With the online growth of family research during the two lockdowns since March, the genealogy groups have seen an explosion of inquiries from overseas asking how you go about starting from scratch. Mayo.ie, Visit Castlebar and Ireland Reaching Out have worked closely with Dympna Joyce from Mayo Genealogy Group to produce three videos explaining the basics of how to start your search, where the free online resources are and what exactly should you be looking for.
In the first video, Dympna outlined how to start. She points viewers towards the online censuses of 1901 and 1911. From there you can get some vital information to start on your path by identifying family members and taking it from there following the marriage, births and death records to build a bigger picture.
Dympna undertakes a brief search, on week two, of well-known Castlebar-born opera singer, Margaret Burke Sheridan and demonstrates with this real life example and how you can widen your search using these inline resources. She also identifies other areas such as graveyard records to help with this.
On week three, Dympna is joined by Laura Colleran and Noreen Maher from Ireland Reaching Out to discuss further how you can continue your search. Ireland Reaching Out is such a fantastic and valuable genealogy resource and their forums consist of members that are full of local knowledge that can help with specific searches because of that local knowledge.
People looking for more should sign up and join the facebook page of Mayo Genealogy Group, Mayo Together, Ireland Reaching Out and Visit Castlebar for more news and help on your Mayo ancestors.
We hope you have found the information we have shared helpful. While you are here, we have a small favour to ask. Ireland Reaching Out is a non-profit organisation that relies on public funding and donations to ensure a completely free family history advisory service to anyone of Irish heritage who needs help connecting with their Irish place of origin. If you would like to support our mission, please click on the donate button and make a contribution. Any amount, big or small, is appreciated and makes a difference.