Finding my grandmother

Hi Mary thanks for your message.

I have passed it on to a volunteer who may hopefully be able to assist you.

In the meantime however, it would be very helpful if you could post as much information as possible about your grandmother. Do you know what parish she came from? This would really help narrow down the search. Religious denomination is also important in determining which records are relevant to your research. Also do you know anything about her emigration? 

Remember to post as much information as you can with regard to the people you are researching. The more information you post, the more likely it is that one of our volunteers will be able to advise or assist you. Also include information concerning which sources you may have already used so others may further your search.

Please be patient - as our programme has only begun to rollout across the island of Ireland and volunteers in some areas may not yet be organized.

Kind regards,                    

Genealogy Support 

Hi Mary,

Our volunteer has come back to us regarding Mary Collins, unfortunately she was unable to find any information on her.

Have you tried looking through Church Records for information? You can see what records are available in Dromtarriff Parish at the irishtimes website if you follow this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Cork%20North-West&parish=Dromtarriffe&churchid=47

For Church of Ireland Records you can check at http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42 and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/

You may be able to find record of her family in the Irish landrecords called the Griffiths Valuation. This was a survey carried out between 1848 and 1864 in Ireland. Griffith's Valuation can be used as an excellent census substitute for the years after the Great Famine as censuses prior to 1901 were destroyed. You can carry out a search of the Valuation here:

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/ 

Other websites that may be of use to you ae the National Library and the National Archives of Ireland found at http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/ respectively. 

Have you checked the immigration records in Australia? The Public Record Office of Victoria has good online databases of settlers at www.prov.vic.gov.au Otherwise, other records may be found in the Colonial Office Papers of the UK National Archives, class reference CO 201. This class contains a wide variety of records, including petitions for assisted passages, emigrants' lists, records of emigrants on board ship, petitions from settlers for financial assistance and much more.

If all of this fails, perhaps you could try contacting Mallow Heritage Centre in North Cork to see if they can help. However they may charge a fee for this. Their contact details are:

27-28 Bank Place,

Mallow,

Co. Cork.

Phone: (022) 50302     Email: mallowheritagecentre@gmail.com

I hope that these links are of some help to you Mary. 

Kind regards,

Genealogy