I have a plea to all those with Irish Ancestry please make a family tree, either using online tools or software, and post it online somewhere! With enough trees posted we might be able to figure out lines we might relate to. That is especially crucial if you've taken a DNA test. If you've DNA tested please attach a tree to your results. MyHeritage is now the premier place for DNA matching. If you've tested at Ancestry.com please transfer your raw data over to MyHeritage. You can then download a gedcom file from Ancestry and upload to MyHeritage so your family tree will be visible to matches. When you create a tree just do your best. If you only know your grandparents names it's ok if the tree ends there. Include every bit of information you have in the tree. Too many trees don't even contain a place or any dates. Places and dates are important. There is no way of making any connections without any information provided.
I've posted some Irish genealogy links on my wall at Facebook. If you're American and don't know where in Ireland your family came from you can search the Ellis Island passenger lists, and other passenger lists at Ancestry.com, Familysearch.org, or the Ellis Island website. If your ancestor born in Ireland applied for a Social Security card their application might contain their place of birth. Death Certificates are also a good sources for a place of birth if the informants were close relatives. The townland or nearest larger town are critical keys to finding more about your ancestors through surviving records.
I'm stressing the importance of collecting all available information because I'm at pretty much of a standstill with my research because so few people have information posted with their DNA results. I think we could make some progress on our Irish genealogy with DNA if more people would collect all the information they can about their families and post it with their results.
Here is where I am with my research. I am where I've been for the past couple years. Helen Mullen born in 1880 was my Great-Grandmother. She came to America in 1898.
Ancestry has placed me in a Connacht DNA grouping based on DNA shared by others with ancestors from that province.
My Aunt Loretta didn't have many good DNA matches until recently with the introduction of DNA testing and transfers at MyHeritage. She now has some great matches with cousins of Irish descent. In a couple of cases we have narrowed down the area where these matches ancestors lived to the general area where our ancestors came from. If the match has traced the family back to a town in Ireland that information has been very useful in making at tentative connection.
Below you can see much of chromosome 8 represents what my Aunt Loretta received from her grandmother Helen Mullen. If more people transferred their raw data from AncestryDNA to GEDmatch, Familytree DNA, and MyHeritage we might be able to start naming these segments, and finding more Irish segments. A combination of document research and DNA could extend all of our Irish lines.
When I saw the photo of JFK arriving in Ireland, in June 1963 my birth month and year, I thought about my grandmother Dorothy who was Helen Mullen's daughter. She was Republican. I wondered if she voted for JFK? The California voter registers at Ancestry.com answered that question. Since she declined to state a party preference in 1960 I assume she voted for Kennedy?
I may not be able to trace my family in Ireland any farther back than around 1800? It's still been a rewarding process.
Below you can pretend you are taking a trip on Aer Lingus to Dublin. I recorded these announcements on my way to Dublin airport from France. If you can understand the pilots full announcement you are truly Irish. HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!
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