Looking for Irish ancestors

[Debbie]

I have discovered that my 3x great grandfather was born abt 1796 in Limerick, Ireland and emmigrated to Canada in the 1830's or 40's. I've tried searching on igi, but have been unable to find anything. Is there anywhere else I might be able to search and perhaps be able to go further back on my tree?

[Christine in Herts]

When you say " I've tried searching on igi", have you tried the pilot/beta site, too? They're putting more and more on that site, and there's quite a bit of Irish material there.

Christine

[Debbie]

No I haven't, thanks I'll give it a try.

[Cloggie]

This is the site Christine referred to: http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html But I'm afraid it won't be much used to you given the time period you're looking for. The LDS pilot site contains the Civil Registration Indexes, but civil registration in Ireland didn't start until 1864 (1845 for Protestant marriages). You'll need to look at parish records to get back any further.

You could have a look in the LDS catalogue to see if they've filmed any records for the parishes you're interested in: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/libr...meset_fhlc.asp
And then you could order the films to view at your local family history centre: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/libr...ameset_fhc.asp

There is also this pay-per-view site: http://www.brsgenealogy.com/ but coverage is incomplete.
To see what records are covered, go to the site for a particular county (by clicking on a county on the map), and then under the Free Index Access box, click on the link "** For a detailed list of the records that are searchable, click here"

[Debbie]

Thanks Sarah. I did go to the pilot site and there were no records I hadn't already seen. I'll try the other one.

[Debbie]

Unfortunately, no luck there either. Why couldn't all my ancestors come from England? I guess my brick wall remains.

[Janet]

To be quite honest if you have got as far back as 1796 in Limerick, then consider yourself very lucky. Even if you went tio Ireland it is very doubtful you would get much further back. If you look up Limerick on the Genuki site you will find out when the baptismal records start for the various parishes so you will need to know the parish to start looking. IGI has extremely poor coverage of Irish records particularly for those records pre 1864. You are into parish records once beyond 1864 and to access parish records in Ireland you need to understand the diocese, the barony and the townland and the townland is the most important.

Are your ancestors Catholic or Protestant as whichever they are will determine your way forward.

The other way of accessing is through the Griffiths Valuation, not the Index and this will be found on Irish Origins at http://www.irishorigins.com/ with some free ones available at http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffi...tion/index.xml. Griffiths goes back from 1845 to 1864 roughly abnd will only give you the male second name but will at least tell you where the families are and gives you other information about house acreage and lessor. If the families have decent plots of land, owners or tenants then they may also be in Tithe Aplotments about 1824 but these are not online, at least I have never seen them online. I have only ever seen these in Ireland.

Key in Irish Research into the box at the top of the page and you should get a lot of help as to progress forwards. I am only back to 1798 myself even with many visits to Ireland, simply because the records are not there pre 1820.

Janet

[Debbie]

Thanks Janet, I'll consider myself fortunate then.