John Pezzano <jpezz@myway.com> wrote: : 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? The simplest way to do it would be to pay a heritage centre in county Clare to check their index to see if she is in their database. It would probably cost less than the gas it would take to drive to every parish in Clare, assuming you had the time and the parish priests didn't just tell you to go to the heritage centre as they have more pressing commitments than helping out tourists searching for their roots. It would be much simpler for you to go to the National Library in Dublin and go through all of the parish records on microfilm for County Clare. Because you have a specific date, this may be easier than it sounds. See: http://www.mayo-ireland.ie/Geneal/Clare.htm Co. Clare Family Heritage Centre computerizing parish records Provides search service for a fee See http://tiara.ie/results.htm for customer comments http://scripts.ireland.com/ancestor/browse/counties/munster/index_cl.htm Co. Clare sources for genealogy http://www.rootsweb.com/~irlcla/index.htm County Clare Genealogical Project http://www.connorsgenealogy.com/clare/ County Clare Surnames and Census Records http://www.rootsweb.com/~irlcla2/ County Clare GenWeb http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/library/local-studies/clasp/ Clare Local Studies Project http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/genealog.htm Clare County Library Genealogy http://www.familia.org.uk/services/eire/clare.html County Clare Library Family History Resources http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/places/parishes.htm Parishes and Townlands in Co. Clare http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/ parliamentary_gazeteer_1845.htm [two-line url] Parliamentary Gazeteer of Clare 1845 http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/ 1901census/1901_clare_census.htm [two-line url] 1901 Census of County Clare