WHy don't you try taking a look at the web site for the County Clare Library........ they have a lot of material on line and would save you having to spend money getting this same information from a Professional service. The first thing you need to look at is the Tithe Applotment books - TAB's they'l give you some idea re civil parishes and where the name occurred. Clare Library has them on line - also the Griffths Valuation and 1901 census. They don't/can't have parish records due to copyright - but they sure about have everything else there is for Clare - regular records for Irish research http://www.clarelibrary.ie/ Jane X-Message: #3 Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 23:23:03 -0400 >From: "John Pezzano" <jpezz@myway.com> To: GENIRE-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <4e6f9$432cdd99$4986607$21273@DIALUPUSA.NET> Subject: How hard will it be to find ancestor information? My wife's great grandmother was, we believe, born in County Clare on, we believe, Dec 25, 1827. How difficult would it be to trace her when we go visit there without going through (paying for) one of the "services" that trace ancestors. My though would be to go to each parish in the county to look at records. Possible? Other choices? Similar, the great grandfather from County Mayo assuming Mayo is not on the sandwich :-) JohnP _______________ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com