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Genealogy in Ireland - The Basics
Looking to do genealogy research about Ireland? Here are the basic ways to get information on Irish genealogy.
First, Ireland is divided into four provinces, and each is made up of counties. Most people know about places such as County Cork, County Kerry, County Wexford and so on. Each county has its own family research center which has gathered up most of the town and church records for that county, and provides research for a fee through those records. Check out the Irish County Genealogy Research Listing for more details on those centers.
Religion is extremely important in Ireland, and each church began keeping its records in a different year. Most records go back to the early 1800s. Something to keep in mind is that as the English Protestants moved into Ireland and took control, they would often use a native Irishman's church records against him, to track him down for taxpaying. So many churches deliberately did not keep records during the early years, so that the records could not be confiscated.
In 1830 a country-wide tithe record was made, of every Irish person and the tithe (donation) they paid in to the church. This is one of the more valuable sets of records in Ireland. In 1850 a country-wide property valuation ("Griffiths") was done.
Just as the US does a nation-wide census every ten years, Ireland also did a census each 10 years from 1821 through 1911. Unfortunately, you might recall that there was a civil war in Ireland in the early 20th century, and that some of the heavy fighting took place in the national archives. Because of this, records from 1861 through 1891 were complete lost, and many records from the previous years were lost as well.
If you wish to visit Ireland, you can go to the National Archives to do research there. Otherwise you'll need to hire a professional genealogist to delve in their records.
More about Griffith's Valuation
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Note - Lisa Shea wrote this content for the genealogy site at BellaOnline.com - you might still find this content there as well. That's fine :) I gave permission!
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