Family History

Births/Baptisms/Marriages/Deaths ? pre1790-1800 ? The reality of finding documentationpertaining to births/baptisms/marriages/deaths in Ireland prior to 1800 ? particularly in rural areas? is that they simply may not exist. Some registers for urban areas pre-dating 1800 may exist ?though often these can be fragmented- as there was an increased need in cities or larger towns todocument the population. Please also note that the Church of Ireland was the official church of thecountry and therefore the bulk of information that does survive for earlier periods is often fromthese registers. ROMAN CATHOLIC: Most Catholic records are held locally - One site which might be of use is -http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/ - where you can ?browse? an overview of availablerecords per county. If you have any difficulty, you could try writing to the parish priest for possibleassistance. 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. 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