Genealogy

[Desert Orchid]

Just wondering if anyone has successfully traced their genealogy?

I'm trying to do so with a view to securing the necessary documentation for my application for Irish Citizenship.

The local library has free access to Ancestry but it looks US-based and heavily linked over there.

I did find some stuff and it looks like I'll have to pursue my mother's line (to Athy) as my great-grandfather on my father's side was born in Scotland and his father was born in England. It's the generation before that that traces back to Ireland so that would not qualify me on that line.

My mother's father was from Athy as were his antecedents but I'm not sure how accurate the records are. I've heard stories of the bastertin British army destroying records.

[Grasshopper]

Best of luck with it, DO.

My maternal surname is Kelly, but I (think I) miss-out on descent-qualification by one generation......which is a real pisser.

If I was a qualifier, I'd immediately be signing myself up as a Jackeen (or maybe a Culchie - not sure exactly where in the old sod my GGF was born), to retain my EU citizenship post-Brexit

[Desert Orchid]

Thanks, GH.

Mrs O has had little difficulty in getting her own paperwork together. Probably the most difficult/embarrassing bit was not being able to find our marriage certificate. She had it in her mind that it was framed and once adorned the wall of the the marital chamber. Sadly, I had to remind her it was the Papal Blessing she was thinking of! (God knows where that is now.)

Anyway, her mother lives with us and had lots of certificates in an old biscuit tin so it wasn't so bad. But her side is from Northern Ireland but we're told that still qualifies her.

I'm a wee bit upset for my daughter as she is desperate to maintain her European citizenship. maybe she can come to Spain with us and become 'naturalised' in time.

[reet hard]

My son was into it big time s while ago but lost interest after discovering one of his antecedents was incarcerated in a debtor's prison in Stafford in the mid-19th century.
pmsl, actually.

[Grey]

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/

You might be able to make a start here. If you can find where your mother's family lived from the census you can then apply for the relevant birth certicate here

http://hse.ie/eng/services/list/1/bdm/Certificates/

[Desert Orchid]

I've found another very useful site:

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/

[Marb]

Edit

[Grey]

I've found another very useful site:

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/

You seem to have it all there. The main point is there's no need to be paying commercial search fees.

[granger]

I think i'd rather not know what lurks in my past if the current lot are anything to go bye

[Desert Orchid]

All this stuff prompted me to phone my oldest surviving aunt who is from my mother's side.

She is 81 or 82 herself now but even she didn't know about some of the stuff I found. I was gobsmacked (as was she) to find that my mother's mother (ie her mother) was born only a couple of hundred yards from where I went to primary school in the village. I always thought my father's side was 'indigenous' to the village (certainly through his mother's side with his own roots to Ireland a couple of generations before him) and I knew my mother was born in Clydebank so I always thought their geographical histories merged at their marriage. Not so. It turns out my maternal line also traces back to the village.

I knew I had many cousins (I have a total of 40 cousins, at least half of which remain(ed) in the village and very many distant relatives in the area) so I suppose this explains it.

I remember when I was in Primary 7 I sat beside a girl I got on well with for a wee while. Out of the blue one day she said, "Did you know we are second-cousins?" I had no idea. My mother went into a long explanation about how Sally's mother and her mother were distantly related and that in fact we were second-cousins three or four times removed. I imagine Sally must have told her mother that she and I had been placed beside each other in class (I think it was for a project) and her mother wanted to make sure nothing happened!