In this series we explored how to research Irish ancestors and trace their origins in Ireland – from gathering information in America to consulting maps of Irish farmlands, I hope this has been informative in your quest to learn about your Irish roots. This last post in the series focuses on fleshing out your Irish ancestor’s story through local and contextual history. Once you’ve discovered the location of that coveted townland or house-plot for your...

In previous posts, we discussed research methods to determine where your ancestor came from in Ireland, and we examined available resources both in the U.S. and in Ireland. If you’ve discovered a placename associated with your ancestor, whether in U.S. or Irish records, you may ask yourself: where in Ireland is this? A lot of places in Ireland carry the same name: did your ancestor come from Ballymoney in County Antrim, or in County Cork?...