Grandfather - Locke-maybe Harold A. or Francis

Hi,

Thank you for your message.

You do not mention your grandfather?s date of birth in your message.

If he was born in 1864 or after you should be able to find record of his birth in civil records as this is the year when civil registration began officially in Ireland. 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

If you can find his birth record it will give you a parish of origin and his parents names which will allow you to search further.

If he was born before 1864, I?m afraid it will be more difficult as all births, deaths and marriages before 1864 were recorded by the local parish church. These records are still mostly held locally so you really do need to know the parish where the event took place in order to know what records to be looking at.

Do you know his parents? names? If you do it may be possible to look for them in Griffith?s Valuation. This is a property valuation survey that was carried out in Ireland 1848-1864. It doesn?t give any genealogical information but it can sometimes be used to tie a person to a specific place:

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/

You could also try searching for the family in the 1901/1911 census records here:  http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

Have you tried looking into Francis? emigration? Sometime an exact place of origin was recorded at the port of arrival so it may be worth a while looking into it. Some websites that you may find useful in terms of his emigration are:

Ellis Island: http://www.ellisisland.org/search/passSearch.asp

Castlegarden: http://www.castlegarden.org/

US National Archives/Immigration info: http://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/

Some more general websites that may be helpful 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

Familysearch: www.familysearch.org

Genealogy links: http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/armagh/index.html

I hope that some of this is helpful.

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support