to find.