Kildare Village is a designer outlet shopping centre just outside Dublin with 100+ leading luxury boutiques. Last weekend, it offered free shuttle busses to the 25,000 US fans who came to Dublin for the 2024 Aer Lingus College Football Classic (ALCFC) between Georgia Tech and Florida State University. This gave the visitors a chance to […] The post Accredited Genealogists Ireland and Genealogy.ie in Kildare Village appeared first on Irish Family History Specialists ..read more

During the Great Famine in Ireland, many people had no choice but to go to workhouses when they ran out of food and money. These workhouses were set up earlier in the 19th century to provide for the poor. But as the Victorians did not believe in charity, people were given all kinds of jobs to do in return for meagre support. Also, families were split, rooms overcrowded and food scarce. They were places to avoid unless you had no other option. The cost of running the workhouses was borne by those who did have funds: the landlords. When the number of people in the workhouses soared during the fa ..read more

Most Irish family history researchers will be familiar with Thom’s Directories. In 1850, Henry Shaw tried to launch a competing publication, the New City Pictorial Directory. It was not a commercial success, and the 1850 edition was destined to be the only one. It provides a unique insight of the city in 1850 though because – as the title suggests – it was pictorial. Henry Shaw had established himself as a newspaper publisher in 1848. He was not the only one to do so; thanks to technical advances of printing technology, a lot of newspapers were established in the nineteenth century. Many would ..read more

Since 1986, Accredited Genealogists Ireland (AGI) is an accrediting and representative body for professional genealogists in Ireland. The role of the AGI is twofold: 1. Representing the interests of people who are professionally employed in the field of genealogy. 2. Monitoring the standard of their work on behalf of their clients. Anyone wishing to become a member, must be a professional genealogist, living and working on the island of Ireland, research Irish sources and cannot be full-time employed outside the field of genealogy. There is a strict process to become a member. The first step i ..read more

Íslendingabók means “Book of Icelanders”. It is the title of a book, but in this post, we mean an online database created by the biotechnology company deCODE in Iceland. The aim of this Reykjavik-based company is to use population genetics studies to identify variations in the human genome associated with common diseases. So the purpose was medical. A large number of Icelanders participated in their research. In 2003 the database the company had created was made available online but with limitations on who can see what. It very quickly became a very important genealogical database for Iceland ..read more

The Irish Government has launched a new online resource for the Decade of Centenaries – it is called Mná 100 (Women 100). The updated website Mna100.ie includes original research with some previously unseen photos and historic documents drawn together in new and innovative ways. This new resource will reflect on key themes, such as the role of women in advocating for Ireland internationally; the role of women’s organisations during the Campaign for Independence and the Civil War; women in the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament); and the stories of the pioneering women who were trailblazers within th ..read more

In Gaelic (Irish language), Christmas is “’Nollaig’” and Happy/Merry Christmas is ‘Nollaig Shona Dhuit’. Christmas is celebrated in a big way in Ireland, with a large part of the country shutting down between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. It used to be even longer in days past: it was celebrated by Catholics until the Feast of Epiphany, sometimes called “Little Christmas” or “Women’s Christmas”, on 6th January! Long before there were Black Fridays, Ireland had its own version for a while: in the second half of the last century, on the 8th of December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception ..read more

Our Jillian van Turnhout has been invited to speak to the students of St. Michael’s College (which is part of the University of Toronto in Canada) as part of their Celtic Studies Speakers Series. The post Jillian van Turnhout Guest Speaker at University of Toronto appeared first on Irish Family History Specialists ..read more

Before starting genealogy.ie, I looked into my own family history for many years. During this research, I “discovered” an ancestor, who has since become one of my big inspirations: my Great Aunt Kathleen Hassett (born 7 February 1897, Limerick, Ireland; died 6 July 1985, Manchester, England). In 1909, at age 12, Kathleen and her family moved back to the ancestral home in Knockanean, Co. Clare. At this time it was a very small house on a rural and hilly farm. She went to school here and in 1914 she achieved a first in Irish in her middle Intermediate Certificate. This earned her a scholarship ..read more

The 1950 census records were released by the U.S. National Archives on April 1, 2022. The official National Archives website provides full access to the 1950 census images, including population schedules, enumeration district maps, and enumeration district descriptions. The collection contains: Approximately 6.57 million population schedules 33,360 Indian Reservation schedules 9,634 enumeration district maps images 234,447 enumeration district descriptions You can explore the records by State, County/City, Name, Reservation, and Enumeration District. Click the button below to start searchin ..read more