Hi everyone. (this is a long letter) It seems that there are a lot of researchers out there who are mentioning the fact that they have come to a 'Brick Wall' or 'A Dead End' in their search for their ancestors, especially those researching in Ireland. A thought did occurred to me the other day (I don't have many!) that you may be looking in the wrong places. Let me explain. This is an example on an address I just sent to someone (some details changed for privacy): The Big House Arless Ballickmoyler Carlow Ireland Tel: (Carlow) 0123 456 789 The address is confusing in itself if you are not familiar with the Irish postal system. In this case Ballickmoyler & Arless is in the County of Laois and Carlow is in County Carlow (obviously). Address's in Ireland are written according to where the letter has to go to get to its final destination. (remember, there are no Post Codes (Zip Codes) in rural Ireland (only in the big cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick etc). In the case above, Carlow is the main sorting office and is the nearest one to Arless. Ballickmoyler is the nearest sub Post Office to Arless. So all the mail for the area has to go to that office and then on to Arless which is the final delivery address. The nearest Telephone exchange to this part of Laois is also Carlow so the same would apply. Now, the same applies to the information that you see on Birth, Marriage and Death certificates. People may be living in one county, in this case the southern part of Laois and most people would go accross the border into the next county i.e Carlow, to register their B,M & D. In fact, it is also quite common for people who travelled outside of Ireland to say that they actually came from that town because no one would have heard of the village let alone know where that village was. It certainly wouldn't be in any official document that the authorities abroad could relate to. They would only have a list of the major towns of Ireland. So how can we determine where our folks were born/lived? The first piece of equipment you need is a good map/s of the county/s you are looking in, (in the case of Ireland the 'Discovery Series' are the best). I would also equip myself with all the maps that border on to that county as well. Now if you are under the impressions from family sources that your ancestors came from a certain town and after hours/days/months/years of research you come up with 'Zero', it is now time to start widening your search area and this is where your maps will come in useful. You have to pinpoint the County Administration Town of the County (this is where people have to go to register their Births etc and ask yourself, 'how long it would take to walk to that town'. Remember there were no motor cars in those days so everyone walked. (what a healthy life!). My Grandfather walked 8 miles to work carrying his Stonemasons tools in a bag over his shoulder. He would do a days work (Dawn to dusk) and then walk 8 miles home. (this is what people did and his journey was by no means the longest. I have evidence of much longer journeys and involved a steep hill upwards coming home). Once you have done your sum's, you may then find out why you cant find who you are looking for in the county that you were told originally because they were living accross the border in the next county and their own County Administration Town would have been too far away, (probably a days walking!) to register their Birth's Marriage's and Death's. Here is a question? Where did the people who were born in say the southern end of County Carlow? They probably went into Kilkenny or Wexford. Confused? so are a lot of other people researching. Parishes also crossed over into the next county and you might be born in Northern Ireland and registered in a Town in Southern Ireland. A bit extreme I know but that what we are looking at, extremes in research. I hope this will help all of you who are about to give up because you have searched every record in the parish where they were born. Try looking over the fence into the parish next door. You never know what you might find. I did that and found all my family who were born in Arless but registered in the next county which was Carlow. Good luck everyone and if you get STUCK give me a shout. Regards Michael Brennan Kent County in England CARLOW IGP URL: http://www.rootsweb.com/~irlcar2/ My BRENNAN FAMILY/Co LAOIS URL: http://www.brennanfamilyhistory.com

Michael, I'm very sorry to say this but you have it wrong..............the reason your ancestors were registered in Carlow is because they lived in that part of Co. Laois which is covered by Carlow Superintendant's Registrars office and so, legally they had to be registered in that Superintendant Registrar's Disctrict. Before we had civil registration we had th ePoor Law Unions and each PLU had an administrative centre usually a market or post town - the area covered by that PLU had a radius of about 10 miles around the town. Now, because our counties are small ten miles to either side of a town can take in parts of three counties. Carlow town is close to the Laois border and so it takes in parts of Laois. The thing is that when people know that their ancestors came from a certain county then they lok for information for civil registration districts that they know belong to that county. So, for example with Laois, most people will know that Abbeyleix is in Laois, adn they'll know that Mountmellick is and also they might find out that Donaghmore is (there are too many Donaghmores in Ireland and this one is only a two or three streets, two pub village). This is a list of the registration districts that cover Co. Laois. With one asterisk then it's Co. Laois only and with two it's Co. Laois and taking in parts of another county and three indicates that the town is physically located in another county. Here we have Athy which is in Kildare county and covering parts of Co. Laois and we have Roscrea which is in Co. Tipperary and also covers parts of Co. Laois. Abbeyleix* Athy*** Carlow*** Donaghmore* (Created 1850, dissolved Jan 1887) Mountmellick** Roscrea*** The way to see which parts of Laois are covered by any of these districts is to go to the Sean Ruad IrlAtlas (townalnds directory) web site at http://www.seanruad.com and key in whichever of these names that you want - then put Co. Laois or Queen's as the county and you will get a return of all the townlands that are physically part of Co. Laois but which belong to the Poor Law Union you looked for - if it's one of the more than one county ones. Arless and Balickmoyler will come up under Carlow. Civil registration was based on the Poor Law Unions and the townlands in the administrative area of any poor law union, so, if I had a child born in a particular townland and I went to the wrong district office to have the event registered - they would have to tell me to go to the district that covered my townland. If anyone wants to know more about civil registration in Ireland then please see: http://www.from-ireland.net/gene/civilregistration.htm After that - only Dublin has postal discricts - no-where else. We have one major phone company and they have us divided up into Zones. I used to say something like what you have said here in relation to parishes and churches and people going to their closest church for baptisms and funerals and such like - I don't now. What I have learned is that while it's true that they probably went to the closest church, and not the main parish church - the closest church may have been a chapel of ease to the parish church - the records for that closest church may be listed in those of the main parish church or there may have been a separate register - there may have been no records kept even! We can only see these separate registers when we go to th eparish register films - I can't tell you how many films for how many counties that I have found parish names listed on the film that are mentioned in none of the various indices or listing of remaining parish registers. So, now, I believe that they attended some church in their own parish - but that it may have been a chapel of ease - Also - the boundaries of parishes changed and the Bishops of Dioceses actually moved townlands from one parish to another from time to time - just to the parish next door really - but it was all administration based on the population and the number of priests he had. I had read of this but had never seen it until recently when I was working with some LImerick registers and on the front page of one the PP had kept notes as to the changes ordered by the bishop - over a 12 year time span (1833-49) the bishop annexed townalnds from one parish to the other and then some of them back again - plus he added or subtracted other townlands from the parish I was looking at to two other parishes - changed in 4 parishes altogether. So people who left in 1845 would say they came from this parish - and then those who left from the same family 3 years later would give their parish as another............ So you're very right in telling people to look in the parishes next door. Jane http://www.from-ireland.net http://www.from-ireland.net/contents/laoisconts.htm http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Y-IRL/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Brennan" <michael@janbren.freeserve.co.uk> To: <IRL-LAOIS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2002 1:17 PM Subject: [IRL-LAOIS] BRICK WALL'S - DEAD END'S in research > Hi everyone. (this is a long letter) >