I, also, only know that my ancestors came from County Cork, and not much more. They came to Ontario, Canada, sometime around 1846/47, possibly during the Potatoe Famine. Canada did not keep ship passenger records from that time, that I am aware of. Bartholomew and Mary (Kelly) Cairns had two sons born in Ireland before leaving, Patrick ( b.1841) and Michael (b.1843), and the rest of the family was born in Ontario. They were Catholic, so would you advise starting by paying the Mallow centre to do a search for them in the parish records? At least I would know approximate dates. And I could guess at the marriage date as well. Bartholomew was born about 1817, and Mary about 1821. They could have been married around 1840 or so. Another problem is that while they had the surname of Cairns in Canada, I was told it could have been Kerns or Kearns in Ireland. How can one know this for sure, or would you search each spelling? Without knowing the town/parish, is this an impossible task? Any suggestions on how I could go about finding these people in Ireland would be gratefully appreciated. Thank you, Judy, in Alberta. On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, Ginny Pietsch wrote: > Thank you Dennis. This will be a wonderful help to me. I have had no > luck in finding out where my gr.grandfather was from in Ireland. The > only thing I know is that he was from County Cork. His name is > Patrick Neville and DOB: 1849. I appreciate the help. They did not begin civil registration of birth in Ireland until 1864. You will have to find his baptism in a parish record. If he was Church of Ireland the records may have been destroyed in the 1922 fire at the Four Courts in Dublin. If he was Catholic, there is a heritage centre in Mallow that has indexed parish records for the Diocese of Cloyne. Unfortunately, this covers only north and east Cork. The rest of county Cork is in the Diocese of Cork & Ross, for which there is no index.