General advice when starting a genealogical research
The first step in any genealogical research start with the closest family members and the gathering, organise, and analisis of the family documents we have or can find.
We need to collect information from family members, specially the elderly ones, parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties. Ask them, may be write a interview script with questions about their lives and memories they may have of their childhood, their parents, siblings, grandparents.
We should also not forget our own siblings when doing the research, as older siblings may have different to our own memories and experiences of our parents and grandarents.
We should write down all the information they provide us with in an organised and methodical way.
We also need to review and analise all the documents in the family posesion: diaries, letters, newspaper clippings, old photographs and pay attention to the notes and data written on the back of them. If we have elderly family members, check with them if they can identify the people in the pictures.
Data regarding places where the family may have lived or the place where they were from originally, and also data about the religion they practiced are of vital importance for the research in Ireland.
Main genealogical resources to start researching in Ireland
– Census
Trying to locate our ancestors and family living in a place, in the data from the Census.
Even though Census in Ireland were taken every ten years from 1821 to 1911, the only complete surviving census are those of 1901, and 1911.
Both the 1901 and 1911 census can be check online for free in the National Archives of Ireland website:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/
– Civil records: Birth, Marriage and Death.
The civil registration started in Ireland in 1845 only for non-catholic marriages. The general registration started in 1864 for all births, marriages and deaths.
These records are held in the General Register Office in Dublin and the indexes can be check there and copies order. References to the records can be research and found online in genealogical websites like the free one Familysearch.com, or in suscription ones like Findmypast.ie or Ancestry.com.