Surnames and your Irish roots

52 questions, answered plainly.

Where does the Irish Escapes surname information come from?

From two public domain works.

What does the surname map actually show: where a name lives now or where it was rooted in 1890?

Where it was rooted in 1890.

How do I find my surname, its Irish form, meaning and heartland counties?

Start on the surname map page and type the name into the explorer, or pick it from the A to Z.

My surname is not among the 795 mapped names. What should I do next?

Do not conclude the name is not Irish.

Does an Irish surname mean I can claim a family coat of arms?

No.

Where do I start tracing Irish ancestors if I only know a name and a rough date?

With the free records, in the order that hands each step the information the next one needs.

Is the 1926 Census of Ireland really free, and which counties does it cover?

Yes, completely free, with no account or subscription involved.

Where do I find Irish birth, marriage and death records, and which years are online free?

At IrishGenealogy.ie, the State's own free site, where the civil registers are indexed with images of the register pages themselves.

Why does a surname have more than one Irish form or more than one place of origin?

Often because the same English spelling covers different families.

Can I request that a surname be researched and added to the map?

Yes.

How do I search the 1901 and 1911 censuses for a household?

Use the free census site of the National Archives of Ireland, which covers all 32 counties for both years.

What information will a census household return give me for older research?

The household return, Form A, lists everyone in the house on census night: name, age, sex, relationship to the head of household, religion, occupation, marital status, and county…

Where can I see Catholic parish registers for Ireland, and what dates survive?

At registers.nli.ie, the free site of the National Library of Ireland, which holds images of the surviving Catholic parish registers for the whole island.

What is Griffiths Valuation, and how can it place my family on an exact townland?

Griffith's Valuation, properly the Primary Valuation, was a survey of every property in Ireland published between 1847 and 1864 to set the local tax called the Poor Rate.

What is a townland, and why does it matter more than a village name in Irish research?

A townland is the smallest division of land in Ireland, and there are just over 61,000 of them in the Placenames Database.

How do I find the parish, poor law union and district electoral division for a townland?

Start at logainm.ie, the Placenames Database of Ireland.

What records help if my ancestors left Ireland before civil registration began?

Civil registration began in 1864, with non-Catholic marriages registered from 1845, so earlier families are traced through other records.

Where do I research ancestors from Northern Ireland specifically?

Start with the records that cover the whole island: the 1901 and 1911 censuses are free at the National Archives, and civil records before partition sit in the same Irish system.

What can Tithe Applotment Books tell me, and for which years?

The Tithe Applotment Books were compiled between 1823 and 1837 to fix the tithe, a tax payable to the Church of Ireland, owed by occupiers of agricultural land.

How do I follow an Irish family after they arrived in the United States, Canada, Britain or Australia?

Work forwards in the new country before trying to jump back.

Which paid genealogy services are worth using after the free Irish records?

Judge each one by what it holds for a specific parish and period, not by its total record count.

What can county genealogy centres and RootsIreland add that free sites do not?

The county genealogy centres, working through the Irish Family History Foundation, transcribed registers from the originals held locally, and RootsIreland is their shared database.

How do I plan a heritage trip around a townland, parish church and graveyard?

Do the record work first and travel second.

How does the planner build a Surname Trip from a name's heartland?

From the surname dataset behind the map.

What should I bring or copy before visiting a county archive in Ireland?

Bring the research in a form that can be used at a desk.

Can DNA testing help with Irish roots, and what are its limits for finding a place?

Yes, as supporting evidence, and no test can name a townland.

Why might my family name be spelled several ways in Irish records?

Because spelling was not fixed for most of the period the records cover.

What do prefixes such as O, Mac, Mc, Fitz and Ni mean in Irish surnames?

Woulfe sets out the pattern plainly.

Are Kane and Keane, or Connor and O'Connor, treated as the same surname in the dataset?

The two pairs are handled differently, and the dataset follows Matheson's own practice.

What does a surname rank or estimated population for 1890 actually mean?

Both figures come from Matheson's analysis of the 1890 birth registers.

If a surname is missing from a county table, does that prove no families lived there?

No.

How do I find a graveyard or headstone inscription for an Irish ancestor?

Start from the townland and parish, because burial followed the parish more often than the county.

What records survive from the Irish Famine years, and where should I look?

Less survives than families hope, and what does survive is scattered.

Can I visit the actual house or plot shown in Griffith's Valuation today?

Often the plot can be found, though the house on it may not be the house in the valuation.

What is the difference between a civil parish and a church parish in Irish records?

They are two maps of the same ground drawn for different purposes.

How do I avoid attaching the wrong same name family to my tree?

Slow down at exactly the point where a match feels welcome.

Where do I research ancestors from County Antrim?

Start online with the Ulster Historical Foundation, the Irish Family History Foundation centre for Antrim and Down: its parish registers, civil transcripts and gravestone…

Where do I research ancestors from County Armagh?

The county centre is Armagh Ancestry, the genealogy service run with Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council as part of the Irish Family History Foundation: its…

Where do I research ancestors from County Carlow?

Carlow works a little differently: it has no standalone genealogy centre, so start on RootsIreland, where the county's Catholic registers for 14 parishes, some 217,000 records…

Where do I research ancestors from County Cavan?

Cavan Genealogy, based in Johnston Central Library on Farnham Street in Cavan town, is the county's Irish Family History Foundation centre, and its database is the starting point:…

Where do I research ancestors from County Clare?

Clare is one of the best served counties in Ireland.

Where do I research ancestors from County Cork?

Cork is a split county, and knowing the split saves weeks.

Where do I research ancestors from County Derry?

Derry Genealogy, the Derry City and Strabane District Council service, is the county's Irish Family History Foundation centre, and its records are on RootsIreland: around a…

Where do I research ancestors from County Donegal?

Donegal Ancestry, the county's Irish Family History Foundation centre, now works from the Old Courthouse in Lifford, and its database of almost a million records is on…

Where do I research ancestors from County Down?

Start online with RootsIreland, where the Ulster Historical Foundation provides County Down's records: parish registers across ten denominations, Roman Catholic, Church of…

Where do I research ancestors from County Dublin?

Dublin splits three ways, and the best of it is free.

Where do I research ancestors from County Fermanagh?

Fermanagh takes a little more patience than most counties, and local help matters here.

Where do I research ancestors from County Galway?

Galway is now a one centre county: the Galway Family History Society, based at the Woodford Heritage Centre, is the Irish Family History Foundation centre for the whole county,…

Where do I research ancestors from County Kildare?

With the county's own service.

Is Kelly a County Kildare name?

Yes, as Kildare as a name gets.

What does the Kildare genealogy and heritage centre hold, and can it search records for me?

Kildare Genealogy holds computerised transcripts of most of the county's Roman Catholic parish registers, running to 1899: the heart of any Kildare search, with baptisms in the…

After Kelly, which surnames were most common in Kildare in 1890, and why?

Murphy, with 34 birth registrations to Kelly's 40, then Dunne on 32, Byrne on 28 and Nolan on 20, with Connor and Smith on 18 apiece.

Useful pages: The Irish surnames map · Trace your Irish roots · The 1926 Census guide · Coming home · Irish around the world · Plan your journey

Sources

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