Back in June 2010, the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Micheál Martin, announced its intention to make available a Certificate of Irish Heritage for the millions of people worldwide with Irish ancestry who don’t quality for Irish citizenship by descent. Usually one has to have a grandparent born in Ireland to quality for Irish [...]

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) is the main repository of genealogically relevant records for the six counties of Northern Ireland, and it also holds records pertinent to the whole historical province of Ulster (nine counties). The PRONI facility on Balmoral Avenue, Belfast, closed in September and is scheduled to reopen on 30 [...]

Sometimes it takes hours to find a little bit of information. Recently I was looking for a possible death of a child that possibly immigrated in 1884 to New York City. The name of the child was Boruch but may have been changed to a more English sounding name. The last name of this family [...]

Some forty-two million Americans identified themselves as descendants of German immigrants in the 2000 United States Census.  Second place, with about thirty-two million descendants, went to Ireland.  From the founding of Germantown in 1683 to today, millions of Germans have come to America.  How did they travel here and what kind of paper trail did [...]

In our fourth installment of Genesis of our Genealogists, meet Neil D. Holden, our only full-time genealogist who hails from another continent. His specialities include English, Irish, Canadian, Immigration, and British Empire research. 
Interview with Neil D. Holden

Where did you grow up?
 
Hastings, England – the murder capital of Europe. It is not a large town, but it does have a [...]

I recently entered the genealogical world. Three months ago was my first time ever doing anything with genealogy work. The task can seem very large and hard. For those starting genealogy the key is to just jump in. Don’t get overwhelmed with everything. Start little by little. As you start to use all the different [...]

Let’s get excited about finding out more about our family and where we come from! I was thinking about how I, as an individual, am not just one life but a whole network of lives that come together as one. One of the things I love about family history is learning about all those lives [...]