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CONNIE LENZEN, CG |
A Little Bit IrishBy Connie LenzenAn article published in the 17 March 2005 issue of the Vancouver Columbian. |
In honor of St. Patrick's Day, the stores are displaying green shamrocks and
leprechauns and clay pipes. This is a time to celebrate the Irish and Irish
heritage.
I have Irish ancestry, but I haven’t found my Irish connections. It’s
not for lack of trying. I’ve worked on the Irish lines for a number of
years, and I still don’t know my Matthew Miller’s father’s
name or his mother’s maiden name.
Knowing that your ancestor came from Ireland is not enough. You need toknow the exact name of your ancestor and his or her parents. All I know is that Matthew's mother's name was Mary Miller, and she was born in Ireland around 1808.
You need to know what year they emigrated.Hundreds of thousands of Irish left Ireland during the Famine, and there is no index that contains all their names.
It’s even better if you know the port where they arrived. The Irish came through dozens of American and Canadian ports.
You need to know the exact place where they lived in Ireland because there is no main index of Irish births.
The three key words in Irish research are name, location, and date. And that
is usually what we don’t know.
Family tradition may be able to provide answers to these questions. In most
cases various records have to be searched for this information. Figuring out
what records is a challenge. Accessing the records is another challenge. We
are in the Northwest, and Ireland is on the other side of the world.
Much of our Irish research is done on the Internet, and that provides challenges,
too. We need to locate websites. Cyndi’s List is the place to begin this
search. Cyndi Howells, a Washingtonian, is the creator of the award-winning
web site Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet, www.CyndisList.com.
It is a categorized index to almost a quarter million online resource.
Several thousand links for Irish research are found in the “Ireland”
section. In the “how to” section, there are links to articles on
how to research. An especially good one is the Ireland Research Outline. It’s
research guidance from Family Search, the Mormon website.
Each county in Ireland has a Heritage Center that provides genealogical research services. For a fee, they will check church and civil records. They have copies of these, and many of them have been computerized. I just sent off my check to the Ulster Historical Foundation. Hopefully, they have information on Matthew Miller’s 1828 birth in Belfast.
© 2006
Connie Lenzen, CG
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