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Tracing Your Irish Roots

If you are from Irish descent you have probably given much thought about who were past ancestors actually were. With Irish history, being so long it is possible to track down and find out if you had a great grand father that may have been an English lord living in Ireland or if you have a great cousin who played an important role within Irish politics.

Tracing your family tree takes research but it is well worth the investigation of figuring out your family name. There are many questions you may have regarding tracking down your family line and probably the most popular is where do I start?

First is using the information you already know about your family. Have a large sheet of paper so you can draw out a map of your family line. At the top of the family tree put yourself and your immediate family at the top. Work down the page as you work back in dates, do this until you have included everyone that you know of.

Obtain copies of any birth, marriage or death certificates, which can be obtained from a Registry of Birth, Death and Marriages office. The dates, names and location should be noted as these will comes in useful for future research.

Use your local library to check back on old newspapers for names and locations of dates connected with your family, possibly obtained from certificates of births, deaths etc.

If you can date your family back to the beginning of the 1900’s check the 1901 – 1911 cenus records.

Use address’s of any known relations and check church records and cenus records for more information and if you can obtain an ancestors address dating in the 1860’s check Griffiths Valuation to find out the type of house your relatives lived in.

Information dating before 1800’s can be more difficult to obtain as useful records for this time period are more scarce. With records being scarce there are many places to still check for more information such as business records, church records (if you know their religion), workhouse records and various other places.