Struggling to trace your Irish roots? Join us as we chat with Dr. Jennifer Doyle and Eamon Healy, experts in Irish genealogy, who share invaluable insights into researching your family tree. Starting with the importance of having a county of origin, they guide us through 19th and 20th-century civil records, the limitations of Irish census records, and how pension search forms can help trace individual ancestors.
Discover how DNA testing has revolutionized genealogical research, as Jennifer and Aemon recount their personal experiences with DNA cousin matching and how it verifies documentary findings. They also discuss the intricacies of using DNA in Irish ancestry research, the importance of interpreting results correctly, and the role of Y-DNA testing in uncovering your family's origins.
Delve into the complexities of tracing Irish ancestors, the mobility of the Irish people, and the historical context of Irish immigration in this informative episode. Learn how immigration records and naturalization documents can shed light on your family's past. Don't miss this fascinating journey into your Irish heritage, filled with expert tips and guidance from Jennifer and Eamon.
Struggling to trace your Irish roots? Join us as we chat with Dr. Jennifer Doyle and Eamon Healy, experts in Irish genealogy, who share invaluable insights into researching your family tree. Starting with the importance of having a county of origin, they guide us through 19th and 20th-century civil records, the limitations of Irish census records, and how pension search forms can help trace individual ancestors.
Discover how DNA testing has revolutionized genealogical research, as Jennifer and Aemon recount their personal experiences with DNA cousin matching and how it verifies documentary findings. They also discuss the intricacies of using DNA in Irish ancestry research, the importance of interpreting results correctly, and the role of Y-DNA testing in uncovering your family's origins.
Delve into the complexities of tracing Irish ancestors, the mobility of the Irish people, and the historical context of Irish immigration in this informative episode. Learn how immigration records and naturalization documents can shed light on your family's past. Don't miss this fascinating journey into your Irish heritage, filled with expert tips and guidance from Jennifer and Eamon.
Hello and welcome back to Unearthed Past, a brand new family history and genealogy podcast brought to you by me, dr Mikaela Hume. So, have you got Irish ancestors? I bet you have, and are you struggling in terms of what records are out there and how you go about finding them? Well, if you are, this is the week for you. I am joined not just by one, oh no. I am joined by two Irish genealogists who are experts in Irish history. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the podcast, dr Jennifer Doyle and Aemon Healy.
Speaker 1:Now all that's left is to cue some Irish music. I have Irish ancestry. Now Jenny is a bit smiley about this, because Jenny knows that I have an Irish ancestor that I hate. And the reason I hate this Irish ancestor is because they are playing some sort of sick hide and seek game with me, and it's getting to a point that if this Irish ancestor doesn't decide whether it's Smith, smi or SMY TH, i'm about to drive to Holly Head, get on a boat and go to the parish and physically find her more self. And we've looked at Jenny, we have tried, we have tried to find this person. We think we may know where she is, but she has made me very, very cross, but let's take her out of the equation for the moment. If somebody has just started their family tree and they have discovered they have an Irish ancestor, where do they start? Where do they start looking? I don't know. If you want to start Jenny and then Aemon, maybe you can pick up after. Okay, so I'll start.
Speaker 2:I'll start with civil records. So, unlike England or Scotland, which got civil registration in 1837 and 1855 respectively, ireland didn't start civil registration until 1864. Now, before that, we actually did register Protestant marriages from 1845, which are standard births, marriages and deaths only begin in 1864. So if you're starting in, say, the 20th century, you're going to go look at your civil registration in the first instance, and the website to do that it's all these are all digitized. Up to about 1922 for births, 1942 for marriages, i think about 1972 for deaths is Irish genealogy and it's run by the Irish Department of Heritage And what this is. It's a fantastic resource and it has all the historical birth records up to those dates and the deaths and the marriages. So that's going to be the first place. Aemon, where would you go next?
Speaker 3:Well, i'll preempt you, jenny, because I had a bit more time to think about the question, obviously. So it's a very common problem And the first thing I would say is talk to your parents or your grandparents and see if there's any information there regarding a county of origin. I mean, at the very least you're going to need a county of origin to start looking for Irish ancestors, and religion is not a very important factor in terms of what kind of records may survive or where to look next. So, for example, the type of work that we do every day is professional genealogists. Our clients are generally from outside of Ireland And we'd always advise them to look at as many records for the person in the country where they went first before going back to Ireland.
Speaker 3:So in your case, michaela, for example, the first thing we would say is, if the person has gone from Ireland to England, if they're Catholic or Church of Ireland or Church of England, as they would have been in England, you want to look at those records and see does it give any inkling of where they're from beforehand? the same with the census records in the country or the migrate to. The same with military records. You're really looking for any kind of to do with the county of origin at the very least, and then a parish, depending on the type of record. So I mean I can't free him to Jenny there, but I mean it really ties in with Jenny's record set there. I mean you really need the county of origin before you start getting civil records And of course those records like you think about the 1939 Red Star in the UK that gives a very specific birth date.
Speaker 3:And quite often they're very accurate. So you can line that up if you have civil birth records that Jenny talked about as well.
Speaker 1:Now talking more broadened then about records. Obviously we've mentioned the Civil Registration Index, which came in a bit later in Ireland than what it did say here in England. In England we rely a lot on census records. I love a census record. Can you just talk to me a bit about Irish census records and what census records are available to those searching?
Speaker 2:Well, there's not very many. So we have two census records. We have 1901 and 1911. There are fragments before that. So I totally agree, in England, in Scotland, every 10 years you get a nice snapshot of who's living in the country. We did take those censuses but they're destroyed. We have the demographics for them but we don't have the names. One thing we do have is pension search forms. So when they introduced the old age pension, if you didn't have a birth record or a baptism record you could write to the Census Bureau and they would search the census for you and say, yes, Michaela was definitely alive in 1851 and you could then use that to apply for your pension. That's one of the only records we have of that census, though There's a couple of fragments up around the North Cavern where your smiths are, from some around there. but there's not really very many other than that, Aiman.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i mean you've covered it nicely there, jenny, i think to discover what kind of census fragments are there, if you look at the Irish National Archives website, all of those have been indexed and are up there for free, the Census Search Form. Jenny talked about cover 1841 and 1851 and that's it as far as I know, at least the ones available online. So, unfortunately, the reason why Irish research is so difficult is because we have a huge gap prior to 1864, when civil registration begins, depending on the survival of church records and land records, which is where they really come into their own in terms of differences to other countries in terms of what records we typically use first to build out those quick and dirty trees and try and get back as quickly as possible and build out those family units. So yeah, i'm starting to ramble there, but I think Jenny covered it nicely there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they're just picking up on that, Aiman, I think I know that tracing your Irish ancestors can be difficult, as you well know, I've got one that I hate. It is hard, isn't it? It's not thinking of records. It's not easy. How else do you navigate then that gap? Because you know how do you? are there other records, Irish records, that can help to fill in the gaps?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, i suppose it's a mixture of everything, right? So what I'm going to say is land records, and it's very important to tie a family to a particular area. In Ireland, in terms of the land, we have very, very small divisions of land, the smallest one being known as a townland. If you can tie somebody to a townland, you can trace those land records and follow that family true, and build up a family unit. So what's beautiful about those land records? We use them quite typically as a sense of substitute. We're only going to talk about the land holder, the head of the household or the person who's holding the land or paying the tax on the land. We're not going to give you information about everybody in that household. So if you have a tie to a townland, that allows you then to branch out and look at other records in the area, such as church records or fort records or dog license records.
Speaker 3:The really the biggest one that we talk about generally in Irish research is Gripard's primary evaluation. That's essentially a tax. it's a tax record And it was created to basically value all the land in the country. In relation to the poor law for the upkeeps The poor law was established a little bit later in Ireland compared to the old poor law or the new poor law in England. So it starts off in Ireland in 1838. So Gripard's evaluation is a little bit later. So it starts off roughly 1844 right up until the late 1850s. And once you have a family in that record you can actually track that family, the present up to the 1970s, because those records are essentially kept and maintained right up until the 1970s when land raids are abolished in Ireland. So if you can figure out what family is where and what townland, you can follow that townland the whole way through. And sorry, michaela, i'll let you in here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i was just going to say what information does that record actually give? So take it. Obviously gives the name and maybe where the person lives. Does it give you anything else other than that?
Speaker 3:It does, yeah, so it gives you the townland, it gives you an exact plot number within that townland so you can actually trace that exact piece of land where the house would have stood, whether it stands or not anymore, and figure out where that is now. It gives the person's name, the head of the, the head lease holder should I say the person they're leasing the land from, because quite often 98% of people aren't owning that land themselves at right The amount of land in terms of acres, roots, and purchase the value of that particular land. If they're renting land, then it also gives a description in what's called the tenement box. So you have houses, sheds or outbuildings on a farm in there, for example. Or if the person was a blacksmith or forge, will be in there and also the value of their house.
Speaker 3:So it's essentially, as I said, it's evaluation tax. So it's only going to give you evaluation on property that they're renting, but that does allow you to gain a little bit more from that. So, for example, if you compare that to other people in the townland, you can see what kind of what way does your ancestor stand in the social scale in terms of economics? Are they renting the poorest house? Are they renting the most expensive house? It also allows you then to figure out, well, who is the landlord, and the landlords will allow you to potentially look at other records. So landlord estate records do survive for some places, and without knowing who the landlord is, you can't look at those. So there is quite a lot of information contained in just that one line of information.
Speaker 1:How much has DNA helped, and especially with cousin matches, in terms of filling those gaps in Irish ancestry?
Speaker 3:It's been a huge tool. I would say it's tool very strongly. It's not foolproof. I mean, DNA has to be interpreted. The DNA itself doesn't tell you anything without corresponding historical research and documentary research. And the reason I say that is because I'm from the West Coast and the West Coast typically has higher rates of intermarriages between families, cousin marriages And, as you can imagine, if you have a very remote area, for example, and families start marrying each other, that really skews the DNA. So you have to be careful in terms of what you're looking at when you get cousin matches from Ireland Or from different parts of the country that are known for being more isolated. But it's been fascinating. I say that that's a caveat, but it's definitely been a huge tool.
Speaker 3:I was very fortunate that when I started working as a professional genealogist about seven years ago, DNA was only really starting to pick up as a tool in research. I was right at the forefront of learning on the job essentially, And it's a tool of my arsenal that I couldn't do without. Today We often come across brick wall ancestors that have immigrated to different areas, be it Australia, Canada or the US or wherever. The documents just don't tell us what we need to know. And then we look at DNA And quite often we get a lead. It can never be definitive without corresponding documents, But that lead wouldn't exist if the DNA didn't exist.
Speaker 3:So I would say that it's very, very exciting And it's hugely important, And even from myself I look at you know I've been doing genealogy for the last 20 years or more, And it was, you know, it was a fairly expensive endeavor when you were poor students when I was doing it, And for me it was really important to try and prove that I had actually discovered the right ancestors and the right families, Because you never know if there's been any illegitimate birth or any hanky-panky going on in the past that nobody knows about And that's not going to be recorded in the records. But DNA does allow us to kind of see that a bit clearly, a bit more clearly than otherwise. So yeah, DNA has been really useful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think DNA is something that it's not that we can't do it, that of course we can but we can't back up our documentary findings without us. So it's all well and good researching my Doyle line If I can't, if I don't have matches to the ancestors I'm at least three or four generations back. That I'm researching because, as Aiman said, someone's dad might not be their dad or someone might have been adopted, and these things weren't, were a lot more silent in the past, adoption in particular. So DNA helps us to verify the documentary line as well as helping us to overcome areas where there are no documents. You need to go into with those two, those two hats on verification and what else can I tell me? what else can it tell me?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i'm sorry to jump in really quickly, michaela. Just I would say the cousin matching is the most important aspect of DNA. I think a lot of people will look at the ethnicity, see well, how Irish am I, what percentage Irish am I? I mean, it's nice to be able to say that, but in terms of serious genealogical research we don't put too much emphasis on that. As long as those ethnicity estimates align somewhat with what's known about the family, then we can look at the DNA cousin matching. And that's where the power lies in those cousin DNA matches.
Speaker 1:I love my DNA cousins. I love them all. I reached out to them. I'm sending them postcards, i'm like connecting with them. You know in America and I think I've got Australia and I just think you never know, do you, when you might need an organ or kidney? I'm like, i'm like I'm like I'm just lending them, i'm inviting them around for tea. Get on a plane. Yeah, i know, i was too mad. I love them. So if you are one of my cousin matches and you haven't had a message from me, get in touch, get in touch.
Speaker 2:I had someone who messaged me who was actually connected to my dad and my maternal grandmother. What, which is weirdly? and my mother and my father are from two very different parts of the country And all I can think of is that my dad had a great great grandmother from Bristol and my grandmother's great, great great grandmother, grandparents, or whatever, were also from Somerset, so 300 years ago there might be a connection between the two, but it was just a very odd message to get. How are you connected to these two people?
Speaker 3:I think I can kind of somewhat top that story, Jenny, And I think you've already heard this before. But I mean, what we're talking about now is autosomal DNA, which comes from all of your lines, And the story I'm going to tell is slightly mixing it up a bit and talking about the Y DNA testing, it is only men can take that And the idea is to follow the male paternal surname. So in my case Healy is the surname And it was a running joke when I was growing up. Which branch of the Healy's was I from? So Healy is a patronomic surname that starts off in two areas of the country around the same time, one in Slaggo, one in Cork, And where I'm from is kind of splitting the distance. So we never knew which branch potentially we were from.
Speaker 3:So I thought I'd split into this tube and figure out where I'm from, And sure enough I'm not a Healy genetically, which I kind of expect this But it turns out that actually of French descent. Now what's interesting about this is my partner, Leslie shout out for her. He's French And the nearest DNA match that I had the closest, should I say is from the same town as her mother in France. So you never know where those DNA matches are going to bring you, But, more importantly, you never know what kind of questions is going to make you ask about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yes, very true You know what.
Speaker 1:I've found this whole DNA thing fascinating And in last week's podcast I had a chat with Laura. I know you guys will know Laura about DNA because I'm still learning all the time. I'm no DNA expert. I know enough about it, I think, to get me through the research and to explain why things have come about for TV purposes, But I'm no expert. So last week's podcast with Laura was fantastic And I learned so much new stuff about DNA and how it works and cousin matches and ethnicity estimates and where, for example, you might have communities in parts of the world where you've not got a DNA match but you've got a community. So that was really fascinating And I use it a lot now in my research. I spoke about this last week, especially when I have somebody come to me and they're adopted and they don't know their birth parents. It's been really, really useful And I think, Jenny, I think even you've given me advice in the past when I come to you and said you know how do I approach this And you've been really good. Hello, only me.
Speaker 1:Sorry to interrupt the podcast. If you are enjoying it and you would like to support the making of this podcast, please visit my Patreon account, which is wwwpatreoncom or slash dot, sir, for Makayla Hume. If you are listening to the podcast, please remember to download and even give us a few stars if you think we're good. And if you are watching it on YouTube, please remember to like and subscribe. Now back to the podcast. Can you just pick up then? I know you've mentioned it briefly why is so difficult, or why it can be so difficult, to trace your Irish ancestors?
Speaker 2:It's okay. So my surname is Doyle. In England you can trace your ancestors probably back through the parish registers to the late 18th century with relative ease. I can't get my Doyles back beyond 1840 with even with. you know, it's just ridiculously challenging. It's because the parish registers just don't survive. Every parish had its own sort of standards for what records it kept. Some parishes kept great records, some parishes kept absolutely shockingly terrible records And that's why you see sort of this patchwork of right.
Speaker 2:the parish records here begin in 1840, but they might not begin in the neighbouring parish less than a mile away until the 1860s. So there's a 20 year gap where all of a sudden you know who's living here but you don't know who's living there. That's why it's so difficult. And in Ireland one of the reasons why it is so difficult is there's limited mobility. So in England people are moving around a lot more. In Ireland we typically tell our clients that people moved no more than six to 10 miles during their lifetime. So if you think about it, that's not very far. It's about half a day's walk.
Speaker 1:So if our Irish ancestors didn't travel very far, then why have so many of us got Irish in our DNA? What's going on? What am I missing?
Speaker 3:I mean I'll try and keep it brief because it's a very historical question And I think that's what I love about family history, because you can't take one without the other. You need to have that historical context And I think Irish as a people are well known for emigrating and leaving the country in different waves. There's three main waves of immigration from the country before the famine, during the famine and after the famine. To really simplify it, i think a lot of the reason that we get people particularly in the DNA test come back to what you said, michaela A lot of our country left in that period just after the famine are during it You're talking a population of close to 8 million people. To the famine were 2 million less, essentially 1 million roughly due to this derivation and death and the other due to immigration, and that immigration keeps going right up until the 1920s.
Speaker 3:So you have millions of people living outside of Ireland or are born on the island But all of a sudden start leaving a huge amount of descendants wherever they go. So at the very simple levels, that's why there's so many DNA tests with Irish ancestry coming back. But in a way you can actually reverse engineer that then so you can see a lot of different DNA companies are using that to come up with different ways of trying to use that DNA testing back to people that are from those entries in Ireland and say well, hold on a second, we're linking with Irish people that have no known immigrant ancestors. There must be a connection here and one of their lines back to this particular part of Ireland, which is the exciting part of DNA with genealogy. But that's kind of going off topic. But that's what I would say. I mean, we're a nation of travel peoples essentially.
Speaker 2:Just not in Ireland.
Speaker 3:Just not in Ireland, and that's a massive distinction. When we're talking about people living in Ireland, it's very, very unusual particularly the further west you go in the country, where it gets more rural and more impoverished for people to travel long distances to marry or have children. A lot of that is tight. There's the reason it's tight to land. Access to land meant living. Essentially, people generally didn't use the land that their ancestors had because it was their lifeblood And the one that didn't have access to land in that family unit immigrated. It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1:If you are looking for your Irish ancestors that have left Ireland, i take it that's where immigration records are useful. So what sort of records then would we be looking for? And I don't know if any of them, if you want to pick this one up in terms of if our ancestors have left Ireland.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, the first thing I would say is you touching out, there is immigration records in terms of passenger ship lists would be the first one, and it really depends on what time period the people have left Ireland that you're looking for. So, typically speaking, if somebody's left anywhere between 1906 and 1922, you get very detailed ship records that give you the last known address in Ireland That's going to the US. Should I say The same with records to Australia? they get very detailed county or parish of origin on the ship records, because Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, canada is also part of the United Kingdom for all intents and purposes. Generally speaking, the ship records don't survive because essentially it was seen as moving from one part of the kingdom to another. It wasn't leaving one country and going to a different one. So those kind of records don't survive before 1922 online in any of the major genealogy websites.
Speaker 3:But, going beyond passenger records themselves, you've got naturalization records, particularly, again, i think, the people in the US. If they want to become a United States citizen, to vote and to be entitled to other things that you had to be naturalized to do, they would apply for naturalization And that was a process. There was a few different forms. You had the declaration of intention, the naturalization form itself, and quite often those do give a very specific place of origin to, so you can match that up with the family that you have. Church records is another one that you see. Typically people are recorded where they're from And that's not just Catholic records. I've seen it in Church of Ireland records as well, both in the adopted country and in the home country. I've seen records where it says in the Irish Church of Ireland records that they've left and gone to this place.
Speaker 3:And in the corresponding place in the US. I've seen them from this place in Ireland, so it's about linking that up. Presbyterian records are quite similar, as well as Quaker. They do need a certificate of removal, as Jenny well knows. she's had a house of Quaker experiences past year or so. So, yeah, church records have been another one. I won't mention them all. I give Jenny a chance to have a few as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i'm just picking up on that. Don't be afraid to contact churches. I'll give you an example. I'm looking for someone at the minute who got married in Cork in 1890. I know he was born in Scotland. I know from his marriage record who his father was and I know he was a soldier. But the surname is Brown and there is a plethora of Browns knocking around Scotland. I think there's about 20 different men with a father, robert, born in the right period. But I just called up the church and I asked them you know, do you have anything different in the marriage record, which is 1819 now? So it's fairly recent. And yeah, i found out exactly what brigade he was in. So I can now go off when I get time to sit down and do it, i can go look for this man. I know John Brown was on the rifle brigade and I wouldn't have found that anywhere else, only for the fact that I got on to the church itself In England.
Speaker 2:I think census records are key, but also newspapers. If you start searching newspapers, because you will find that they might have been involved in an incident or they might have been involved in union activity or they might have had a terrible accident at work that was reported in the newspaper And I might say something like you know, john Doyle from County Wexford died at this mine in Wales, and that's how you get to the house. That also helped you to start building up family groups because you start seeing, you know, all these people clustering around each other, so that's what we call the fan club. It's your friends, associates and neighbours. Because Irish people didn't emigration in isolation. They went to where they had already connections.
Speaker 1:Thinking about people who have Irish ancestors who, over here they may have been able to look at workhouse records because you know their Irish ancestors went through a particularly tough time. Are there any records that you could think of where people may look?
Speaker 2:fewer than there are in England, right, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Dublin. There's some Dublin Workhouse records. There's prison registers, because poor people sadly end up in prison because it's for theft or whatever.
Speaker 1:They need to eat chicken.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i know some workhouses around the country have records and I've only looked at them a handful of times because very often they're books of minutes and they don't actually give anything useful. They might say something like there was 10 women admitted to the maternity ward today, or, you know, 10 women gave birth and left, but there's not as many as there are in England. England has a much bigger collection of records than we do.
Speaker 1:Is that because that some of your I know? obviously a lot of records were destroyed in the two fires. Is it also the case, though, that in Ireland, you would benefit from going to a records office or from going to, potentially, a particular parish? Is it that some of the records are not online yet, or is it that they just simply don't exist?
Speaker 3:I think it's a bit of both. So I should say that there's not one repository that has all of the workhouse records and they're very county specific. So it is worth trawling the county council archives, which is how I would recommend people to search for those workhouse records after you've looked at the likes of Ancestry, to find my past, because whatever main collections have survived are on those websites. Some counties have digitized some of their own records and put them up as PDFs on those websites. But I would echo Jenny's point, a lot of those are minute books. They're not necessarily the registers that need the people and there's a very, very particular reason for that, i think a lot of the time and it's somewhat political in some ways.
Speaker 3:You have to remember that this was introduced in 1838 and really a lot of people availed of the workhouse during the famine period and it was seen as quite a shameful thing to enter the workhouse. So quite often what happens is, as the years go by, families try and hide the fact that their ancestor or their mother or father or grandfather, whatever it may be, had stayed in the workhouse during the famine and survived that way and it was seen as very shameful. I mean, i don't understand it myself, but that's, that's a history. Sometimes it just it is what it is. And as a result, if you keep coming right up until 1922, those workhouses were still in, in action, they were still being used for the exact same purpose as they were introduced in 1838.
Speaker 3:And then we had Irish Civil War sorry, maybe Irish Revolutionary War followed by the Civil War, and what happens is those records are deliberately destroyed as a way of kind of hiding that shameful past of people, because and it goes back to what Jenny said about, about the four courts records there's some historians out there that would say that that's a way of Irish people trying to fight their historical claim and start again and create a new state. And then and those records are another reason, another exact, you know, a replica of that reason it's the quickest way to, i suppose, to get rid of that shame that people had. And that does tie into why those records don't survive, those detailed names.
Speaker 2:Well, to echo that the Custom House fire, so the public records office fire, is an accident. The Custom House fire was deliberate so there were different records housed in both, but it was the wills, for example, in the Customs House they went out. It was monetary records, so your tax and your wills and your probates. A lot of those are held in the Custom House and they were just setting fire Like, believe it or not?
Speaker 3:Mikaela, one of the first things I remember writing in in National School was in a workhouse book, because we had the workhouse book in our National School just left in a bookshelf and everybody used to sign the names to the back of it and never understood why it was there. or you know, white people were writing on us a hundred years later or whatever it was.
Speaker 2:but you know that's, you know there's, didn't take any great care of it and for whatever reason, There are school records, though a lot of national schools have existed for quite a long time and very often just in the attic of the school they will have the old school registers. So if you know where your ancestor lived, it's actually sometimes worth just calling the school and seeing if they'll, because you might find out. You know little things. It's like roll call or what their nickname was or if what their name was in Irish, particularly after 1922 National Schools, they they tried to encourage the use of Irish because it had been under the client for a couple of hundred years and it still hasn't quite reached anywhere near the levels that it was. But you know so that just I was just thinking their national schools would be a. There are others in a very interesting little records collection that you don't really think of Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And in order again to go back to the, you know the context behind it. You can see how many days the children of Miss School more days a child is Miss School, particularly if they're from the same family. I would say probably the poorer the family are, because those children would be taken out to work on the farm. Also, you get the idea of what kind of grades they get, which is also very interesting insight into our ancestors, which the records is definitely very, very underutilised.
Speaker 1:Can you think of any good records that relate to occupation or industry? I know that you know agriculture was the main source of employment during the 19th century, but are there any records that you could recommend if somebody's looking to find out more about what their ancestor, irish ancestor, did for a job?
Speaker 2:There's the Fisherman records, the merchant seaman records. They're on the National Archives of Ireland website and there's also indexes on ancestry and find my past. But basically if your ancestor were the fisherman on a boat they'd go off to see. You can see how many days they went to see. So I found that one of my dad's great great grandfathers used to regularly sail from near where the office is in Dublin City out to where I live, you know, on the boat to be out for four or five days looking at the island I can see right now and then he'd go back to Ring's End and I can see all that in the records and that's, that's one occupation set. We don't have apprenticeship records. In the same way, the UK does Correct me if I'm wrong, though, there Aiden.
Speaker 3:No, definitely not on. Digitised for sure. I mean, there is some records I remember we looked at some Baker's records, for example for those but they're very you know, they're not massive datasets that they wouldn't necessarily have a nationwide remit. It would be more you know one guild and that would be it. But one thing I would think of really quickly would be the police records are fascinating and you can track people and families from area to area. And another one would be national school teacher records are actually fascinating as well, and they would have both of those collections would have nationwide coverage. And I'm just trying to think what else British Army records.
Speaker 2:So an awful lot of Irish men served in the British Army because it was a guaranteed paycheck. So if you think about it, ireland can be quite. It was a quite an impoverished country. What do you do? you go into the army. You're a British subject. Whether you're politically affiliated or not, it is what it is. So you went to work in the British Army and you got a signed up for it was 21 years. It's 21 years at. You know at least a shilling a day. You get your food, everything. You have your wife, your children. You can bring them around with you. You can travel the world. So if you do have Irish ancestors, i would and you think they might have served in the army definitely look at the British Army records.
Speaker 1:Just to finish off this section before we move on. Can you both give me your top five Irish records? so what are your favourite and if you can think of five each Irish records that people should be looking at utilising. It might be just a record that brought you a bit of joy in your family treat might brought you a bit of misery. We'll take you through all on this show. So, jennifer, you are next to me. I've just called you Jennifer. That makes me feel like you're on the screen. So do you want to put all those listeners out there who've got Irish ancestors?
Speaker 2:give me your favourite five Irish records okay, well, top of my list is always going to be the petty sessions, because I love the drama and love a good one yeah, i love dog license registers.
Speaker 2:Dog license registers are great. They get tell you absolutely nothing other than your great-grandfather had to terrier or basset hound or a you know some sort of hound dog. The other one would be the Griffiths Maps. I love a good map. You know that I gave a ridiculously long lecture on maps to your class. So that's what for, and then I for my sins, i'm gonna say the Quaker records. The Quaker records are absolutely amazing because you get to see all those lovely Quaker names And also the Quaker, the equivalent of the Quaker minute book. So the meeting records where it's something like you know, john Smith, he needs to be talked to for his disorderly walking And from what that that's actually running. The Quakers didn't like running around Or other things. Like you know, he married a paper store. He was found drinking or something like that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, they'd be my, my top ones.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a bit of crossover here. So it's interesting as well, because I work with Jenny and of course we know each other very well, but I didn't realize we were dissimilar in this particular aspect. I love it. So I would start off with the petty sessions as well, because it's given you color that you can't get anywhere else. And similarly, the dog license records. It's my number two just to find out the names of the dogs my ancestors had. It's hilarious. Number three, then, is a little bit more depressing and it kind of ties into what I'm doing outside of work at the minute. So it's those poor law relief commission papers. We haven't talked about that during the podcast, but essentially it's just work schemes that are going on during the famine in particular areas in the country, and they can be quite detailed, listing, you know, people from particular townlands that are working and for how long, and what they get in return in terms of money or food. So I find that very fascinating.
Speaker 3:In the social history aspect, land and estate maps would be number four, for the exact same reason Jenny talked about for Griffith's maps, just for looking at the maps and outclodding out those areas. It's another snapshot in time. Again, we didn't get to talk about that, but essentially it's a land tax. It's a tax, but tax is the wrong word. It's a sale catalog for land basically that has been bankrupted by the landlord. So they give great fascinating detail. And the last one. Then I think that four or five might have gone over. Yeah, i'm fine. The last one is again poor law minute books. Now they're horribly depressing, but I'm researching that at the minute in terms of my PhD, so I've really delved deep into those minute books. They don't give a whole lot of very specific information regarding ancestors, but they can give a really great picture of what's going on in the area as a whole at a particular time. So poor law minute books would be what I would be talking about there.
Speaker 2:Number five I'm going to try one last one the deeds. I do like registry of deeds. These escaped the fire and you didn't have to register deeds. But going back to what, picking up what Aamon said earlier about no one in Ireland owning their land, and you had a very small set of landlords everyone else rented. If you wanted to preserve your deed to make sure your landlord wasn't going to screw you over, you could memorialize it in the registry of deeds, and some of the things you find in deeds are great. You can get back three generations of a family in deeds. So I'd go for the deeds. They're not. They're not indexed. They are only available on familysearchorg with images, or you can go into the wonderful building that houses them in Henrietta Street in Dublin.
Speaker 1:My last question to both of you is if you could invite one person from your family tree for dinner tonight and you could ask them a question, who would it be? Who would you invite? What would you cook And what would you ask them? Aamon. Why don't we start with you?
Speaker 3:So who would it pick?
Speaker 1:So who would you pick? You can pick one person from your family tree. Can you pick anybody in your family tree?
Speaker 3:So it would have to be my paternal grandmother. So I never got to meet either of my grannies, ever both dead long before I was born. And it's one of these things every person I meet, particularly of that generation, they tell me that I'm like my grandmother and I've never met her, so I would like to meet her. That would be the answer to that one.
Speaker 1:What would I?
Speaker 3:cook. Yeah what would I cook? Yeah, what would I cook her? I don't know. I'm not the most accomplished cook, so I'm not sure what I cook or probably bacon and cabbage, and keep it simple.
Speaker 1:But you can and cabbage. what a mixture. I like it. Yeah, Jenny, you are next. Who are we inviting from your family tree? What are you cooking them? And have you got a question you'd like to ask them?
Speaker 2:OK, probably A Smith as well, An Eliza Smith, my grandfather's great-great-grandmother, who was the Bristolian one. Why is she? Why was she in Dublin? I have a feeling it's because her father was a glassblower And I wouldn't let her cook. I wouldn't, I'd let her cook me dinner because I would love to see what her Dublin coddle recipe is like. Coddle is my favourite. It's one of my favourite dinners. I always say If I had to have my last meal it'd be my dad's coddle.
Speaker 1:What is coddle for those then?
Speaker 2:It is a very traditional Irish dish. It's basically boiled sausages and potatoes with rashes And God knows what else you want to put into it. Every family has their own recipe, which is why I would love to see she lived in just on the outskirts of Inner City Dublin. I'd love to see what her recipe was in and around the turn of the century.
Speaker 1:Guys, thank you so much for being on this week's podcast. Hopefully you will agree to come back on again And I know I'd love to hear more about your work, especially with the poor law records. My PhD is focused on death, but predominantly working class death in the 19th century, so I've looked at many of those records myself. Jenny, we must do a Quaker week. What's the way? We must do a Quaker week? Let's do a Quaker week Just for our Jenny. I was going to talk about Quaker.
Speaker 2:I've never gone to a Scape Quakers.
Speaker 1:So that is it for this week. I really hope you enjoyed listening. We will be back. A new episode drops every Monday. If you have a question for me or for one of our future guests, please feel free to drop me a message. You can do so via my website, which is wwwmakaylehumecom, or, if you're watching it on YouTube, just drop a comment in the box. Have a great week. I hope the sun is shining where you are. It is shining in the north. The weather is glorious at the minute, so have a good week. Happy researching Until next time.