Matthew O'Connor

AUSTRALIA:Have you checked the immigration records in Australia? Generally, more informationwas given at the port of arrival rather than the port of departure. The University of Woolongong hasproduced, on microfiche, a complete index and transcript of all information concerning immigrantsof Irish origin recorded on ships' passenger lists between 1848 and 1867. These are useful for findingout an exact place of origin as well as parents' names. The Public Record Office of Victoria has goodonline databases of settlers at www.prov.vic.gov.au Otherwise, other records may be found in theColonial Office Papers of the UK National Archives, class reference CO 201. This class contains a widevariety of records, including petitions for assisted passages, emigrants' lists, records of emigrants onboard ship, petitions from settlers for financial assistance and much more. NEW ZEALAND:Do you know much about their emigration? The dates, the reason why they left,who they might have travelled with?..etc.? Generally, more information was given at the port ofarrival rather than the port of departure. If you knew which city they arrived at, this could be a goodplace to find more information -and perhaps even find out an exact place of origin. There are lots ofbooks and documents available about the Irish emigration to NZ. There is a website you could lookat: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/irish/2 for information about the Irish in New Zealand.

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 these links Sir;

SURNAME SEARCHYou can check for information about the frequency of the name in the mid-19thcentury and any other variant spellings of the name here: http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/ 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