Tracing Your Irish Roots

Whether building a family tree or simply researching the history of their ancestors, people of Irish heritage will find the means to track down elusive family records and relatives in this detailed and practical handbook. Throughout history, genealogy has been highly valued by the Celtic people. The heads of Irish families often could enumerate their ancestors far back to times of legend, to Conn of the Hundred Battles, or to Queen Medb herself. Ancestor-hunting is particularly important to the descendants of those who left Ireland during the great emigration of the 19th and 20th centuries. Here those descendants will learn how to undertake a genealogical search and develop it as far as possible using parish registers, census returns, gravestone inscriptions, newspapers, and birth, death, and marriage certificates. From finding family information online to tracking down public records, the methods revealed in this resource help sort through all the genealogical information available.

Christine Kinealy is the author of The Great Calamity: The Irish Famine and A Disunited Kingdom: England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales.