Thursday, September 8, 2016

New Irish Civil Registration Records -- what a goldmine!

Wow! What a red letter day in the world of Irish Genealogy!  Free Civil Registration Records online!  OMG, how long have we needed these!  Now you can finally see the details, which help you determine if it's your ancestor!

The village names, ages, etc -- all those details are so key in finding the correct Mary Walsh or Patrick Connolly.  All my people have such common names, that it's virtually impossible without the village names, or parents names, to pinpoint the right person.

I started with my Walsh family -- and began with death certs.  Going through my direct line, and finding my Gt Grandmother's death in 1923, her husband's death in 1916.

Most interestingly I found their daughter Mary Walsh - my Grandmother's sister.  We had always been told she was sickly (probably with TB) and had died young.  I knew she was still alive in 1911, but lo and behold she died in 1934 and lived to the age of 59!! So much for that family story!!

I found my Grandmother's other sister Margaret, and while I knew her death date, I didn't know why she died relatively young at age 48 in 1931 -- turns out she got septicemia from a cut suffered on the farm -- and died in Hospital over the Christmas holidays.  Very sad!  This detail supplied by my cousin after I sent her the copy of the certificate.

Lots of early dates are not producing images yet, so hope that issue will be sorted out tomorrow when the records truly go live.

So excited to keep making discoveries and correcting some errors (I had some assumed death dates which proved to be wrong).

Look forward to diving into the birth and marriage records tomorrow!

UPDATE: As of Sept 12, 2016 --- I've added 63 new records to my Family Tree!!! Primarily deaths, and some marriages!  Fantastic discoveries continue....