A Great Post by Randy Seaver at http://www.geneamusings.com/ is the list of best genealogy posts this past week (June 28 – July 4, 2009). I’ve read several and plan on going back for more.

The BallyCastle Blog (http://www.goballycastle.com/blog/index.php ) has an interesting short piece on variations in Irish Place names. It might be worth your time to scan this blog and website as there is quite a bit that might appeal to people interested in Irish Genealogy.

Here is a great resource for Irish Genealogy. This is database of Irish Immigrations form the Boston Pilot hosted by Boston College ( http://infowanted.bc.edu/ ). Since they explain well, here is a quote from their website:

From October 1831 through October 1921, the Boston Pilot newspaper printed a “Missing Friends” column with advertisements from people looking for “lost” friends and relatives who had emigrated from Ireland to the United States. This extraordinary collection of 31,981 records is available here as a searchable online database, which contains a text record for each ad that appeared in the Pilot.

The advertisements contain the ordinary but revealing details about the missing person’s life: the county and parish of their birth, when they left Ireland, the believed port of arrival in North America, their occupation, and a range of other personal information. Some records may have as many as 50 different data fields, while others may offer only a few details. The people who placed ads were often anxious family members in Ireland, or the wives, siblings, or parents of men who followed construction jobs on railroads or canals.

I’d like to thank the Looking4Kin blog for bringing this to my attention:
http://looking4kin.blogspot.com/2009/06/2-great-sites.html

Well strictly speaking this isn’t really Irish Genealogy but sometimes it can be useful for Irish Genealogy or just web surfing. We’ve all known the frustration of clicking on a link that seemed promising only to get the “404 Not found” error. Sometimes that is just an error in the URL but sometimes it may point you to a page that was there but has disappeared.

For that there is the Wayback Machine. Just copy the URL that wasn’t found and paste it into the”Take me back” box at http://www.archive.org/web/web.php. With any luck you might find what you were looking for.

For those with an Ancestry subscription or thinking about getting one, the Ancestry blog reviewed several databases of Irish interest last St Pat’s Day. I’m a bit late in mentioning that but I suppose it is a case of better late than never. Anyway, the blog entry is at http://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?p=3300

Jack

I was looking at a film of the 1905 New York State Census and this caught my eye. Although this family is no relation that I know of, I thought it might help someone.

address: 316 W. 28th St, New York, NY
assembly district 9 election district 19
Name relationship age born yrs in US occupation
Michael Reidy head 38 Ireland 22 Railroad Foreman
Annie wife 35 U.S.
Erin dau 15 U.S.
Leila dau 13 U.S.

I’m posting this from http://www.jackreidy.com/reidy/reidymisc.htm as a blog post might get more attention than something buried on a webpage.

Jack

A recent post ( http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/06/limerick-ireland-burial-registers.html ) in the OliveTree Genealogy blog says that “Limerick City Council has become the first local authority in the country to put its burial registers on-line” and gives the link as:
http://limerick.ie/Archives/MountStLawrenceBurialGroundRegisters1855-2008/

So if you have an interest in the Mount St Lawrence Burial Ground Registers be sure to have a look.

Jack

For those of you interested in status of the online version of the 1911 Census of Ireland, there is a series of recent posts in the blog by Margaret Jordan – http://mjordan.wordpress.com/

Irish Genealogy Tips

These tips just point you in the direction of some good resources. In your case some may be helpful and some not so helpful.

I noticed the links did not come through as intended. So I am adding this as a webpage (which was my original thought anyway)

So the post with working links is at:
http://www.jackreidy.com/ireland/tips.htm

Here is the post with non-working links:

1. Maybe someone has already done a good bit of work on your family but you don’t know it. Perhaps a third or fourth cousin you don’t know. Or there might be some people searching the same surname who are not closely related but may have some advice. One way to check that out is my surname page

2. There are also mailing lists where you get emails on a topic which could be a surname or interest such as Irish genealogy or even as local as Co Limerick genealogy. Maillists work by sending a copy of each message to posted to all subscribers. Some lists are very small and some are large.

Generally on lists, it is good practice to subscribe and then just read messages for a week or 2 before you post. Get a feel for the list. And read the welcome message you get when subscibing. List owners often describe the type things that are allowed and not allowed on their lists. Mail lists are a very powerful way to get your message in front of many people who may be able to help. Make a good first impression. Learn the types of things that are unacceptable on the list, how people ask questions, etc.

Many lists are hosted by Rootsweb. You may want to check out the Rootsweb Maillists. There are 2 search boxes and you can search the archives for a name or term of interest. Or search for a maillist (Find a mailing list) by keyword. The keyword Ireland pulls up about 200 mailing lists out of the 30,000 or so lists at Rootsweb.

3. There are also many websites with good information. If you are new to Irish genealogy you might want to check out one of these:

•Fianna’s Irish Guide
•Rootsweb Guide General Genealogy explained
•Where to Start (Paul Gorry, Ireland)
•Researching From Abroad Good advice from GEN UKI
•IGSI Starting your research

If you have a place name in Ireland and don’t know where it is try the 3 sites listed below. Remember the spelling you have may not be correct so if you can’t find a match try spelling variations. Or sometimes if you mention it on a list (see #2 above) maybe someone will recognize it. But try these first.

•Irish Ancestors Irish Times Ancestor site . See their ‘placenames’ search function

•IreAtlas a townland database

•IrishGen.com The ‘places and divisions’ section was ‘coming soon’ when I looked but it is worth a try. Lots of other info too.

If you’re ready to move beyond the basics, one of these would be a good starting point.

•http://www.irishgenealogical.org/ Irish Genealogy (IGSI)
•http://www.jackreidy.com/ My index page
•http://www.genuki.org.uk/ UK Genealogy
•http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ IrelandGenWeb Project

4. This relates to all above. Let others know the names you are searching and the questions you have. Maybe you’ll find someone or someone will find you and they may know more (or less). The real power of the internet is not the records you’ll find online. There are some but not that many. It is the person-to-person sharing that goes on. It may be on very general matters or very specific but it only happens when people know about each other. Participate in a maillist list if you want. Also leave queries and register your surname interested when you can. You might want to explore Rootsweb. They have a very large web site with all sorts of resources. They are the online home of many genealogical societies (including the IGSI) and host many mail lists (including SHAMROCK). And among many things you will find the the world’s largest surname interest list.

5. There is an amazing amount of information on the internet, most of it free. Just look at my search page for more information on searching options.

Most all of it’s a hobby (although it borders on obsession in many cases) so enjoy it.

Jack

Welcome.

I hope this will be a useful forum for those with interests in Irish Genealogy.   There are several categories (see list to right). The default mode displays all posts in reverse chronological order.

Welcome.

I hope this will be a useful forum for those with REIDY  ancestors (or spelling variations of Reidy).  There is no need to stick strictly to genealogy.  Reidy news or whatever you think may be of interest is welcome.

This is new to me so other than no obscenity and no porn, I’ll just have to make rules as we go along and I see what happens.