Speed Genealogy

How fast can a researcher find his ancestors? It depends. Given the proper information one can take less than an hour to fill in quite a bit of information. 

My Irish-born first cousin once removed was born in 1936. His Irish-born wife is a few years younger presumably. He gave me the name of her grandfather and a townland and wanted to see what I could find. 

Looking at what Cousin provided I realized what he did not reveal. The surname was different from his wife’s maiden name so I assumed this was her maternal Grandfather. He did not reveal the name of his mother-in-law so I had no idea which of the daughters of this gentleman was the link to Cousin’s wife.(I am not going to list names as I did not ask for his permission to reveal these details and truthfully I am demonstrating a process and the names are not usually interesting to non-family members.

Grandfather was easily found in both the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses. This was especially simple because I had the townland name to verify it was the right gentleman. He was single in 1901 and married in 1911 with children. The www.irishgenealogy.ie website made finding him in the 1866 birth registrations, the 1908 marriage registrations and the 1956 death registrations straight forward. I was able to identify 5 children born to them from the birth and death registrations in 1909, 1910, 1912, 1913 and 1917. I was able to identify the 5 siblings for Grandfather and 6 siblings for Grandmother because of the 1908 marriage record, the censuses and the birth and baptismal registers. Lastly, I was able to identify that Cousin’s mother-in-law was born in 1912 and married his father-in-law in 1940. His wife was registered in the 1Q birth registrations of 1941.

In 1911 Grandfather and Grandmother were living with the widowed Great-Grandmother. In 1901 he was still single and living with both Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother. This clearly indicated that Great-Grandfather’s death would appear in the registrations between 1901 and 1911. Great-Grandfather died in 1904 and his widow died in 1916. 

Not every family story comes together this easily but if we can identify an ancestral couple having a family in the 1830s to 1880s in the parish records or the 1860s to the 1910s in the civil registrations then we have an excellent chance to find them in the 1901 and/or 1911 census records. There in lies the potential cost of hiring a professional researcher. The most efficient use of your research dollar is to give a full survey of your family stories and records. This will enable me to have a solid base to build from because in Irish genealogy every tidbit can be crucial.