Looking for Ancestors

Hi,

Thank you for your message.

Your search will be much easier if you can try and narrow down where in Donegal the family 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 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.

Have you looked in Griffith?s Valuation? This is a land record from 1848-64. It doesn?t give any genealogical information but can sometimes be used to tie a person to a specific place. Here are the William McDonald?s recorded in Co. Donegal:

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=doNameSearch&Submit.x=43&Submit.y=22&Submit=Submit&familyname=McLaughlin&firstname=william&baronyname=&countyname=DONEGAL&unionname=&parishname=

Have you tried looking into immigration records? Sometimes you may be lucky and find a place name in these.The Public Record Office of Victoria has good online databases of settlers at www.prov.vic.gov.au

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

Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/index.htm

Irish Genealogy Tool kit: http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/

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

From Ireland: www.from-ireland.net

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support