One thing about researching in Europe – there is no central location for records. Let’s say you are researching your Irish or Scots-Irish ancestors and you are looking for records. Where do you go? Well, that depends…. In order to locate records for Northern Ireland or the Republic, you need to know the town or parish or county or province (you get the idea) your immigrant ancestor came from. Many Irish records are located by land divisions.
Briefly, Irish land divisions start with provinces, Ulster, Munster, Connacht, and Leinster. Next, we have counties (26 of them in the Republic and 5 in Northern Ireland). These are: Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow, Antrim, Armagh, Down, Derry (or Londonderry), Fermanagh, and Tyrone. Next, we have baronies, parishes (ecclesiastical and civil), townlands, Poor Law Unions, Superintendent Registrar’s District (for civil registration), and District Electoral Districts. Each of these divisions vary in number.
Work on locating records in the country your immigrant ancestor settled. For US, check marriage records, naturalization records, census records, etc. If you strike out, try other family members or neighbors (immigrants usually settled next to others from the same area). Once you find the location, you are ready to research records in Ireland. We will cover some resources in a later blog.
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