Irish Research

The up-to-date version of this post will be maintained at: http://genweblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/ireland.html

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Irish Counties are like US states, while the Baronies are more like our counties. Baronies are comprised of Parishes, which are somewhat like townships in the US. Parishes are divided into Townlands of varying size. They may be farms or platted sub-divisions, and can range from a few acres to over a thousand acres. So one needs to know County, Barony, Parish and Township.

Book: The General Alphabetical Index to Townlands and Towns, Parishes, and Baronies of Ireland published in Dublin in 1861 as an adjunct to the Census of Ireland. It has been reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1984, 1986, 1992, 1995, and 1997. John Giacoletti says "It is one of the essential must have and use tools for genealogical research in Ireland."

Brian Mitchell's A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland shows outline maps of all the parishes and baronies. There are also townland maps that will show the placement of the townlands within the parishes.

The townland outline maps are available in 78 microfiche maps through LDS. Notes for these fiches say: "It is the intention of this series to show, on a county basis, all townlands within their respective civil parishes. To 1898, the civil parish was the major administrative division. The two great surveys of the 19th century - the tithe assessment and the Griffiths valuation - were compiled on this basis with householders listed by their townland address. Use the index at the beginning of each county to identify the parish you need. Beside each map is a list of each parish's constituent townlands." You can find these in the FHL Catalog using the Topic search for Ireland - Maps, or click: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=titledetails&titleno=402231&disp=Irish+townland+maps%20%20&columns=*,0,0
Fiches are only 10 or 15 cents, and are permanent. So ordering all of Ireland would be less than $12; individual counties can be ordered also. Townlands and parishes are listed on PRONI (Townlands in Northern Ireland) and the IreAtlas Townland database.

The 1837 edition of Samuel Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Ireland: http://www.libraryireland.com/topog/index.php

Tracing Irish Trees: http://rwguide.rootsweb.com/lesson21.htm

New aid to researching Irish immigrants to the USA has come online, an index to the Missing Friends column that ran in The Boston Pilot, the Roman Catholic newspaper in the city, from 1831 to 1921. For more information see this article at Boston.com: The Irish immigrant past gets tie to today. The database: http://infowanted.bc.edu/. More than 31,438 records.

Irish immigrants to the US 12 Jan 1846 - 31 Dec 1851: http://www.archives.gov/aad/

Click on the red Search button on the top left. See: All Series | People | Indexes to Other Records. Click on the People option. Don't enter any other data yet. This will get you to a page called List Series That Identify People. Scroll down almost to the bottom, to: Title: Records for Passengers Who Arrived at the Port of New York During the Irish Famine, 1977-1989
Creator: Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies. Center for Immigration Research.
Level of Description: Series from Collection CIR: Center for Immigration Research Collection.
Click on this entry and you will see a search screen where you can search by the person's name or by the ships name. Wildcard is available.

Centre for Migration Studies: http://www.qub.ac.uk/cms/ - Library, Irish Emigration Database Project, and Master's Degree studies

The Massachusetts Archives is indexing a million immigrants who came through Boston 1848-1891: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcsrch/PassengerManifestSearchContents.html

Finding Irish - the Missing Friends database: http://infowanted.bc.edu/, http://www.bc.edu/centers/irish/studies/

Genealogy Today: A formula to find that Irish pot of gold: http://www.columbian.com/03112004/neighbor/125154.html

The Study of Genealogy in Ireland: http://www.irishgenealogy.com/

Irish Origins: http://www.irishorigins.com/

Eneclann: http://www.eneclann.ie

OtherDays.com: http://www.otherdays.com

The Irish Ancestral Research Association (TIARA): http://tiara.ie/

The Irish Genealogical Research Society: http://www.igrsoc.org

The Irish Genealogical Foundation, O'Lochlainn's Irish Family Journal: http://www.irishroots.com/

Irish Ancestors: http://scripts.ireland.com/ancestor

The Directory of Irish Genealogy: http://homepage.tinet.ie/~seanjmurphy/dir/

The Centre for Irish Genealogical and Historical Studies: http://homepage.tinet.ie/~seanjmurphy/

Ulster Historical Foundation, Irish and Scots-Irish Family History Research - some free databases, strong in County Antrim & County Down: http://www.ancestryireland.com

Irish Genealogical Society, International: http://www.rootsweb.com/~irish/

GoIreland: http://www.goireland.com/Genealogy

Irish Names: http://www.ireland-information.com/heraldichall/irishsurnames.htm

The Irish Times: http://www.ireland.com/ancestor/

Irish Phone Books Online: http://www.goldenpages.ie/extra/phonebook.html, http://www.11850.ie

Thanks to Eastman's Newsletter for some of these links.


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