Research Irish Genealogy at Library of Congress



Research Irish Genealogy at Library of CongressDid you know that the Library of Congress has information that could be helpful to genealogists who are trying to fill in the Irish side of their family trees? The Library of Congress also has a reference guide to go along with it.

Judith P. Reid compiled the Sources for Research in Irish Genealogy guide that is on the Library of Congress website. The guide was primarily created to be used as an aid for genealogists who are researching Irish genealogy and local history at the Library of Congress.

It is noted that this guide can also be useful for genealogists who are searching other large libraries. Genealogists should be aware that the guide is not comprehensive was intended to supplemented by other, previously existing, guides.

The guide is broken down into several different categories. Those categories include: Handbooks, Pedigrees and Family Histories, Bibliographies, Local History, Biographical Information, Names: Personal, Periodicals, Names: Geographical, Irish in America, Wills, Emigration, and more.

Each section of the guide (with the exception of the Introduction) consists of a list of books that have information that pertains to the topic of that particular section of the guide. It provides titles, authors, publication dates, and more. That should help genealogists look up the book in a library (or at the Library of Congress). There are no clickable links in the lists.

The Names: Personal part of the guide is a list of 14 books that genealogists can use to learn more about Irish surnames. One book they suggest is titled “Book of Irish names: first, family & place names” by Ronan Coghlan, Ida Grehan and P.W. Joyce. It was published in 1989.

One of the books suggested under the Irish in America section is titled “The Irish in America: immigration, land, probate, administration, birth, marriage, and burial records of the Irish in American in and about the eighteenth century”. It was edited by Michael Joseph O’Brian. The information in the book ranges from 1870 to 1960.

The list also suggests another book by the same author. “Irish settlers in America: a consolidation of articles from the Journal of the American Irish Historical Society”. The information in this book is from 1870 – 1960.

The list of books under the Emigration section includes some that contain information about passengers lists or lists of Irish that arrived at American ports. One suggested book was: “Irish passenger lists, 1847 – 1871: lists of passengers sailing from Londonderry to America on ships of the J. & J. Cooke Line and the McCorkell Line”. This book was compiled under the direction of Brian Mitchell and was published in 1988.

Image by Gabriel Rodríguez on Flickr.

Related Articles at FamilyTree.com:

* Irish Genealogy Toolbox

* Irish vs American-English Words/Phrases

* Irish Genealogy

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