The Irish seaside resort Kilkee in county Clare is often compared with Kilkie and the assumption drawn that the family name is derived from the town name. Although Kilkee is a very nice town with a lovely beach, there is

Whilst much of the 1831 census of Ireland was destroyed we are fortunate that most of the records for Londonderry survive. Family historian Bill McAfee has transcribed the records and provided internet access to these, for which we are grateful.

Griffiths valuation was a land valuation carried out on behalf of the then government by Richard Griffiths who had previously carried out a boundary survey of Ireland for Ordinance Survey maps of Ireland (1825-44). The land valuation which began in

The same lack of documentary evidence described elsewhere affected records of the 19th Century. No complete censuses or central records of BMD exist for Northern Ireland for this period. However, parish records, land valuations and tombstone records do Exist. In

Verified family records are scarce in Ireland. Early censuses were accidentally shredded and pulped by the government and later censuses were destroyed in the 1922 Public records office fire. Catholic parish records, various land valuations (e.g. Griffiths), gravestone transcriptions and

Today most if not all surnames are inherited from parents. In the past (as explained elsewhere) surnames had other derivations, ie from places or occupations and a common surname was no guarantee of a similar origin. One route to discover the

Until the 10th century people had no family name. they lived in small villages and had a first name to identify them from one and other. Ireland is thought to be one of the first countries to begin to use

There is a well known rumour about the group of Irish people called “the black irish”. Normally the story goes that these are decendants of survivors of the Spanish armada who landed on Ireland. The Black irish are those with