The Admission and Discharge Registers for three of the four Dublin Workhouses have just appeared on www.findmypast.ie. The registers are for the North and South Dublin Union and Rathdown Union Workhouse, and date from 1840 to 1919. As many Dublin families are likely to have encountered the Workhouse during their lifetimes these registers are a huge
Read MoreIrish Birth Marriage and Death Indexes
The Irish birth marriage and death indexes, which were released with great fanfare on the government website www.irishgenealogy.ie last year and quickly withdrawn for security reasons, have been released again. However, this time the public can only view the index entries for births over 100 years, marriages over 75 years and deaths over 50 years.
Read MoreEndowed Schools and Estate Papers
While searching for records for Midleton School, an Endowed School in Cork in the National Library of Ireland, I stumbled across the papers of Dr. Michael Quane, which included potentially useful 19th century estate rentals, valuations and a mini census of the protestant families of Maryborough from 1891. Michael Quane was born on 7th April 1889 in
Read MoreIrish Newspapers Online
Before the arrival of Irish newspapers online, searching for evidence of ancestors in the press was often a tedious task. Unless the approximate date of an event was known, it could take hours or even days of trawling through every page of a newspaper to locate a report or announcement of the event you are searching for. Not that this type of research
Read MoreIrish Newspapers
Irish Newspapers began to be published from the late 17th century, however, for the purposes of using them as a genealogical research tool, it is not until the mid 18th century that Irish newspapers start to become useful. By the 1750s Irish newspapers were published more widely around the country and began to carry information of genealogical value.
Read MoreIrish Marriage Customs
While searching the Roman Catholic parish register for Kilmormoy in counties Sligo and Mayo (NLI Pos. 4231), I came across the following regulation, copied into the first page of the marraige register. This regulation, decided by the bishops of Killala and Achonry gives us some insight into Irish marriage customs from the early 19th century. Registry
Read MoreFirst World War Irish Ancestors
In July 2014 I spent a day at the WWI Roadshow in Trinity College Dublin helping people to find their First World War Irish Ancestors. The event, organised by RTE and the National Library of Ireland in association with Trinity College Dublin was an enormous success and attracted unexpectedly huge crowds. It seems that the lid has been lifted in on identifying
Read MoreExcise and Inland Revenue Records
Excise and Inland Revenue Records Despite the amount of genealogical and family history records either freely available or though pays sites online, the national repositories of the United Kingdom and Ireland still hold a vast amount of material that can only be consulted on site. The British National Archives, Kew, has over the past number of years
Read MoreBrendan O’Carroll Who Do You Think You Are?
One of the most valuable sources when it came to researching the murder of Brendan O’Carroll’s ancestor, were the Witness Statements in the Bureau of Military History collection. Bureau of Military History Witness Statements The Bureau of Military History is a collection of some 1700 witness statements as well as photographs, documents and
Read MoreJulie Walters Who Do You Think You Are?
For the latest episode of BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? our research into the family of Julie Walters found a most interesting character in her great grandfather, Anthony Clarke. According to his newspaper obituary, Anthony Clarke was present at the first meeting of the Land League at Irishtown in Co. Mayo. With this clue to follow, we investigated
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