Guinness. Its best synonym now is the craic of St Patrick’s night, so no wonder people with only the slenderest strand of Gaelic blood today proudly call themselves ‘Irish’. Consequently, when the English 2001 census allowed, for the first time, people to choose ‘Irish’ as the best description of their ethnicity, the figure for people in England with Irish origins leapt from 10 per cent (1991) to 25 per cent!
The true number of people with Irish roots is still unknown. But I know one thing for sure: the more people dig into their family past, the more Irish roots will be uncovered.
FURTHER READING
A. Bielenberg (ed.), The Irish Diaspora (Longman, 2000), contains fascinating articles on many of the countries where the Irish settled.
Irish Diaspora website: www.irishdiaspora.net.
CHAPTER 2 Using and storing records
Once you’ve found out all you can from the family, it’s time to start using original records in public archives.
First, you need to trace back to identify your migrant ancestor. Then, you must seek as many clues as possible to help find where in Ireland they originated. Finally, you can use Irish records to prove the place of origin, and trace further back. Each country’s records are different, so later we’ll look in detail at Argentina, Australia, Canada, England and Wales, New Zealand, Scotland and the United States, and finally Ireland itself. First, however, we will look at the main categories of records you’ll encounter in all these countries, and how they can be used.
The ‘Irish’ royal family?
The British Royal family has its fair share of Irish blood. Henry II’s maternal grandmother was the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, descended from Fergus Mor Mac Erc, the Irish prince who founded the Scottish monarchy (see p. 41). All subsequent English monarchs have had Irish blood, with an important extra dose when Fergus’s heirs, the Stuart kings of Scotland, became kings of England as well in 1603. In the 19th century, John O’Hart hoped that by publishing a family tree showing this in his Irish Pedigrees he would ‘conduce a kindly feeling on behalf of Her Gracious Majesty towards ourself and our bleeding country.’ In addition, the late Queen Mother’s maternal great-grandmother Anne Wellesley was the niece of the Irish-born Duke of Wellington and a 4 x great-granddaughter of Mary O’Brien, a 19 x great-granddaughter of the Irish king Brian Boru (d. 1014), through the Barons of Inchiquin and the Kings of Thomond. Prince William’s mother, the late Princess Diana, meanwhile, was daughter of Frances Burke-Roche, descended from the Barons Fermoy, a family with extensive Anglo-Irish ancestry.
Archives
Records will usually be held either in the archives of the organisation that created them, or in public archives, either local or national. Use www.cyndislist.com to find the archives you want. Their websites will tell you opening times and what identification you’ll need, and many have online catalogues. If you are unsure, contact them in advance of your visit to be certain they have what you want.
It is not always practical or sensible to visit an archive, so luckily there are other options:
1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also called the Mormon Church, has the world’s largest (and ever-growing) archive of microfilm copies of original records from all over the world, including much for Ireland. Founded in 1830, the Utah-based church has a religious mission to trace all family trees, identifying all humanity in the context of living descendants or relatives. The living hold ceremonies giving the deceased the opportunity of becoming Mormons, should their souls so desire. They have Family History Centres in most major towns: find your nearest at www.familysearch.org. They are open to all – entirely without any compunction to convert – and here you can order any Mormon microfilms (MMFs) to be delivered from the Mormon’s Family History Library in Utah.
2. Genealogical societies often have substantial libraries. The Society of Genealogists (SoG) in London, for example, has a vast collection of printed and manuscript sources covering all Great Britain and Ireland, including much on the Irish in Britain, detailed in A. Camp, Sources for Irish Genealogy in the Library of the Society of Genealogists (SoG, 1998), which you can buy when you arrive.
Catholic registers
Many Catholic registers remain with the church where they were created. To see them, telephone or write (enclosing a prepaid envelope or international reply coupon) and ask for a search, or for permission to do so yourself. Be extremely clear and courteous – most priests’ spiritual duties are more pressing to them than tracing your ancestry – but if you meet real obstacles you can always try enlisting the local bishop’s help instead.
3. You can hire genealogists or record agents. Genealogists like myself charge higher fees and organise and implement all aspects of genealogical research. Record agents charge less and work to their clients’ specific instructions – ‘please search the parish registers of X for the period 1730 to 1790 for baptisms of any Fitzgeralds’, for example. Most archives have a search service, or a list of local researchers. Many advertise in genealogy magazines or at www.genealogypro.com, www.expertgenealogy.com and www.cyndislist.org. Most are trustworthy, and many offer excellent services, though ability varies enormously. Generally, the more prompt and professional their response, and neater their results, the more likely they are to be any good. Hiring help is not ‘cheating’: if you only want one record examined but are not sure it will contain your ancestor, it makes no sense to undertake a long journey when you can pay someone a small fee for checking for you, and a local searcher’s expertise may then point you in the right direction anyway.
Storing information
Some people prefer using family tree computer programmes. A comparative table of those available is at www.my-history.co.uk. Many are based in ‘Gedcom’ format – so once you have typed in your data you can transfer it between programmes – including the ones used in Genes Reunited and ancestry.com. Others (like me) aren’t so excited by these programmes: most have limitations, or pester you for ‘vital data’ that you don’t have. I prefer hand-writing family trees and keeping more detailed notes in computer word documents. The following ‘narrative’ method allows much flexibility:
Joseph O’Riley
Write everything you know about Joseph. Then write ‘his children were’ and list them:
1 Eustace O’Riley, the next member of the direct line, so after his name type ‘see below’.
2 Thomas O’Riley. Put anything you know about Thomas and his descendants here. If he had children, then write: his children were
1 Anthony O’Reilly.
2 Ignatius O’Reilly. And if he had offspring, then…
1 Connor O’Reilly, and so on.
