Keenan, Winnie from Co. Mayo

Hi Mary,

Thank you for your message.

Civil registration only became compulsory in Ireland in 1864 so given Winnie?s date of birth you should be able to find her birth record in these records. Civil records are available from the General Register?s Office in Dublin. Here is their website:

http://www.groireland.ie/research.htm

You can search the indexes to these records online at:

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1408347

For more information on civil records and how to obtain them go to: http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/Irish-civil-registration.html

With regards to John, it may be more difficult as he was born before civil records began. The only record of his birth will be in local church records, however without knowing the parish he was from there is no way to determine what records you need to search in. There are some places online where some church records are available. You may be lucky and find some record relating to John that will give you a place of origin:

www.familysearch.org has a huge database of genealogical records including some church records for Ireland.

www.rootsireland.ie have a large collection of Irish Church records, however you have to pay to use this site.

http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/ have begun a project to upload Irish church records to their site free of charge. However so far only Counties Dublin, Kerry, Carlow and parts of Cork have been covered.

Do you know if he was married before he left Ireland? If he was you could try searching civil records for the marriage cert in the hope that he got married after 1864.

Also have you looked into his emigration much? Generally more information was given at the port of arrival rather than the port of departure. If you knew which city they arrived at (e.g. Liverpool, New York, etc.), this could be a good place to find more information. -And perhaps even find out an exact place of origin.

For information on US immigration records check: http://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/

Some other websites that you may find useful are:

The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/

The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx

The National Archives UK ? genealogy search: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/

The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history.htm

Genealogy Links: http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/mayo/index.html

I hope that this is helpful.

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support