Edward Flanagan

Hi Rich, thanks for your message.

Unfortunatley , the reality of finding documentation pertaining to births/baptisms/marriages/deaths in Ireland prior to 1800  ? particularly in rural areas ? is that they simply may not exist. However, here are some resources that may be of benefit to you:

The Irishtimes website is useful as it gives an overview of what Catholic records are available per county. You can check for the parish of Killalon/Clonmellon here: 

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Meath&parish=Clonmellon&churchid=917

If the family followed Church of Ireland you can check at http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42 and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/

You can also check the Tithe Applotment Books for some record of the family berfore they left. This is a land survey that was carried out in Ireland between 1823 and 1838. You can do a search of the Applotment Books here:

http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp

Somme other websites that may help you in your reasearch are the National Library and the National Archives of Ireland found at http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/ respectively.

I hope that this information is of some help to you. Remember to post as much information as you can with regard to the people you are researching. The more information you post, the more likely it is that one of our volunteers will be able to advise or assist you. Also include information concerning which sources you may have already used so others may further your search.

Please be patient - as our programme has only begun to rollout across the island of Ireland and volunteers in some areas may not yet be organized.

Kind regards,                    

Genealogy Support