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2. Finding the Townland
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3. Part II

Your Irish genealogy research is unlikely to make much headway without three items of information: your ancestor's surname, religion and place of origin (the townland where the family lived). The first two items are probably the easiest to establish, but there are some possible pitfalls to watch out for and they are mentioned below - see the feature boxes.

For the main part, then, this page deals only with techniques and sources for finding out the name of your ancestral townland of origin in Ireland.

Before you look to Ireland, however, you need to follow the papertrail in the country where they settled. For Irish-Americans, this means the USA. For British descendents of Irish migrants, this means Britain. And so on.

Below you'll find a listing of the generic sources. I can't provide in-depth detail and specific named collections for each possible destination around the world (the Irish went everywhere!), but I'm sure with a bit of googling you'll be able to find the correct resource in the country where your ancestor landed and/or settled.

Look out for migration patterns

Migration patterns can also be extremely informative for narrowing down the geographical origin of your Irish ancestry. Two types of migration pattern are common.

The first is called Group Migration and describes a group of relatives or neighbours leaving Ireland and arriving in their new destination together.

The second type is called Chain Migration and occurs when one or more pioneer emigrants set off for a new land and were followed by family and friends. Once in the new country, immigrants aimed to find employment and send money back to Ireland, often helping other members of the family to emigrate in turn.

An example of this is the migration of a branch of the Santry family from the townland of Currahevern East, County Cork, over a 40-year period. Jeremiah left Ireland in 1883 at the age of 19 and settled in Rockland, Boston.

In 1909 his 20-year-old niece, Minnie, arrived and a year after that his 23-year-old nephew William made the journey to his door. When Minnie and William's younger brother Michael (born 1891) crossed the pond four years later, he went to William's home, also in Rockland, as did brother Timothy (born 1898) in 1925.

By sticking together, many tightly knit communities emerged in America, Canada and Australia made up of people who came from the same areas in Ireland.

You can look into migration patterns by examining the neighbours of your ancestors in their adopted country. If they exist, census returns are the easiest and most accessible records for this type of investigation.

If possible, follow the records over the lives of these neighbours; just because one census  records the place of birth only as 'Ireland' does not mean a more specific location is not given in a much later census or in other documentation, for example, naturalisation records. 

And don't ignore immigrant children. They should be 'followed' through the census years as doggedly as the immigrant adults.

Going 'Wide'

If you've systematically conducted your research all the way back to your immigrant ancestor's arrival in his/her new country and can still find no mention of their place of origin in Ireland, it's time to go wide, ie lateral.

This involves stretching out beyond immediate family and neighbours and investigating all the people your ancestors mixed with, socially, professionally, and within the extended family.

It's a big commitment, and you need to be organised and forensic in your approach. Just keep your focus on the potential reward, and enjoy learning more about the era and community circles in which your immigrant ancestor and his/her children lived.

Pay special attention to the following groups:

Friends:

Witnesses to an ancestor's naturalisation papers; witnesses to marriages and sponsors (godparents) of children on baptism; guardians of orphaned children; boarders living with your family at census times; executors.

Associates:

Individuals who arrived on the same immigrant ship as your ancestor; witnesses to wills, deeds, financial leases and settlements; business partners and work colleagues.

Neighbours:

People living in close proximity to your ancestors in census returns; people with same surname living in the same street as your ancestors in census returns; people noted in city directories at adjoining addresses to your ancestor's business.