Melissa2Ireland
Registered User
Posts: 41
(8/12/05 3:02 am)

Diving into Irish GENEOLOGY research? Me too!!!

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Anybody else diving into geneology research, and planning their first trip to Ireland at the same time? It's exciting! It's fun! It's addicting!

I'm visiting Ireland, the land of my beloved Irish grandmother's birth, next summer 2006 with hubby and 2 daughters.

I just spent $125 making 20 2-page color laser digital xerox copies of Irish Great Granny's passport ("Travelling to America", early 1900's!) plus copies of an old photo of some Irish cousins of my Dad I never met... Whoa, horsie... I have big plans and no idea of the best way to go about it! It's fun though.

Last night I spent 2 hours painstakingly printing out, piece by piece, and taping back together, a 1930 Philadelphia census listing my Dad living with his Irish immigrant mom and dad and siblings... there's gotta be an easier way, I tell you! (See, the census has to be magnified to read it on the computer, and then it's too big to fit on 1 sheet of paper when I print it out...

Does this sound familiar to anybody else?! I'm big on imagination and drive and motivation, but very low on technical know-how.

I also joined up for a 1-year subscription to research on www.ancestry.com . This gives me the privilege of tracing my elusive Irish grandmother, who changed her name numerous times and had 2 husbands...I think I found her name on a ship's passenger list that arrived in Philadelphia though! I also found the ships which carried her siblings to America in the early 1900's. Can't find great-Granny's ship yet though, even though I have her passport. (Can't keep the passport. It belongs to my "1st-cousin-once-removed"...(who thought that term up?!) That's why I made all those copies...

The Haverford ship took many Irish immigrants from Liverpool, England to Philadelphia, "America" in the early 1900's. They just swam across the ocean to Liverpool. (NOT. I don't actually know how the Irish immigrants got from Ireland to Liverpool, nor do I know why they went that way...) There was a war on at the time as the passport says it's NOT good for "the war zone".

Next summer we will visit Southwest Ireland, West Ireland, Dublin, and Northern Ireland. My beloved Irish grandmother was from Northern Ireland, so I'm planning to visit there for 3 nights (County Armagh.)

1 of grandmother's siblings stayed in Ireland and married and moved to County Wexford. Wonder if I have any distant "cousins" there?

Have any of you done geneology research?

garyvol
Unregistered User
(8/12/05 9:10 am)

geneology

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Hi Melissa,
My wife Mary’s mom was a Byrne dating back to the Wicklow area. Relatives here suggested we poke around their. We soon gave up following a chat with a fellow on the Wicklow sidewalk discussing geneology. His last name was a Byrne , so we figure it was as common a name as Smith is here in the states. We did however enjoy touring the Wicklow Gaol (restored) and learn of the hardships endured by the Byrne Clan and getting a photo op of the Billy Byrne statue in the town square.

You seem to have lots of energy for this subject. That’s good .
-gary

irisheyes
Unregistered User
(8/12/05 1:32 pm)

family history

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Hi Melissa,
We have chatted before in another thread. I have some basic family history given to me by my father. Our family ancestors come from County Cork, County Kilkenny and Glandore (sp?) which I believe is in Northern Ireland. Since our trip will be our first (going in June too), we are not planning to visit N. Ireland but we do hope to see Kilkenny and Cork and explore that area a bit. Good luck in your search!
Also, I noted you are coming from LA. We will too. When do you think you will make reservations? Just curious, I'm not ready yet... I did note that Aerlingus has a great special going on in early October (expires 10/15 - something like $239 round trip from LA to either Shannon or Dublin! Bummer that we won't be able to get anything near that in June. More like $700 per person.

Melissa2Ireland
Registered User
Posts: 42
(8/12/05 3:02 pm)

Geneology: Poking Around

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GARYVOL: Don't give up! I'm afraid the advice your relatives gave you is a little like telling an Irishman to land somewhere in California and poke around to find Main st. (And neglecting to warn him that you mean the Main St. at Disneyland, NOT the Main St. in San Francisco or San Diego or Sacramento or....)

Anyway, it is nice to visit the locale, where you know your family ancestors are from. At least you got to do that. But I think you'll get more out of a future trip if you try to collect some info first, like birth or death dates, names, and places, marriage certificates, then you plug that info into a site like Ancestry.com or the Mormons have a free web-site that anyone can use. Forget the site I can look it up if you want.

So you try to trace your "ancestors" first, before you go. You can trace them and take a second trip! Then when you go you might either have a distant cousin to contact, or perhaps you'll have info about where they used to work, or the neighborhood where they lived... Makes it more fun.

There are also some geneology web-sites where people are trying to contact each other, so if you get lucky, others with your last name might have connections with you. I haven't done that yet but I'm going to give it a try.

It's all very time-consuming but if you enjoy the process that's okay.

Well hope you enjoyed your Ireland visit at any rate!

Melissa2Ireland
Registered User
Posts: 43
(8/12/05 3:08 pm)

Re: airfare

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Hi irisheyes, I think when I bought our tickets for a June trip to Italy (2004) I bought them in the fall. I haven't looked at airfare yet as I agree it's a bit too early. I'll probably start looking in September but I can't remember if October or November is the best month for early tickets. (When you need 4 tickets sitting together, I don't like to wait for last minute deals.)

Good luck! Enjoy County Cork and Kilkenny. Are you planning to do any geneology research before you go? As I mentioned in order to get started you have to have some info to start with, like birth or death dates/names/places...or marriage certificates with names/dates...something that is definite fact.

In Michele's book she gives the phone number for the Irish Tourist board in the USA. I called the number and a young woman with delightful Irish accent answered. They send you free info. Among other booklets I asked for the one on geneology. Yay, more piles of Irish info!!! Just can't get enough.

irisheyes
Unregistered User
(8/12/05 3:56 pm)

family history

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Hi Melissa,
I have an "official" ancestor/pedigree chart that my Dad researched and it goes back several generations - dating back to the early 1700's. So I guess my info isn't as sketchy as I thought. Have you seen these charts where you type in the info and it's all numbered? They are available through the Mormon church - most probably online too. I have names, birthdates, place of death, date of marriages, etc. For the Ireland info though, it just states the County, so I don't have names of specific towns. Not sure that I'll have enough time to do more research between now and the trips, but it would be fun to discover the actual towns.

Michele Erdvig
Administrator
Posts: 3339
(8/12/05 6:50 pm)

Re: Diving into Irish GENEOLOGY research? Me too!!!

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Hi Everyone,

I'm glad you are all having fun tracing your ancestors. It is so time-consuming that I just don't have the time to do it for myself. Besides trying to find Cotters and Walshs in Co. Cork is like trying to find Smith & Jones in the NY phone book!

Maybe when I retire!

Michele