Welcome Home!

Today I received an email from the Ireland Reaching Out project asking if I would publicize their efforts on my blog.

I am very pleased to do that as I have an earnest belief in the objectives of the organization –  to make contact with the diaspora of each parish in Ireland to invite them to visit the land of their ancestors. This is a bottom up initiative, that arose from the Global Irish Economic Forum that met in Dublin some years ago.  The project, initially rolled out on a pilot basis in some Galway parishes has been supported by a grant from the Atlantic Philanthropies, who have been good friends of Ireland since Chuck Feeney made that first  investment in 3rd level education in this country.

Now in its second year, the project has already been rolled out in many parishes with the ultimate goal of having a branch in each of 2,500 parishes across the length and breath of this island,  connecting with the Irish diaspora and helping them trace their ancestors.

Discovering the ancestral home – part of the service from Ireland Reaching Out . Photo from Ireland Reaching Out

Today, this wonderful picture was posted on Facebook. It shows a family of 18 people standing in front of their ancestral family home in the County Cork village of Kildorrery. This house was the home of a great-grandfather and had been located by the local Reaching Out Group .

If you don’t know your parish of origin, knowing the county of origin will help.  Ireland Reaching Out (Ireland XO) aims to work parish-by-parish around the country to connect parishes here with Ireland’s global diaspora and help people of Irish ancestry trace their descendants. The organisation is also working with the Gathering 2013 initiative to boost the number of people visiting Ireland next year, and it was one of this year’s Arthur Guinness Fundwinners, receiving a €100,000 prize and business mentoring over the coming two years.

Here is the letter from Dolores :

Ireland Reaching Out – Unlock your past in Ireland!

Dear Reader,

If you are reading this, it could mean that either you or your ancestors are from Ireland. Have you ever wondered exactly where your people came from and what has made you who you are? Typically the Irish across the world try at some time in their lives to reconnect with their home land. The Ireland Reaching Out Programme is here to help in that discovery.

 Ireland Reaching Out is a new voluntary initiative seeking to identify those who left Ireland, in order to trace them and their descendants worldwide. A team of volunteers is involved in the Irish Government-sponsored project, researching the names of Irish emigrants, contacting them or their descendants and inviting them to (re)connect with their ancestral parish.

Above all, Ireland XO builds on the paper trail of the records that may only get you so far, by providing that final link of local knowledge. We link you directly to people from the communities of your ancestors and use their knowledge to perhaps finally discover that elusive headstone, or the spot where the ancestral home once stood, or to even seek out some long-lost cousins.

 By joining any parish community online you can seek direct genealogical research assistance from local people in the area who also volunteer to meet you should you make a return visit. You can join your parish on our website www.irelandxo.com or contact us by email: info@irelandxo.com or ‘phone: +353 (0)91 842013.

 Yours sincerely

 Dolores O’Shea

Ireland Reaching Out | 25 Dunkellin Street | Loughrea | Co Galway | Ireland
Tel: +353 (0) 85 1925466 | Email: doshea@irelandxo.com | Web: www.irelandxo.com

References:

Atlantic Philanthropies 

Ireland Reaching  Out 

Recent Irish Television Programme 

The Future of Our Past – from Clare Roots Society

Clare Roots Society recently hosted a Genealogy and Family History Conference in Ennis, Co Clare with the theme ‘The Future of our Past’. The audience included attendees from Switzerland, the United States of America, New Zealand, Australia and the UK, as well as Irish from far and near.

The Edge of Clare . Image Wiki.Commons from Flickr by atomicpuppy68

Clare Roots Society is an Ennis based amateur family history, genealogy and heritage group in County Clare.  Established in 2006, it has members at home and overseas, many of the latter being actively involved in transcribing historical records, thereby making family research so much easier for researchers.Among their varied activities they have organized the recording of graveyard inscriptions, some school rolls, parish records and that most unique of Irish records,mortuary cards. In addition they organize workshops and lectures and work closely with Clare County Library, which in turn is  host to a myriad resources and is a model for every county library in Ireland.

The ‘Future of Our Past’ experience was a first for me, who dabbles in Family History. It was with some  trepidation that I headed off to Ennis one wet Saturday morning in October. Not being from Clare, and the only known tenuous connection with the county being that my father’s cousin’s husband was stationed at Loop Head Lighthouse as a keeper some decades ago, only added to my lack of confidence!

Soon after arriving I had made contact with a some  fascinating and interesting people from a Yahoo Genealogy Group to which I subscribe –  from USA and Australia as well as Dublin and Sligo, and there too as one of the conference speakers was Dr Jane Lyons , owner of the website From Ireland  who also established the Yahoo group Y-IRL.

Y-IRL Group meet at Clare Roots Society genealogy Conference, Ennis October 2011. Picture by Jim McNamara

Apart from the pleasure of meeting new people, the conference itself was a terrific success.  Although tailored for Clare, the lectures were of a general nature and were filled with useful information for a novice like me. The topics ranged from a very poignant account of  Irish men who fought in the First World War, delivered by Liam Curran, to Gregory O Connor from the National Archives who demonstrated  the often fascinating and quirky wealth of information held in legal and court documents. We heard about the notorious Black & Tans from Jim Herlihy who was followed by Jane Lyons telling us about the importance of graveyards and encouraging us to document the inscriptions before they wear away.  After lunch, Antoinette O’Brien from the Corofin based Heritage Centre gave an animated account of the records held by that centre and Dr Nick Barrett, of ‘ Who Do You Think You Are?’ TV  fame led us on an excursion into the world of family history as portrayed in the media. Finally the renowned John Grenham from the Irish Times Irish Ancestors website gave useful pointers and assessments for the resources that are available for anyone looking up their past in Ireland. He also posed an interesting question about information now on computers – emails are now used and not letters; much valuable social history  is shared on social networking sites; How might researchers in the future access this information or will it all be lost forever?

The entire series of lectures is available on DVD from Clare Roots at very reasonable cost. I heartily recommend it to anyone who has an interest in looking into the past, whether for research, just for fun or on a serious mission to find who your ancestors are.

Clare Roots Society staged a wonderfully successful and professional conference, with a list of speakers second to none. Congratulations and thanks are due to them and we look forward to the next one!

Further Information

The DVD of the Clare Genealogy Conference  

John Grenham  

Clare Heritage Centre  

Clare County Library  

Dr Nick Barrett 

Clare Roots Society  

Dr Jane Lyons  

The National Archives of Ireland

Who are you?

Stooked Corn in Donegal

I have put some basic  information on my LOOKING INTO THE PAST page which may be of interest to people who are thinking of exploring who they are.  It is possible to do a lot of research without incurring any cost whatsoever.

The National Archives digitization of the 1901 and 1911 census papers has been a revolution and an astonishing  development for those of us who have questions to ask about ourselves.  It is absolutely free to view and search and it is possible to look at the original documents that have been scanned to a very high quality.

In my family, my father and his siblings did not know the former surname of their paternal grandmother.  By searching through the 1901 and 1911 census records I found her forename and because it was relatively unusual, it was possible to find a  marriage certificate (albeit in Latin) which showed that the bride and groom were actually 1st cousins!

It certainly can be frustrating for us here in Ireland, as the majority of our census records  prior to 1901 were either pulped or lost in the social unrest of 1922; burial records largely do not exist, graves were often unmarked,  birth and marriage records may not be available if the local clergy was not particular about  preserving them.

If you are considering looking up your ancestors, I urge you to do it!  It will be a great journey and you  will enjoy discovering who you are !