Recently I have had two breakthroughs on my Dad’s County Kerry ancestors. I am back to the earliest generation I expect to be able to determine, people born in the late 1700s. I am now busy sorting out and “detailing” the generations coming forward from these couples. This helps me to understand my Dad’s DNA matches, and to corroborate (or disprove) my theories.
Studying extended families in detail also helps paint a picture of their subcultures and lifestyles, their connections to their communities and their places within them. When you have a good understanding of this bigger picture, you become better at recognizing clues that may relate to your family, and you are more likely to notice if you have gone wrong somewhere.
When I began researching twenty years ago, almost no Irish records were online, and I was sure I would never get anywhere with my husband’s or my Irish branches. My main resource for Kerry was at the downtown branch of our public library: A physical copy of O’Kief, Coshe Mang, Slieve Lougher, and Upper Blackwater in Ireland. This is a 16 volume compendium of genealogical information for Counties Kerry and Cork, with print so small I had to buy a magnifying glass to read it! This is now (sort of) indexed on Ancestry.com, and today the situation is completely different.
For the earliest generations there is scant surviving documentation, but moving toward the present, more and more records are readily available. I usually research down to second cousins, and a great-grandchild of the generation born in the late 1700s may have records online documenting their birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial. They may also be mentioned in newspapers, and if they were alive and still in Ireland, they should appear in the 1901 and 1911 censuses. They may even have an extant gravestone that has been photographed.
Following is a list of the key places I search for information on Kerry people, depending on when they lived. Most of these databases pertain to the whole of Ireland, though two are Kerry-focused.
Placenames Database of Ireland: Once you learn the name of an ancestor’s locality or townland–the smallest administrative division in Ireland–you will want to learn more about it. This website will provide basic information and show you where the area is on a map. A similar townland database also provides the names of all adjacent townlands, which are good to keep in mind. Remember that townlands are often spelled several different ways.
Irish Genealogy Church Records: Both Catholic and Church of Ireland records for Kerry are indexed on this free site, with some dating to the 1700s. (There are also records for Dublin, Cork and Carlow). It is easy to narrow your search by area, religion, and type of record (baptism, marriage or burial). Also, when you search for a person’s name, records appear where someone of that name is a parent, witness or sponsor, and this can help you find relatives you did not know about. It is helpful to sort the records by date, which is not the default.
Many records are linked to a scan of the original image, though the sample below is not. In general, later records contain more information. If you are working with the Protestant minority there are far fewer records to sort through, but unfortunately Protestant baptisms do not provide the mother’s maiden name whereas Catholic records do. Also quite a few Protestant registers were lost in the 1922 Dublin Four Courts fire, including my ancestors’ parish, Kiltallagh. Fortunately my Dad’s third great grandfather Joseph Neill married a woman from the adjacent parish of Kilcolman.
Civil Registration Records: This database is on the same free website as the above church records, and covers all legally public Civil Registration records for Ireland, minus Northern Ireland after 1921. This means it includes births, marriages and deaths from 1864, as well as Protestant marriages from 1845, up to various cut-off dates. Remember that even if the parish register is lost, from 1845 on there should be a civil record for a Protestant marriage. Most records are linked to an image of the original page. It used to cost several euro and take a couple of weeks to get a paper copy of these by mail!
For some reason some of the earliest death records do not seem to be scanned yet, but you can get a transcription of at least some of the information on FamilySearch.org by searching their Ireland, Civil Registration 1845-1913 collection.
I believe the Catherine Neil in the marriage record below is a daughter of the Joseph I am researching, because her address Laharn / Laharan is adjacent to Killeenafinnane, and I know that her brother James was farming there in 1852.
Tithe Applotment Books 1823-1837: These are records of occupiers of land in the earlier 19th century, held by the National Archives of Ireland and also indexed on Ancestry.com. Don’t forget to look at everyone in your ancestor’s townland, and the people in adjacent townlands. The record below shows that Charles and Joseph Neill were farming land in Killeenafinnane in 1825.
Irish Newspapers at FindMyPast.com: FindMyPast has an enormous number of Irish records, and also a large indexed Irish newspaper collection, so it is a worthwhile subscription if you have Irish ancestry. The coverage seems to be heavy for all of Ireland, and is very good for Kerry. From the Search dropdown menu select “Newspapers and periodicals” and then click the button for Irish newspapers. (If your ancestor moved to England, Scotland or Wales, there is also a large collection of British newspapers.) It is easy to narrow your search by place and date.
The optical character recognition can be pretty poor, so I try to be creative with searches, and sometimes I search by townland or other placename alone. Remember to try various surname spellings. Names like McCarthy were sometimes spelled M’Carthy, people may or may not have used the O’ before their name, and first names were often abbreviated.
“Regular” people didn’t appear too often in Irish newspapers until the 20th century, but you never know what you will find. Below is Joseph Neill on a list of landholders from the Kerry Post in 1840.
Irish Newspaper Archive: Another large collection of Irish newspapers. If you are already a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society / American Ancestors, access to this database is currently included in your membership. From the Search dropdown menu, select External Databases, then U.K. and Ireland.
Griffith’s Valuation: The major published compendium showing who was occupying what land in the mid 1800s, and who was renting it to them. The data for Kerry reflects the situation about 1852. Griffith’s is available free at the Ask About Ireland website, and is also searchable at both Ancestry.com and FindMyPast.
I would guess from the information below that Charles Neill / O’Neill has died in the 27 years since the Tithe Applotment above, and that his sons John and James are farming his former lands. Though Joseph was born about 1785, he was the informant on his wife’s death certificate in 1866, so I believe this Joseph is the same man from the Tithe Applotment, still leasing land from Lord Monteagle in Killeenafinnane.
Calendars of Wills & Administrations 1858-1920: Another free database from the National Archives of Ireland, also indexed on Ancestry.com. Though many people did not leave a will or an estate that required administration, you may be surprised to find a person of moderate means in the Calendars. When they do appear, there are often clues as to relationships–a sibling or child you never knew about may be named administrator or executor, or you may find out where a relative has gone if, say, they name their brother John, now living in Worcestershire, as executor. The record below for Elizabeth (Neill) McCarthy is how I learned that she and her husband had a daughter Anna.
1901 and 1911 Census of Ireland: You can find people directly on the free National Archives of Ireland census website, or use the search facilities at Ancestry.com or FindMyPast. Besides providing a person’s age, county of birth, literacy level, marital status, occupation and relationship to the head of household, the censuses tell you what your ancestors’ religious affiliation was, and whether or not they could speak Irish. The 1911 also asked women how long they had been in their current marriage, how many children they had had, and how many were then living. Remember that people often underestimated their age, and for some reason ages tend to be more accurate in the 1911.
Kerry Burials: This website is difficult to search but has a huge number of images of Kerry gravestones. It helps if you already know what cemetery people were buried in from a newspaper notice or burial record. There may be no gravestone (or no legible gravestone) for your ancestor, especially for older burials, but where there is one they can be very informative, especially when couples or several family members are listed on one marker as is often the case. The images are watermarked but you can purchase non-watermarked images. I wish FindMyPast would buy this website and index it!
A global search for every individual on both Ancestry.com and FindMyPast is also a good idea if you have access. You may turn up land, court, school, grave, Masonic or even dog license records!
Plough and Anchor Genealogy 