I am coming to Ireland in three weeks. I've been doing genealogy for decades, know that my gr-gr-grandfather's name was Charles Fitzsimons, that he left Clondalkin in 1850 for America. He married Anne Haley who came from Cork. I plan on visiting the churches in Clondalkin to find my ancestors, but wonder if anyone has any knowledge of this family.
Thanks!
Sunday 7th Apr 2013, 03:13AM
Message Board Replies
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Hi,
Thank you very much for your message. I am very sorry for the delay in responding to you. I hope that you have had a lovely visit and that you were able to find some information on your ancestors while you were over here.
Did you know that Irish Genealogy have started a project to upload church records to their website free of charge? Only a small number of counties have been completed so far including Dublin and part of Cork. Hopefully you should be able to find records pertaining to Charles here. Also, if Anne was from Bandon, records from this parish are also available:
http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/
Another useful website when it comes to Catholic records is the Irish Times where they give an overview of what records are available in specific parishes. For Clondalkin follow this link:
For Bandon follow this link:
Also, civil registration began in Ireland in 1864 so any births, deaths or marriages in the family after this date would be recorded in these records. 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
Have you tried looking in the 1901/1911 census records to see if there was any family still in the area at the time? You can do this online at:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/
Some other websites that you may find useful when researching your family history 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
Dublin Heritage: http://www.dublinheritage.ie/
Genealogy Links Dublin: http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/dublin/index.html
Genealogy Links Cork: http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/cork/index.html
Family Search: www.familysearch.org
I hope that some of these are helpful and once again I am very sorry that we missed your visit. 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