How to Find your Irish Ancestors
Researching one's Irish ancestors can be a lengthy process, albeit a fun and exciting one, but if you follow these helpful hints and remain patient and thorough in your research, tracing your Irish ancestors can be a truly rewarding experience.
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Things You'll Need
- Computer with an Internet connection
- Credit card if you intend to pay for genealogy services
Instructions
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Find out (if you can) from family members what county in Ireland your Irish ancestors emigrated from and during what time period. Better yet, if you know what parish or townland your ancestors came from, this will make your search easier since the successful search for one's Irish ancestors depends on access to parish and townland records.
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Start your search on the Internet by going to any number of different Web sites. A good one to begin with is the Irish Family History Foundation (www.ifhf.org), an Irish government-approved research center. See more resources below.
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Look for documents important to the genealogy search of Irish ancestors. They include Irish civil birth and death records, marriage records, census returns, and parish records. The IFHF has millions of such records available to the public. You must pay a small fee, however, for more detailed records.
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Tips & Warnings
Knowing the townland or parish your ancestors came from is important. Many records from the 17th and 18th centuries were destroyed during the destruction of the Record Tower in Dublin Castle in the early 18th century and during the fire at the Ireland Public Record Office in 1922.
Before doing a genealogy search, try to get other important information such as the religion of the ancestors, if any relatives of the ancestors remained in Ireland, and what social status they attained.
Because there is no one-stop Web site offering all of the genealogy services needed for a thorough search, it is best to shop around to find the one that best fits your needs.
Resources
- Photo Credit Colette Connolly
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Comments
View all 8 Comments-
Flybyknight
Apr 08, 2009
Thanks for these helpful tips. My great grandfather was a Mcdonald. -
Virginia Allain
Feb 04, 2009
Thanks for these tips on finding Irish ancestors. I want to travel there someday and see the villages.
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brantsbabe
Jan 27, 2009
I do have some Irish ancestors, so I need to start this process.
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Dino1353
Jan 18, 2009
Good article well written.
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BobbiK
Jan 18, 2009
I've always wanted to find out more about my great-granfather's family. They moved here from Ireland and met my grandmother whose family was from Germany. Ireland is so beautiful...I will got here someday. Thanks for the article - you've got me dreaming.
