Jeremiah McGrath, born ant 1856, emigrated to Australia

Hi Shane,

Thank you very much for your message.

It may be difficult to find more information without knowing the parish that Jeremiah came from. Most Irish record sources- church records, land records, census records- are based on specific locations. Until you know a specific location within Ireland, preferably a parish or placename, it may be difficult to do anything more with these records.

Do you have any documentation pertaining to the family that mentions any place names in Donegal at all? This can include wills, marriage/death records,census records, letters, diary entries etc.

There are some places where you can search online, however it may be difficult to discern whether the results are relevant to your family or not without more information:

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.

Using Griffith?s Valuation you can see the number of McGrath households that were recorded in CO. Donegal in 1857, unfortunately there is a large number of households however at least it helps to narrow it down albeit only a small bit:

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=doNameSearch&familyname=mcgrath&firstname=&offset=0&countyname=DONEGAL&parishname=&parishname&unionname=&baronyname=&totalrows=100&PlaceID=0&wildcard=

Have you tried looking into the family?s emigration? Sometimes more infomation can be found at the port of arrival rather than that of departure. You may be lucky and find a place name here. The University of Woolongong has produced, on microfiche, a complete index and transcript of all information concerning immigrants of Irish origin recorded on ships' passenger lists between 1848 and 1867 for New South Wales. These are useful for finding out an exact place of origin as well as parents' names. http://www-library.uow.edu.au/archives/collections/UOW095480.html

The Public Record Office of Victoria has good online databases of settlers at www.prov.vic.gov.au

It may be an idea to contact Donegal Ancestry when you arrive, however please note that a fee may apply.Here are their contact details:

Donegal Ancestry,

The Quay,

Ramelton,

CO. Donegal.

Phone: +353 (0) 74 9151266     Email: info@donegalancestry.com

Some 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/donegal/index.html

From Ireland: http://www.from-ireland.net/

Donegal Genealogy:http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~donegal/

I hope that you and your partner have a lovely time over here!

All the best,

Genealogy support

Thanks for your reply Emma - much appreciated. We do have quite a bit of information already - about Jeremiah and his spouse (Minnie Ada Skeats), and also the family who we suspect to be Jeremiah's Parents (Owen and Ellen McGrath) and Siblings (based on passenger lists from the Nile ship), but we just dont have that vital piece of evidence that links the adult Jeremiah to the child Jeremiah. However we have ordered a Death Certificate of the Jeremiah whose parents are Owen and Ellen, and we're hoping it will include his spouse's name also - and if it's Minnie, we know we're on the right track! Unfortunately I dont think we'll receive the certificate before we head off to Ireland.

We also know that the Owen McGrath who we suspect to be our Jeremiah's father came from Grousehall, Donegal, and Ellen came from Termon, Tyrone.

Thanks again for your help and useful links.

All the best

Bindi & Shane