Video: Find Where You’re From – Irish Family Tree Research

Mike Collins from A Letter From Ireland joins Eoin of Bitesize Irish to discuss Irish family tree research.

You’ll hear how to get started (or restarted), and also how this can give you a new sense of connection with your own background.

Watch now:

Top Links To Know More

• Sign up for the free weekly Letter from Ireland – how to stay in touch with Mike and A Letter From Ireland
• Free “3 Steps to Tracing Your Irish Ancestry Back to Ireland” – the top info and links you’ll want for doing your own research
• More about the online Green Room service and community – Mike’s unique community of like-minded people

Background of A Letter From Ireland

Mike lives in County Cork with his wife Carina.

A Letter From Ireland is an email letter that goes out every Sunday morning. It reaches tens of thousands of people each week.

In A Letter From Ireland, there are cultural elements, stories, surnames, and Irish family history. The letter was started in 2013.

Irish family research and the Irish language

Eoin and Mike discuss the connection between the Irish language and Irish family history research, including place names and surnames in the Irish language.

Unlike many other countries, our language of record changed over the centuries. Where many Irish language surnames started, they were then aglicized (into English).

How to get started doing Irish family tree research

In this interview (starting at 14m 00s) Mike gives an overview of his suggested approach for getting started into your Irish family tree research.

Mike suggests this is more of a journey than “research” (a word which can make it seem more serious and boring than it needs to be!).

This is covered succinctly in A Letter From Ireland’s free “3 Steps to Tracing Your Irish Ancestry Back to Ireland“. Do check out that resource. That article has links to the best resources that can help you get started.

First, you don’t necessarily start in Ireland.

Start now, right where you are. Write your own name and birth date on a piece of paper. And go from there. Start from what you know.

Now you can focus in on specific people in your timeline. Start to establish facts about the people closest to you.

Then, if there was a jump from Ireland in your family’s history, you’ll get to that step after finding more information about your more recent family.

What you need to be aware of for Irish family history research

You’ll help yourself with specific questions when making the jump back to Ireland for researching your ancestry. Where in Ireland was this specific person or family from? Or more specifically, where and when were they born. Search for the answer to that question.

On a positive note, there are good records available, at least from 1865 onwards. Before that date, you may need to rely on other resources such a possible church records, death records or emigration records. See Mike’s free “3 Steps to Tracing Your Irish Ancestry Back to Ireland”.

Talk with people! Ask your family questions. Reach out to a relative you may have done this research before.

If you’re travelling to Ireland, give yourself a bit more time to speak with people locally. You’ll hopefully get connected with more people locally as part of your journey. Do as much research as possible before your trip to get an indication of the places where you’ll want to visit.

Having some familiarity with the Irish language will stand to you, as it will make place names and surnames more accessible along your journey. Take our Where to Start Quiz to get started on your Irish language journey.

The Green Room

Mike shares information about their unique membership community in The Green Room. There, you can connect with others on a similar journey, and get help from their resident genealogists. There’s a true community in there.

Finally, sign up for the free weekly Letter from Ireland to get your first letter next Sunday (and while you’re at it, our weekly Bitesize Irish Newsletter). You’ll get your next email from Mike next Sunday.

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