Earlier this year, our Research Director, Fiona Fitzsimons, published the following article for Ireland Reaching Out. Among many other examples, she describes the value of artefacts from Dunkirk, specifically the evacuation, a topic very much in the news given the recent release of the new blockbuster film of the same...
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and family arriving in Ireland The Irish Family History Centre team of experts led by Fiona Fitzsimons traced the family of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau back ten generations to 17th century Ireland. Through his mother, Margaret Sinclair, he is a direct descendant of the Bernard family...
Often when people are tracing their ancestors, they focus on going backwards in time through the records. In the main this primarily involves working from marriage record to birth record, until the records run out or a correct record can no longer be definitively identified. As a result civil death...
This is a special one off organ recital at 6.15pm on Tuesday, 4th July. While its a ‘free’ concert with no admission charge, it is also a fundraiser for the Choir school’s latest recording initiative. Organists Martina Smyth and Stuart Nicholson perform Stars Wars, Harry Potter, Back to the Future, Independence...
Irish Famine film narrated by Gabriel Byrne wins regional Emmy in the U.S. Ireland’s Great Hunger and the Irish Diaspora – the film looks at the history of the Famine in part through the eyes of the descendants of those who survived it, and those who fled to Canada and...
Barbados Born with Irish Ancestry in Her DNA – But Who is the Irish Connection? A wonderfully friendly lady from Barbados came in to the Irish Family History Centre (IFHC) in late April 2017 with a puzzle. She had taken an autosomal DNA test (which gives a rough estimate of...
Professor Amy Harris of Brigham Young University, will be teaching the English track in the British Institute in September. Her research interests centre on families, women and gender in early modern Britain. She uses both her historical and genealogical training to study family relationships of the past. Earlier this summer,...
By Claire Murray, Education & Outreach Officer We were thrilled to welcome our Irish Independent competition winners, St. Brigid’s G.N.S, Glasnevin, to the Irish Family History Centre last week! The sixth class pupils submitted their answers to the question: ‘why would you like to research your family history?’ Answers...
In June 2017 we welcomed Dr. Annaleigh Margey to the Royal Irish Academy, Dawson St. Dr. Margey discussed using digitised sources such as the 1641 Depositions, the Down Survey and contemporary maps as sources for family and social history. Listen to the podcast above.
Some 90% of Irish place names derived from the original Irish language. Although the language has changed considerably in the last 1500 years, anyone who is literate in Irish can write down and identify local place names. For at least the first one hundred and fifty years after Ireland was...
Fingal County Council has released a new interactive guide, Buried in Fingal https://buried.fingal.ie/ The free database includes searchable details of more than 65,000 people interred between 1905 and 2005 in 33 of the burial grounds in the council’s care in North County Dublin. The site is searchable by name and...
Are you interested in doing a DNA test and want to know which one is best for you? Have you already done one and want help understanding the results? Come along to this free DNA Workshop to get the answers. Irish genealogist Maurice Gleeson will facilitate this question and answer...