looking for ancestors

Thank you for your interest in Ireland Reaching Out. 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. 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 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/

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