Griffith’s Valuation
15 March 2019Here is something that I think will be a help to everyone tracing their family history. I was recently trying to locate a property in Griffith’s Valuation. I wanted to see who owned a field in the mid-19th century and was trying to match the occupier with the specific lands in...
Act your age, not your shoe size!
01 March 2019You may have read news reports about Emile Ratelband, back in November/December 2018. Mr. Ratelband, aged 69, was applying to have his age legally changed to 49, as he felt this more accurately reflected his age. The Dutch court rejected his request, but it put in my mind the numerous...
Date your Ancestors
15 February 2019Given the penchant of Irish families to use the same names across the generations, it is very easy to get muddled up between great grandfather John, and uncle John. So, any family tree you draw up should include the lifespan of each ancestor. Even if the specific dates are not...
Researching with House Books
24 January 2019While the majority of the work we do involves researching family histories, we are also often commissioned to undertake house histories. I’ve always enjoyed this work as it can involve looking at early Ordnance Survey maps, estate accounts, Griffith’s Valuation and the like. I am always delighted if the house...
Tidying Up your Research Files
11 January 2019The start to 2019 has been challenging on a personal level – this week I began to organise my research-files. As anyone who has recently re-arranged their study knows, it has been a gruelling few days. Not the heavy lifting, although who would have thought cardboard boxes were so heavy? The...
The value of Headstones
20 December 2018In some families, it is customary to visit graveyards at Christmas time, in remembrance of lost loved ones. Of course, for genealogists, graveyards with their carved headstones are part of our stock in trade. It becomes second nature to photograph headstones and they can prove invaluable in a research project. One...
Double Trouble – Not Always.
30 November 2018As genealogists we often face situations where there is a lack of documentary evidence to prove a familial connection. Therefore, we are always seeking innovative ways of building a case for probability of a record being of relevance. One of the more unusual pointers is multiple births (i.e. twins, triplets,...
Coast guard records
09 November 2018We recently completed a report where a client’s ancestors were employed in the Coast guard service on the eastern seaboard of Ireland. The Coast guard service was established in Ireland in 1822. A large proportion of their records are held in the Public Records Office in Kew, London. Some of...
Baptismal Records can hold hidden clues
26 October 2018It is always useful to view each and every baptismal record for your ancestor’s family. A recent case gained enormously from such an examination of the baptismal records. The case concerned a family who emigrated to Canada. It was believed that the date for their departure could be narrowed to a four year...
Are you looking in the right place? By Fiona Fitzsimons
12 October 2018Since 2013 I’ve written a column, ‘Kindred Lines’ for History Ireland magazine. It’s more “historian and the city,” than sex and the city”, but it nourishes my inner history nerd. In each issue, I take a different set of historical records and examine the evidence and its relevance to Irish family and...
Using School Registers in your research
21 September 2018It’s back to school in our house – my children have ipads, there is a school app which we can use to make payments and read school news. I imagine that the paper trail that children leave in schools, as everywhere else in life, is rapidly dwindling. I doubt that their...
Dates can affect which record sets you should be looking in…
31 August 2018In order to search successfully for your family, you need to know what record sets are available from the timeframe your ancestor lived. A key date, for Irish families, is when civil registration of births began. Here I will just deal with births, as the situation with the recording of marriages requires...
