This talk will examine the pillars of Irish family history research, and show how land and census records available can provide information on Irish ancestry. The tithe applotments, Griffiths Valuations, 1901 and 1911 census are the pillars of an ancestral investigation. This talk will provide examples and demonstrate how these sources work together to produce valuable information for those exploring their Irish heritage.

Lorna is a professional genealogist, and family historian. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogist, and is the resident genealogist for Dromoland Castle in County Clare. Lorna worked as Project Genealogist for George Boole *200 genealogy project for University College Cork, and is an excellent researcher for Irish family histories. Lorna also produces and presents the successful show The Genealogy Radio Show aired each Thursday at 4pm from beautiful Kilkee, Co. Clare, at Raidio Corcabaiscinn. Podcasts are available here. Lorna has delivered conference papers at Oxford; Lincoln College: Exploration of the Medieval Gaelic Diet: (2012); seminar papers at the Moore Institute in NUI Galway, ‘The Gaelic Lordships in Thomond, c. 1400-c.1500’ and papers at Irish Conference of Medievalists on themes of Brian Boru and landscape of East Clare. Lorna has published on medieval themes and on maritime subjects. She received her Certificate for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy (CAFG) in Dallas in March 2015 and is currently working on a book on the O’Brien and MacNamara Lordships of Thomond.

We will see you on the evening of FRIDAY 1ST MARCH at 7.30pm in the Oak Room of the Lakeside Hotel. The Lakeside Hotel are providing our Society with this venue for free, and we thank them for this sponsorship. If you want to thank them for this, why not pop in for your lunch or dinner!

Entry to this lecture is FREE as usual, and everyone of all ages and levels of interest is welcome.

Help us promote this event by clicking ‘Going’ on the Facebook event here, or sharing this blogpost, or even by putting up a poster for us – you can print out one from this link. See you there!

Thanks to everyone who turned out for our March lecture which was generously given by Roz McCutcheon! We welcomed around sixty genealogy devotees to the wonderful historic venue provided to us by Wood and Bell Café.

Roz spoke eloquently of her personal search for her family history in Killaloe-Ballina, and also described the many reasons why people pursue genealogy. She had so many fantastic stories! We will all remember her examples of short or long generations – the turn of the century dinner party that hosted a marital relative of Cromwell, or the U.S. president born in 1790 who still has three grandsons walking around!

Roz produced a thorough handout with lots of links to follow up on your family history research. Click here to download. You may also find Paddy Waldron’s guide to tracing your family history in Killaloe/Ballina helpful – that is online on Paddy’s site here.

Thanks to Jan of the local photography group for taking the photos on the night and providing them to us.

Details of the April lecture coming soon!

Roz is a highly entertaining speaker, and this lecture is guaranteed to be a really fun, as well as informative, evening. Roz is travelling to give this lecture, and we are grateful to Kincora House for providing her with beautiful, historic accommodation, free of charge.

Don’t miss out! Come on in to Wood and Bell Café, Main St, Killaloe at 7pm on Wednesday the 21st of March (we are a bit earlier than normal this month because of Easter). FREE entry and everyone is welcome. Tea, coffee, beer, and wine, as well as some delicious food, will be available for purchase on the night from the staff of Wood and Bell, so bring a few bob for that. See you there!

Please help us promote this talk by sharing this post, our website, or the Facebook event. Here is a higher quality version of the poster for printing, if you fancy going that bit further and sticking one up on your office noticeboard! Every little helps. Thanks so much!

Paddy gave an incredibly detailed presentation which was packed with explanations and useful links. A snapshot is above. He has very kindly made the whole thing available online, and you can access it here. He also recorded the talk, and when it goes up on YouTube, the link will be on that page too.

Paddy’s guide is brilliantly useful, especially for people researching family history in the areas of Clare, Tipperary, and Limerick, and takes you right through from how to talk to family members right up to the latest DNA tools.

The Society would like to thank Paddy for sharing his knowledge so generously with our audience. The next lecture will take place in January, and we will be hearing about the history of the islands of Lough Derg from Ger Madden. We are moving to a new venue for this event, as our numbers attending have outgrown the space available at Killaloe Library. So keep an eye out here, and we will keep you posted! The Society would like to thank Killaloe Library for allowing us to use the space there every month since our inception.

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Killaloe-Ballina Local History Society would like to wish all our friends a very Happy Christmas!