During a recent search for a Maher family I once again stumbled into the mire of difficulty created by the spelling of Irish surnames in 19th century records. This is an obstacle that many Irish family history researchers will encounter during the course of their research. Mass digitization of Irish records has made the issue of the spelling of
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indexes, which were released with great fanfare on the government website www.irishgenealogy.ie last year and quickly withdrawn for security reasons, have been released again.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 MoreQuaker Records
Birth, marriage and death records for the Society of Friends or Quakers are amongst the most accessible and systematic for any religious denomination in Ireland. The Quakers arrived in Ireland in the seventeenth century and from their date of arrival clear and concise records were kept for the life events of members of the Society. Although the Quakers
Read MoreA Note on Burial Registers
Roman Catholic Burial Registers are relatively uncommon in Ireland prior to the 1830s and those that do exist seldom offer more detail than the name of the deceased. However, Burial Registers for Church of Ireland Parishes, where those records survived the fire at the Public Records in 1922, can be quite informative. Standardised forms were introduced
Read MoreA Will Proved a Century Ago: What Can be Done Online?
As an exercise in what can be achieved in online research I recently randomly opened-up a copy of the Calendar of Wills & Administrations for a century ago and read the following calendar entry: HOPKINS, Miles Richard. 10th January 1912. Probate of Will of Miles Richard Hopkins late of 1 Lower Sackville Street, Dublin and 1 Brighton Terrace,
Read More