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Any tips on tracing Irish genealogy?

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  • #21
    In my case the DNA test won't be wasted because future descendants of some of my siblings may discover a few anomalies that they might want to have a closer look at. In other words my mother was a naughty girl !

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    • #22
      Most of my Irish roots just say born Ireland c1799 - 1860 so no idea North, South, East or West lol.

      When on two occasions there is mention of a place - in 1901 census says Cork or Cook there's no-one of that surname even with spelling differences

      Another mentions Co Fermanagh in 1911 census but again born c1860 and so records come remotely close.

      I am probably going down the DNA line to see if I can connect to someone who knows their irish origins.



      Researching Irish families: FARMER, McBRIDE McQUADE, McQUAID, KIRK, SANDS/SANAHAN (Cork), BARR,

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      • #23
        Irish Tracing is not easy, but not impossible either. Having more Irish ancestry than English and Scottish does sharpen your family history instincts quite considerably!

        It helps to have Irish cousins to contact, though with their oral history, even that can be a nightmare trying to work out which generation is which when the first names number about 5, to include Michael/Patrick/John/James/Margaret and Mary!!

        Have you found Ireland on all Australian Census? Have you found a place, a county for anyone? Have you found any reason for emigrationg to Australia as most Irish went to USA, a much shorter journey? Gold prospecting/convicts might be worth pursuing in Australia for ancestors leaving Ireland 1800 to 1840. The Wexford Rebellion of 1798 would see many peole tried and sentenced to a lifetime in Oz. Also the Swing Riots of the 1830's in England would have many transpirted so transportation could be one rea to look at.

        What last names are you looking at? Some may have been soldiers and went out for a better life by becoming escorts for the convicts so getting a free passage. Some names may be common like Murphy so unless a place is named then almost impossible but other nmaes like Going/Kirby,Martley are not so common.

        If you get any idea of a place then Griffiths,Tithe Aplotn ments can be used as Census substitutes. If you are looking at the South of Ireland then do remember Ireland was just Ireland pre 1922. However, there is a religious divide which has always been there and the North was mainly Protestant and the South has alwaus been around 80% Catholic to 20% Protestant, with smatterings of other religions, so for the RC baptisms you are looking for baptisms in RC churches all over Ireland, with many copies being in the NLI in Dublin, but not all by any means. Most RC records date from around 1820 with some records going back to 1750, though you will find very few going back that far.

        Try putting some names up and see what happens.

        Janet
        Last edited by Janet; 27-07-17, 21:43.

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        • #24
          Hi Janet and thanks for your suggestions,

          Apparently the Australian Census forms are traditionally pulped after the statistics have been compiled to protect people's privacy. Nice for the paranoid but sheer historical vandalism for genealogists!

          The names I have so far are (on my mother's side): William Reid B 1828 and Johanna Shanahan B 1838 both from Count Tipperary. Michael Durack B 1831 and Bridget Hehir B 1836 both from County Clare. John Hetherington (father's name Heatherton) B 1835 County Tipperary and he married Bridget Shaughnessy who was born in Melbourne in 1841 and her father William Shaughnessy was born 1811 and came from County Galway (he died in a dray accident the month before Bridget was born).

          On my father's side: John Webster B 1832 Cookstown, County Tyrone and Rose Hill B 1837 from County Meath (Rose Hill seemed to have a different name every time she cropped up - Rose, Rose Ann, Rosanna, Hill, Healow, Helo, Harlow). William Sayers B 1826 from County Tyrone and Mary Moore B 1840 from Rutland, County Carlow. Thomas Muckle Campbell B 1846 and Mary Ann Reid B 1850 both from Ballyhay, County Down.

          I gathered most of this information from marriage certificates and immigration shipping lists so the years of birth will be approximate. And some of the details came from my best guesses from searching RC baptism records from Ireland so they may turn out to be from the wrong people.

          If anyone is interested in having a look I would be most grateful.

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          • #25
            Further information that might be useful:

            William Shaughnessy B 1811 was married to Mary or Margaret Gill B 1812 from County Galway and her father was Richard Gill.

            John Hetherington B 1836 his father was James Heatherton B 1805.

            Bridget Hehir B 1836 her father was Patrick Hehir and her mother was Bridget.

            Michael Durack B 1831 his father was John Durack B 1800 and his mother was Margaret O'Brien.

            Johanna Shanahan B 1838 her father was James Shanahan B 1810 in County Waterford and her mother was Ellen Hennessy B 1817 in County Tipperary. Actually the immigration passenger list said those were the Counties they came from but I don't know if they were born in those counties.

            William Reid B 1828 his father was also William Reid and his mother was Margaret Dunn.

            Mary Ann Reid B 1850 her father was William Reid and her mother was Margaret Cord.

            Thomas Muckle Campbell B 1846 his father was Hugh Campbell and his mother was Grizel (Grace) Muckle.

            Mary Moore B 1840 her father was James Moore and her mother was Jane Daly.

            William Sayers B 1826 his father was Samuel Sayers and his mother was Jane Brown.

            Rose Hill B 1837 her father was John Hill and her mother was Mary McCabe.

            John Webster B 1832 his father was William Webster and his mother was Margaret McLeer.

            That's all I have for my Irish ancestors and thanks for taking the time to read the list.

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            • #26
              Wow, Quasimodo, that's a great set of family! You are so lucky to have at least that information from their Australian records. Most of us in the UK would give an arm for that much detail! Good luck with ongoing research.
              Anne

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              • #27
                Jumping off the page and smacking me in the eye are Thomas Muckle Campbell and Grizel. Scottish names if I ever heard any. Several of my Scottish female relations are called Grizel, which was Scottish Gaelic for Grace, as you say. Mine were mostly from the Highlands.

                OC

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                • #28
                  Anne yes the Australian side of it has been plain sailing for the most part and pretty quick too. All of the information I have accumulated has been taken from online records and member's family Trees at Ancestry.com. I even picked up quite a good photo of my mother's mother when she was a young woman probably taken around 1905. She was dressed in a beautiful top and looking straight into the camera. "Here I am!" Fantastic really.

                  So I approached the Irish records with a breezy optimism that was soon dashed to pieces. The older records have hardly any detail compared to the later Australian ones. So now the hard work begins...

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                  • #29
                    Originally posted by Quasimodo View Post
                    Further information that might be useful:


                    William Reid B 1828 his father was also William Reid and his mother was Margaret Dunn.

                    Mary Ann Reid B 1850 her father was William Reid and her mother was Margaret Cord.

                    Thomas Muckle Campbell B 1846 his father was Hugh Campbell and his mother was Grizel (Grace) Muckle.

                    Thomas Campbell’s marriage to Mary Ann Reid was registered in Newtownards, Co Down on 7th Oct 1870. You can view the original certificate on-line on the GRONI website, using the “search registrations” option:



                    You will need to open an account and buy some credits. It costs £2.50 (sterling) to a view a certificate.

                    Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church which should be on the certificate (unless it was a Registry Office marriage). That church may be the place to look for her baptism and that of any siblings.

                    Births have only been registered in Ireland since1864 so for Thomas & Mary Ann’s you will need to search the church baptism records in the parishes where they lived. Not all church records have survived and of those that do, not all are on-line. PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast has the most complete set of church records but a personal visit there is required to view them.

                    You say Thomas & Mary Ann both lived in Ballyhay, Co. Down.

                    William Reid is listed in Griffiths Valuation for that townland for 1863. He had a half share of plot 42 which was a 10 acre farm. The other half was held by Hugh Reid. (A brother perhaps?). There’s a John Campbell and a Samuel Muckle also listed in the townland at the same time. The Reid farm today is on the Ballyhay Rd, just west of Donaghadee.



                    6 Reid households in Ballyhay in 1901, together with several Muckles.



                    These families were all Presbyterian so given that information and that they had Scottish names and lived in Co Down you are fairly safe in assuming they are descendants of Scots who moved to Down in the 1600s. (Literally half the population of Co Down has the same origins).
                    Elwyn

                    I am based in Co. Antrim and undertake research in Northern Ireland. Please feel free to contact me for help or advice via PM.

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                    • #30
                      County Waterford Records are one of the oldest RC sets of Irish Parish records available and can get back to 1760ish. They are online for free through NLI Dublin but are not indexed as someone has already suggested. But both FMP and Ancestry have some form of digitisation. Also Tipperary county RC records are quite old and can go back to 1798. Tipperary is a peculiar counnty in that you never quite know what records are available through Dublin NLI and which ones are missing and only available through the Heritage Centre, which means you may have to pay! O'Bien/Brien is a typical Tipperary name. I am missing a marriage around 1820 to 1826 in Tipperary, not available at NLI though I have been told they have a copy at the Brien Boru Heritage Centre!! So far I have refused to pay, but I may have to swallow my pride!!

                      Tipperary County was a real hotbed of Irish Narionalism and Brien/O'Brien one of the big names. Worth looking into the history of these counties, as Waterford borders Tipperary with places like Carrick on Suir right on the border.

                      You have gleaned a lot of information on names and counties and I would now look very closely at the Tithe Aplotments (1820's) and Griffiths Valuations, not the Indexes, but the full Valuations (1840's to 1860's) to see if you can find clusters of your names of interest in those counties.

                      Janet

                      PS to say it is a good idea to know wheter you are researching Protestant or RC records prior to 1864 as they are often researched in different places.
                      Last edited by Janet; 28-07-17, 13:05.

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                      • #31
                        https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/ Free Irish website

                        Search ALL Ireland Civil Registrations Birth Death & Marriages - and view certificate details . Click on a name and if it has ‘image’ on it you can view the pdf file. It can be saved too!

                        They are still in the process of adding images, but there are thousands that you can see now!
                        teresa

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                        • #32
                          Thanks Elwyn, that is tremendous information! Newtownards rang a bell so I checked again on Ancestry.com.au and I see that someone has a copy of Thomas Muckle Campbell and Mary Ann Reid's marriage certificate. They were married on 7 Oct 1870 at the Shore Street Presbyterian Church in the Parish of Donaghadee.

                          That William Reid sounds like a good candidate to be Mary Ann Reid's father. I take it that a five acre farmlet means that he was more or less a subsistence farmer.

                          It seems like most of my Northern Irish ancestors will turn out to be settlers from Scotland so that will change my ancestry roots mix again!

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                          • #33
                            Thanks Janet for your helpful advice! It seems that more of my Irish ancestors came from Tipperary than any other County. It amazes me that some of them packed up and left Ireland and landed in Melbourne in 1841 just five years after Melbourne was founded! Bridget Shaughnessy was born in Merri Creek in 1841 and at that time she was one of around 350 settlers living in basic wooden cabins and tents alongside several encampments of local Aborigines. Talk about a change of scene!

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                            • #34
                              I doubt if it was a huge change of scene in fact! Poverty and starvation were rife in Ireland so Australia must have seemed like the promised land. A bit of roughing it in tents would have been nothing to them. Our ancestors were so tough and I have such admiration for the way they tackled hardships.

                              OC

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                              • #35
                                Originally posted by Quasimodo View Post
                                Thanks Elwyn, that is tremendous information! Newtownards rang a bell so I checked again on Ancestry.com.au and I see that someone has a copy of Thomas Muckle Campbell and Mary Ann Reid's marriage certificate. They were married on 7 Oct 1870 at the Shore Street Presbyterian Church in the Parish of Donaghadee.

                                That William Reid sounds like a good candidate to be Mary Ann Reid's father. I take it that a five acre farmlet means that he was more or less a subsistence farmer.

                                It seems like most of my Northern Irish ancestors will turn out to be settlers from Scotland so that will change my ancestry roots mix again!
                                Quasimodo,

                                5 acres would be fairly basic living. The land in Co. Down is fairly productive though, and it would support a family well enough. They wouldn’t be well off but they would get by. I would say just a bit above subsistence. The people who really had a basic life were the farm labourers who had just a quarter of an acre or less to support their families. So your family were a bit better off than them. They appear to have been able to buy tickets to Australia. Not the cheapest of emigrants journeys, so unless they had a sponsor or came out on a Government scheme, they presumably could afford that.

                                The other thing about Co Down, apart from the quality of the land, was that many had a bit of extra income there from linen making (at home). This brought in a bit of cash and pushed up the quality of life a fraction. Linen making tended to be made mostly in the Ulster counties, and in general during the famine, they suffered less there, than folk in poorer parts of Ireland. Many Ulster farmers came through the famine without too much difficulty because they grew oats and other crops (whose prices rose due to the potato shortage, improving their income). It was the labourers who grew only potatoes that really suffered, and starved.
                                Last edited by Elwyn; 29-07-17, 11:12.
                                Elwyn

                                I am based in Co. Antrim and undertake research in Northern Ireland. Please feel free to contact me for help or advice via PM.

                                Comment


                                • #36
                                  Quasimodo,

                                  Further to my previous post, here's slink to a site which describes Ballyhay and contains a photo of a farmhouse there today. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....ES/Ballyhm.htm
                                  Elwyn

                                  I am based in Co. Antrim and undertake research in Northern Ireland. Please feel free to contact me for help or advice via PM.

                                  Comment


                                  • #37
                                    Originally posted by Quasimodo View Post
                                    It seems that more of my Irish ancestors came from Tipperary than any other County. It amazes me that some of them packed up and left Ireland and landed in Melbourne in 1841 just five years after Melbourne was founded! Bridget Shaughnessy was born in Merri Creek in 1841 and at that time she was one of around 350 settlers living in basic wooden cabins and tents alongside several encampments of local Aborigines. Talk about a change of scene!
                                    Yes, most of my ancestors are from Tipperary as well. I have one line going back to 1798 in that county with a possible link to a Meath family back to the 1600's. but no link found at present. My main line can only be taken back to 1827 at present until I find the marriage. Weaving was a big occupation here and some of mine were weavers before getting into the railways and eventually moving to Cork, UK and the USA. Cork was another hotbed of Irish Nationalism!!

                                    I was intrigued by your Richard Gill, not a last name I have come up against much in Ireland. However, whilst doing a study of life inTipperary during the 1840's to 1870 I came across a paper called "The Tipperary Vindicator" and the proprietor of this paper was a Peter Gill!. He was well known for his views on Irish topics and his paper makes fascinating reading. I was drawn to the paper because I discovered one of my ancestors wrote one letter to the paper in 1859 and I subsequently found another 5 letters written by him. My study of this paper went from 1848 through to 1870 where I made many notes of Life in Tipperay and surrounds at this time in history. You may be able to get copies of this paper to read through a library in Melbourne. Peter Gill tried to become an MP and became embroied in some political problems, which ended in his arrest in the 1870's. The paper is online but not browseable! I also used to belpng to the Tipperary Historical Society and their journals are very informative. Many of their past jounals are available online for free. Just google Tip Historical Society.

                                    I am very intrigued by your ancestos gomg all the way to Melbourne in 1841, but as has already been pointed out life in Rural Ireland would not have been much better.

                                    Janet
                                    Last edited by Janet; 29-07-17, 13:36.

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                                    • #38
                                      Just learnt an interesting point from my OH. He has cousins who farm land in Wexford. We have got his Family History back to the mid 1750's because his folk were tenant farmers of 40+ acres until the 1920's, when they became owners.

                                      He told me that sons of farmers often went to Australia, whilst labourers went to the USA. He has some ancestors, sons of his farming stock, who also went to Australia in the mid 1800's. He also suggested that there were more opportinities in Australia, makes sense as more land available! He also reckons that spme went on assisted schemes quite early on in the 1800's, the English trying to colonise Australia with their own stock?

                                      Janet
                                      Last edited by Janet; 29-07-17, 20:51.

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                                      • #39
                                        The english were worried about the high numbers of irish catholics in australia by the 1840's, and feared them. So they had a whole bunch of schemes to get protestant scots out in the 1850's, around the gold rush times to counter balance that. Kind of helped the famine had made people desperate so they were willing to emmigrate on such schemes. All of my poor irish and scots families made their fortunes, owning hundreds of acres of land in australia. Something unheard of in the uk. From farmer/crofter/fisherman of an acre or two, to owning hundreds? Australian dream, mate.
                                        Last edited by kylejustin; 30-07-17, 00:56.

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                                        • #40
                                          Found posts #38 & #39 VERY interesting, thank you ladies. Probably explains why my poor Irish stock never went to Australia, but to America instead! My first Australian migrants were transportees, so were there because they had to be.;D

                                          Jay
                                          Janet in Yorkshire



                                          Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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