GG Grandmother Maria McLoughlin

The first place to start your search is in your own home - talk to elders in the family - find out abouttheir parents, grandparents etc. Perhaps they have a story of one of your ancestors? Things to enquire about include: occupations, places of residence, who they were living with(people often stayed with others from their home villages after emigration), siblings & other familymembers, first names (important -as usually past from father to son/mother to daughter) ages attime of emigration, possible dates of birth/death, religious denominations. Also ask if there are anysurviving photographs, old documents or letters - record all the information you can find. Write/telephone other members of your family to check details -perhaps they can remember otherfacts about your ancestors? Hopefully when you have done this - some clues will emerge! After youhave identified the emigrant- begin tracing the steps back to Ireland. Do you know much about their emigration? The dates, the reason why they left, who they mighthave travelled with..etc.? Generally more information was given at the port of arrival rather than theport of departure. If you knew which city they arrived at (e.g. Liverpool, Ellis Island), this could be agood place to find more information, and perhaps even find out an exact place of origin. Shippingmanifests can be checked ?which may lead to more clues. The next thing you could do is find the counties and places in Ireland your family names are mostprevalent. Look at the website http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/ and perhapssomething will match some other clue you may have found elsewhere? If nothing turnsup ? it is advisable to try different variations of the spellings of the names. If you have a possiblefirst name you could try the Irish Census 1901, 1911 at www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ or the landvaluation record called Griffiths Valuationhttp://askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml  AUSTRALIA: Have you checked the immigration records in Australia? Generally, more informationwas given at the port of arrival rather than the port of departure. The University of Woolongong hasproduced, on microfiche, a complete index and transcript of all information concerning immigrantsof Irish origin recorded on ships' passenger lists between 1848 and 1867. These are useful for findingout an exact place of origin as well as parents' names. The Public Record Office of Victoria has goodonline databases of settlers at www.prov.vic.gov.au Otherwise, other records may be found in theColonial Office Papers of the UK National Archives, class reference CO 201. This class contains a widevariety of records, including petitions for assisted passages, emigrants' lists, records of emigrants onboard ship, petitions from settlers for financial assistance and much more.