Mary Horan Connolly parents

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. 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 Also try looking on these sites sir. Irish Newspaper Archives:http://www.irishnewsarchive.com/ The National Archives of Irelandhttp://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/ The National Library of Irelandhttp://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx The National Archives UK ? genealogy search:http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/  

This is the census record for the Connolly family of Ballykeenaghan (Rahan, King's Co.)

1901:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/King_s_Co_/Rahan/Ballykeenaghan/1469847/

and 1911:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/King_s_Co_/Rahan/Ballykeenaghan/559394/

My suggestion would be that you post your message on the Rahan message board and there is a higher chance of a local person seeing it: http://www.irelandxo.com/group/rahan-offaly

Remember to include all the information you have and all the sources you have already tried...this avoids duplication and helps in the search.

Good luck with your search

Dolores O'Shea

Ireland XO Animator for Co. Offaly (King's County)

Connoly family still live in Ballykeeaghan. Michael and his sisters Helen and Anna live in the area.