COLLINS TRACING YOUR IRISH FAMILY HISTORY

Written by Anthony Adolph

In 1845, a disease from America, phytophthora infestans, ‘potato blight’, swept Ireland. Exacerbated by 3 weeks’ heavy rain at harvest time, it destroyed 30-40% of the crop. The Fear-Gorta, the famine-bringing fairy who took the guise of an emaciated beggar, stalked Ireland’s green hills, and everywhere the life-giving potatoes were reduced to a stinking slime.

The Irish people, once a proud and independent race, but long-since subjugated to the rapacious rule of the British, died in their hundreds of thousands. Those who could staggered aboard the typhoid-infested “coffin ships” and risked everything to reach foreign shores. Even when the famine subsided, the ambition of every young – and not-so-young- Irishman and woman was to start a new life elsewhere. Thus, the populations of (in particular) Scotland, Wales, England, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand were swelled with great influxes of Irish people and Irish blood.

Today, many people around the English-speaking world, to say nothing of Spanish-speaking Latin America, have Irish surnames. A vast number more – maybe almost everyone – have at least one line of Irish ancestry.

Two old Irish postcards. Above left: a Dublin postman delivers good news, and, above right: Edwardian visitors kiss the Blarney Stone

Edwardian Tracing Irish family history can be an extraordinarily rewarding pursuit, and with this book's guidance it need not be as difficult as you might think. First, you need to trace back through the records of your home country, to locate your immigrant ancestor. The first section of this book describes the records of Scotland, Wales, England, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand and explains how to use them for this purpose.

Then, still using your home country’s records, you need to work out where in Ireland your people came from. Sometimes, no amount of research will yield up this secret, so you must turn to the records of Ireland for help. And help is at hand: there are several prime sources that help localize surnames to particular parts of the Emerald Isle, and plenty of records that will help you confirm where your roots lie. Don’t pay heed to those doom-mongers who say all the records have been lost! Many have, to be sure, and many you’d hope were there were never made in the first place, but there’s still plenty there for those who know where to look – as described in full in this book.

Irish surnames are a rich source of information in themselves. Rather like the DNA we carry in every cell of our bodies, Irish surnames contain a huge amount of coded information on family origins. Armed with the right sources, you can de-code Irish surnames to learn where your people are likely to have lived long ago. Most Irish surnames start O’ or Mac – or at least, they used to before the English stripped them away. Mac means “son of –” and O’ means “grandson/descendant of –”. More often than not, the person named as the ancestor is someone you can identify in one of the family trees of the many families of sub-kings of Ireland.

And their ancestry can often be traced back to the kings of the Cúig Cúigí (‘five fifths’) of Ireland – Leinster, Munster, Connacht, Ulster and Meath. These traditional pedigrees are a fascinating mélange of genuinely remembered and faithfully recorded oral histories; ancient Irish legends and traditions, and, it must be admitted, a certain amount of creativity on the part of their monastic recorders. They connect many people with Irish ancestry back to ancient Irish Roots. DNA, interestingly, is proving many of these connections to be true. They also connect vast swathes of people living all over the world who have Irish ancestry back to the earliest Irish traditions, to Milesius, said to be a descendant of Noah, and his intrepid sons who conquered Ireland and founded the Irish nation.

This book explores the routes available for delving into the past for anyone with Irish ancestry. Besides the Gaelic majority, it also looks at families whose origins lie with the immigrations of Palatine Germans, Huguenots, English and Scottish planters, Cambro-Norman invaders and even the Vikings who ravaged Ireland’s shores over a thousand years ago.

All available types of Irish records are covered. The book details where the original records are and what they will tell you, and highlights what is available for searchers in other countries, via microfilm and, increasingly, on the Internet.

This book is a must for anyone interested in their Irish Roots. Ideal for the complete beginner, it also explores the previously neglected areas of surname origins, ancient pedigrees and DNA testing in an innovative way that will fascinate even the most experienced researcher. This book also places Irish records and genealogical research firmly in its historical context, revealing the rich layers of story and tradition that underlie even the most ordinary Irish families.

Tracing Your Irish Roots was published on 1 October 2007.

The book was the subject of a competition in August 2008’s editiomn of Practical Family History.

The book was the basis of two lectures given by the author on 11 October 2008 at the Society of Genealogists, London.

Reviews

Tracing Your Irish Family History was published on 2 October 2007 and was hailed an "Expert’s Choice" of family history book in the Christmas 2007 edition of Family History Monthly (“an ideal gift for any family historian, not only those with Irish connections”).

Anthony Adolph is one of genealogy’s media-savvy faces, an established authority renowned for clear explanations and practical solutions to research problems. This many people know, but what he pulls off here demonstrates his ability to leaven these qualities with a gift for recounting social history in a fascinating and accessible manner. He puts family history firmly within its wider historical context and thereby highlights the strengths and limitations of the sources that he analyses. A book so full of up-to-date practical advice, which is so visually appealing and easy to dip into, is a rare achievement.

The book has four sections: how to trace your ancestors back to Ireland; how to begin your research in England and Wales, Scotland, the USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand; tracing your roots in Ireland; and tracing ancient Irish roots. At each stage, the analysis of the relevant sources is clear and peppered with practical tips about convenient access to sources and possible pitfalls. There is information on major short cuts such as how to contact those already researching the same ancestors and the use of DNA profiling in locating relatives. Numerous concrete sources - many from the author's research into his own Irish ancestry - illustrate general points. Though the sources are discussed for their relevance to Irish ancestors, much of this section - dealing as it does with civil registration, the census and church records - is of wider interest...

The final section, tackling the role of Christian names and surnames, heraldry and mythology... guides the reader through new and challenging territory. This is a resource unavailable in Britain and most other developed countries, and fine judgment is needed to harvest this cryptic territory. At this point, tradition and family history merge and Adolph is a trusty pilot through the mists that lead all the way back to the legendary Milesius.

Together with the 70 million people who claim Irish ancestry - including 25 per cent of the English population - anyone with an interest in Ireland will find this book enthralling.
- Joe O'Neill, Who Do You Think You Are Magazine, issue 2, November 2007, p. 83.

...offers a helping hand to all researchers, whether you are starting 20 generations on from your last Irish forebear, or one. The organisation of this book is appropriate and intuitive…there is also plenty of information and pedigrees relating to the clans and ancient genealogy, which will give even those with very distant or dilute Irish blood an idea of where they fit into the giant Irish family tree… look no further than this excellent book...
- Sarah Warwick, Family History Monthly, Christmas 2007, p. 52.

A book we’ve all been waiting for... Who hasn’t got an Irish ancestor somewhere in the family?, My History (www.my-history.co.uk)

“A major new book on Irish family history.
- Ancestors, November 2007, issue 63, p. 5.

… another splendid, accessible and enjoyable book packed full of useful information.
- Your Family Tree, December 2007, issue 58, p. 85.

Recommended in “Heirs of Eire”, Joseph O’Neill, Family History Monthly, January 2008, no. 152, p. 37.

It is brilliant - I really thought I had got to the end of my research - but you have definitely given me several leads to follow.
- Miriam Geraghty, UK representative of Clan Crowley.

Full of practical advice on how to navigate censuses and religious records, it also contains some stimulating material on surnames, heraldry and the chieftain traditions. With everyone from Muhammad Ali to Barack Obama claiming to have Irish bloodlines, this classily produced book could hardly be more topical – Andrew Lynch, The (Eire) Business Post, 16 December 2007.

Anthony Adolph’s engaging style should provide a winner – Ian Maxwell, Ancestors (the magazine of The National Archives), December 2007, p. 70.

"I am currently very much enjoying your book on Ireland which was lent me a little while ago. I can see how you must have got very involved in genealogy through your own family story. These journeys remind me of Mandelbrodt theory - the way things just amplify exponentionally the more you get into them. Using your own (and other) examples I think very much enlivens what could be a rather heavier read on genealogical basics - Mrs J. Conacher, Perth.

"For a good overview of Irish family history a new book by Anthony Adolph: Tracing Your Irish Family History is well worth reading. It is published by HarperCollins and gives a very readable overview of solutions to problems facing the genealogist" - Martin Rigby, Liverpool Echo, 12 January 2008.

"I also have a wonderful book called Tracing your Irish Family History by ...... by... Anthony Adolph. According to this man my O’Connor line goes back to Noah! Might explain my love of animals and my affinity with rain and boats! - http://caitoconnor.blogspot.com/2008/01/just-day-in-my-life.html.

"This is an excellent book on the present state-of-play in Irish ancestral research… Beautifully presented, it would make an excellent and inspirational gift. " - Michael Gandy, The Catholic Ancestor, vol 12 no2, August 2008.

This is the full test of Tony McCarthy's review in Irish Roots, 2007, number 4, p. 20:

The first thing that will strike a reader of Tracing Your Irish Family History who has some knowledge of Irish genealogy, is the quality of its design and production. We are simply not used to the topic being covered in hardback format, with up to four full colour illustrations on every page. The pictures alone make the book appealing. You simply must flick through it. The illustration captions begin to draw you into the text. Then you start to read the side bars. When you find yourself taking an interest in some of the chap­ter subheadings, you decide to get an overall picture of how the author treats his theme by turning back to the contents page.

His approach seems logical. Part one is headed 'First Steps'; the next section covers: 'Tracing back to Ireland: coun­try by country' and that leads to section 3: 'Tracing our roots in Ireland'. The final section is an addition to the usual fare in 'how to' books of this sort: 'Tracing ancient Irish roots', and certainly arouses interest.

The book came too late for the thorough review which it merits. However, the areas about Irish sources that were read with care seem to be relevant and accurate. All the old favourites are included and described in sufficient detail: Griffith's valuation, the tithe applotment books, civil regis­tration, censuses, church regis­ters and occupational records. A section headed: 'Dictionary of Irish sources' lists and gives brief descriptions of some of the lesser used and more diffi­cult sources, including among many others: the Registry of Deeds, estate records, Land Commission, hearth money rolls, shipping lists and wills. That chapter finishes with a useful 'further reading' list.

What most knowledgeable Irish genealogists would regard as a weakness in the book is to be found on page 72. There, the author glosses over what usually amounts to the biggest problem encountered by researchers among the Irish Diaspora — making the con­nection between the emigrant ancestor and a particular local­ity in Ireland. Americans in particular find it difficult if not impossible to make that transAtlantic connection. The prob­lem is introduced thus: 'If you're lucky, you'll know where in Ireland they were liv­ing, but in many cases, "Ireland" is as much as you will have found. So what next?'

He suggests using the sur­name as a means of 'localising' the ancestor. This way of pro­ceeding is based on the fact that many Irish surnames are specific to certain parts of the country. Indexes to sources such as Griffith's valuation and the tithe applotment books indicate the number of occurences of a surname in various administrative divi­sions. Using those indexes and Matheson's Special Report on Surnames in Ireland, the author suggests, may pinpoint where in Ireland the ancestor origi­nated. This is a long shot and requires an amount of work that many would consider to be excessive. However, he does make other suggestions as well, including the use of DNA testing.

On reflection, perhaps the author is right to adopt an optimistic tone. Perhaps peo­ple are getting fed up of hear­ing about all the marvellous records that went up in smoke in the Four Courts building in 1922, and the almost insur­mountable problems that event created for Irish genealo­gists.

In the final section, 'Tracing ancient Irish roots', the author does not give the impression that there is any great likeli­hood that you may end up with a documented pedigree going back to Brian Boru and before. He states simply that 'your surname may indicate your place in ancient Gaelic pedigrees.' He then goes on to give a clear and interesting account of the old Irish genealogies and the myths on which they are.

based. DNA again comes into this chapter and the author recounts how it has helped to confirm some of the ancient Irish genealogies and has cast farther doubt on others.

The foreword is written by popular broadcaster Ryan Tubridy. Though it consists of no more than the waffle one might expect, it would appear to confirm that the publication has an eye on a wider reader­ship than the existing small genealogical community. I have no doubt but that the bright and lively format, the wide scope of the material, the thorough research and the engaging style of writing will put Tracing your Irish Family History at the number one spot in the 'how to trace your Irish roots' category.