Dear Fianna: I received an e-mail from: RobertF864@aol.com about doing Irish research and I am cheeky enough to post it here for any comments you care to make. Bob Fleitz wrote: > Wondered if I might ask some advice. My mother's grandparents were Thomas > and Mary Garvey. According to US census came to Ohio in 1860 from Ireland. > That's all we know. Death certificates don't mention birthplaces, parents, > anything. Any advice on where to start? Did most Garveys come from County > Clare? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. Well...First, I am no expert. And I won't pretend Irish research is going to be easy. How determined are you? I started from a similar point. By the way you can't do most of this online. You have to be prepared to go to books, and libraries and write letters. Anyway, then I looked at kids' birth certificates, and found "Co Clare". This was confirmed from shipping lists. Since I had this much info I did not need to do what others have had to do. Look at phone books, 1901 census index, Griffith Valuation index and so on to find out in which counties the Garvey families lived. This is called a distribution study. Once you have a county, then you need to find a townland, parish etc. Once you know the county you can either go straight to a heritage centre and pay a lot of money for them to do the work. This site tells you this and more http://world.std.com/~ahern/TIARA.html Or you can do it yourself. Sites like Cyndi How's on the internet http:www.oz.net/~cyndihow/ireland.htm or the Uni of Iowa's course at: http://www.ideaschool.org/courses/general/gen208.htm will tell you how. You need to be prepared that it will be slow, but you will learn a lot - and must - along the way because research in Ireland is very different. If you are new to genealogy in general you might want to do a more general course as at the Virtual University: http://www.vu.org/cgi-bin/classroom.pl?33 At this site you might want to download the syllabus, because this term is almost done, but they will be asking for people to sign up soon. All these sites are free - at the moment. And you should join mailing lists like GENIRE-L, and IRELAND-L, which you have probably done already. I am not sure where you saw my address. Anyway, there you are. If you do all this (I've been doing it six months) then you will get small but gratifying results. I now know my people come from the parishes of Quin and Cratloe in County Clare, and I know the townlands they were occupying back to 1820, but I'm stuck there. That's my challenge, but when I look back I think I have come a long way. Good luck. Thanks for the question. As a matter of fact I am just finishing a project for my VU course on precisely that question. So keep an eye on that site because they are very practical. Maria in Hobart Tasmania Australia marmarbrandl@trump.net.au Researching GARVEY FLANNERY COLLINS CARMODY GLEESON BERMINGHAM DONNELLAN in County Clare