How to Find Irish Relatives
Finding Irish relatives, both living and dead, can require more legwork than finding relatives from other countries. Due to the great Irish fire that destroyed centures of Irish records, as well as a government order that destroyed many other records, people who are searching for their ancesters will not be able to find census records for any date between 1850 and 1901. There are other ways, however, to find your relatives from Ireland without relying on census records.
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Instructions
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1
Talk to as many relatives, especially older ones, as you can. Write down names of towns that they remember; names of their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives; and important dates in their families, such as the date of a death, divorce, marriage, or birth.
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2
Join a genealogical society, such as the National Genealogical Society or the Irish Genealogical Society, for a small membership fee. The organization will give you information about genealogy meetings, tutorials, and other resources that can help you in your search.
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3
Search for some of the names and places from Step 1 on ancestry.com, which allows you to search the databases from "The Irish American," a newspaper that printed a classified section in the late 1800s in which people searched for relatives.
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4
Sign up for origins.net to access various sources of genealogical information, such as old census data, tithe defaulters documents, marriage and wills records, military records, and passenger lists. Locate as many family members as you can using these resources, and take note of any other family members listed next to them. For example, there may be several family members listed together on a passenger list.
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Look further into the family members you found in Step 4. To find living relatives, you will need to find out who a child married and trace the child's resulting children.
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Use sites such as Eircom Phonebook to locate the descendants who you found in the previous step.
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Tips & Warnings
You can also visit Ireland to explore cemeteries, local offices, or old homes for more clues about your ancestors, as well as possible relatives who are still alive today.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Irish Flag image by Rebs O from Fotolia.com
