Hi! I'm curious to know how I find my distant relatives that live in Ireland. Here's the information I have about my ancestry that may or may not be correct. I saw that my great-great-great grandfather's name, on my dad's side, was Patrick Riley, and he was born in Ireland. But I don't know where in Ireland he was born. His birth year was between 1830 and 1831. I'm assuming that he died in Indiana, because his son, Patrick John Riley, was born in Indiana, but I don't know his death year.
Genealogy - 5 Answers
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1 :
Try the LDS site . The Church of Later Day Saints ( AKA the Mormans ) have a great genealogy search site on the web.
2 :
Problems that will arise. You don't know which county. Patrick is a common name. Riley is a common name. And your relatives will be very distant... Make sure you refer to yourself as an Irish-AMERICAN 99% focusing on the later. The reason being is that other countries with Irish immigrants don't really identify with Ireland as much... would be explained by the Irish abuse in the states early on. Therefore the reclusive behaviors and ethnocentrism took over. I was raised hearing about my family's "Irish-ness" for that reason. How many German or English Americans talk about their family's origins comparatively? But calling your self Irish to an actual Irish... you are genetically Irish, but do not have Irish heritage for the last century and a half... you have Irish-American history. We both had struggles, but they were different and consequentially Irish do not like Americans claiming to be Irish. Just a heads up... Don't want to be labeled a Plastic Paddy on your vacation do you?
3 :
There are 4 matches for baptism records around that time in the Irish Family History Foundation website ifhf.brsgenealogy.com: 4 matches for the search criteria: riley patrick 1826-1834 Action Source Surname First Name Year County 1826 Co. Mayo 1826 Co. Mayo 1832 Co. Mayo 1833 Co. Westmeath Your ancestor could be one of them or none of them. If you are serious about this, you need to research your family tree properly working your way back from yourself one step at a time, collecting every detail you can along the way. Ireland does not have great genealogy records, look at www.cyndislist.com for tips and ask here when you get stuck with a particular step in your tree. Don't expect someone else to rush off and research your whole family tree for you. If there are any relatives still living in Ireland, do not expect them to welcome you with open arms. They do not have the same curiosity about their ancestry as their distant relatives whose ancestors moved away from their home country years ago. In my case, most of my Irish relatives moved away in search of a better life and the ones that did not died long ago.
4 :
Going from what 'Helen' has found and using Co. Mayo/ Co.Westmeath as ' possible' places where your ancestors 'could' have originated from. Do your groundwork first, download some free family history record sheets and fill all the information in about yourself, then your parents, grandparents, older relations and you will then see what information is missing even about yourself...to trace you need to have this information and it gives you a good check list of what you need to look for.........if you can't fill in your own record, (and many can't without doing some investigating) then you have little hope of finding information ( and knowing) it is YOUR FAMILY of people that have died long ago.............. Mayo is a coastal county on the west coast and Westmeath is central, my advice 'before' you start searching online data or even records in the family history centre ( which is far better, as you can also get help/advice from staff) is to ask any relatives if they have any old photographs you can see, any stories they know.....eg. if someone has a photo and it is clearly of a fisherman or heard a story that one of their ancestors was a net mender, then it is likely it would direct you to look in Mayo first and saves a lot of guess work which has no place in family history and means you 'think' the person you found is a relative, 'looks' like the person you are looking for and you end up with a collection of names.........and those names may have nothing to do with YOUR familty history and you will end up collecting names of a completely different family. Then I would look at passenger lists http://www.ellisisland.org/ is one of the better ones and see who you can find on there, see what information you can get and who the person you were looking for was also travelling with...this will then give you a cross reference with these people when you look in records ( even if they were just a friend or your ggg grand father may have bought his wife before they married, so you will get her maiden name and sometimes her family as well. In the 1830, Ireland was part of theUK and there was civil war so learn something about why your ancestors left http://www1.xe.net/~mbone/webtree/history-ir.htm#1830.all of this knowledge will help you find the right people http://mayo.brsgenealogy.com/ http://www.mayo-ireland.ie/Roots.htm http://www.irishroots.net/ http://www.irish-roots.ie/mayo-north.asp http://www.from-ireland.net/west/westmeathconts.htm http://www.nationalarchives.ie/ http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx Riley can be an English surname meaning ‘rye field’ or an anglicisation of the Irish surname Ó Raghailligh or even O'Riley...so you may see this spelling in records..Patrick is more likely to be a Catholic so I would look in Catholic church records first.all of these things help you narrow the search, none of them may be right however it gives you a place to start. http://genforum.genealogy.com/riley/ Lots of records were lost in the fires, however Ireland still has many records that will enable to to search if you look in the right places Happy hunting
5 :
I think the best way would be to have DNA testing done for your Irish surnames, it does cost you to do that but would pinpoint the area your family is from and also gives ancestors names and locations. Only males can do this, but you will get tons of information. You can probably do a google search for "Riley of Ireland DNA testing" and find what you need. Good luck from one Irish descendant to another--Kelley's are mine.
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