Looking for relatives of John Gilmore and Mary Higgins

Hi Darlene,

Thank you very much for your message. I am delighted to hear that you are visiting this year, I hope that you are able to find some information beforehand.

Have you tried tracing the family up as far the 1901/1911 census records? This may help you in your search for relatives.

The first place you could try looking is in church records. If you can find either John or Mary?s birth records it will give you parents? names which will help you in your search for any possible siblings. A useful website is the Irish TImes where they show you what Catholic records are available in specific parishes. For Killarney follow this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Kerry&parish=Killarney&churchid=675

Irish Genealogy have started a project whereby they are uploading Irish church records (both Catholic and Church of Ireland) to their websites free of charge. It is an ongoing project so only a small number of counties have been covered so far, however Kerry is one of them! You can search these church records here:

http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/

Civil registration became mandatory in Ireland in 1864 so you may also find some relevant records here. Civil records are available from the General Register?s Office in Dublin. Here is their website:

http://www.groireland.ie/research.htm

You can search the indexes to these records online at:

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1408347

Finally there are the 1901/1911 census records which can give lots of useful information. These are available here:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

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

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

Family Search: www.familysearch.org

It may also be an idea to contact the Local Studies Department of kerry Co. Library for some assistance and advice. Here is their contact page:

http://www.kerrylibrary.ie/local.asp

I hope that some of these are helpful and that you are able to find some information before you visit. We have recently added a link to the top of our webpage for people who are visiting in 2013. It takes you to a short web form. We would really appreciate it if you could take a moment to complete it. Thank you!

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