Need general advice, please! (And would love to find distant cousins)

I have lots of ancestry in Ireland, but most of that knowledge comes from birthplaces shown on Scottish Census records, not Irish birth or marriage records.  I was born in Glasgow, have Scottish parents, three grandparents Scottish and one English. But from the great-grandparents and further back, mostly Irish, with names like: Duffy, Tolland/Tolan, Kerr, Devine, Doyle, Callaghan/O'Callaghan, Collins, Price, McKinlay/McKinney, Denny/Deaney, Dunlop, Topping/Toppan, Killen, Telford, Walker, etc. 

I'm fairly new to this research, and sometimes frustrated by the lack of results, or by how inconclusive they are. How does one know when one's ancestor is among those whose records have been lost, for instance?  I am also frustrated by sites that require me to search by PARISH, for example, when I don't know that yet.

If anyone has any tips, it would be greatly appreciated!  And if anyone else has ancestors with these surnames, I would of course love to discuss!

Thanks very much.
Annemarie

Hi there, Annemarie,

It's great to hear that you are interested in your Irish ancestry! ☘️ 

We have some great genealogy tools on our website and here on the Community with forums such as Getting Started on your Genealogy Journey.

We also have a thread all about Family Crests, which may interest you with the list of surnames you have found so far! As well as this, you are welcome to search your Irish names over on John Grenham's website, which gives you information on surname itself and counties that it can be found in, which may help you in your search for parishes. 😊

If your ancestors were born before 1864, there is a chance that their records could have been lost but all surviving records have been sorted into county-based genealogical centres!

I hope that these links help you get started on your ancestry journey and hopefully some of our members have some information that could also help you out. 😊

Best,
Aimee

Hi Annemarie, 

I would recommend that you search www.rootsireland.ie as this covers almost all parts of Ireland so you don't need to know the parish or even the county. It is an ongoing project so it doesn't yet have records from every church but it has over 80% pre-1900 Catholic records and over 50% Church of Ireland records.

You can subscribe for a day to see if it will contain any useful records.

If you would like more specific advice, you may wish to commission a research survey here: http://www.ancestryireland.com/research-services/commission-an-initial-assessment/

Best wishes for your search

Gillian

Gillian Hunt
Research Officer
Ulster Historical Foundation

Hi Annemarie

An excellent starting point for surname research is the Irish Ancestors website at https://www.johngrenham.com/surnames as their 'Surname search' option enables you to examine the location, frequency and history of Irish surnames.