This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/YWC.2ACI/5401.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Hello Michele, There are very little records and esp. for RC's there's really not much before 1830 or so. Primarily church registers for births and marriages with very little else available. The possibility that any Feeley/Feely today would have any knowledge of an Elizabeth Feeley and son Charles from maybe Donegal or Leitrim but no specific birth location, no parents names and no other family connection who went to Canada in 1830 -- nearly 200 years ago -- is unlikely. There are hundreds of Feeleys/Feelys in Donegal and Leitrim and no way of knowing if any of them have any ancestral connections with either location because there's been so much movement around Ireland in the intervening two centuries. Millions of people left Ireland and there's no way to find out who left or where they went because there are no records. The lack of census records for the 1800s, and any civil registration before 1864 requires knowledge of specific locations where familiy members were born or married to find what church might have those baptismal or mariage records. Most church records in Ireland are available only on microfilm at the National Library of Ireland in Dublin and even then some aren't. So often a personal visit to the specific church to look at the registers is necessary if they're not in Dublin. And if they are in Dublin it requires a trip there to research them. So reseaching for those of us living in Ireland is really no easier than for those abroad. And since most families already know their ancestry at least through their grandparents or greatgrandparents there really isn't a great desire to find anything further back because most people already know where they come from. The Kinlough History website that Tom Feeley established says it's no longer updated and e-mail will bounce back. He's been on secondment and I don't know how he might be contacted. That's why I gave you the school contact website but you won't be able to contact anyone there because the schools are on holiday for the summer and won't reopen until autumn. Then you can try to contact the acting principal listed on their website regarding local history or Tom Feeley's possible contact information. Eilís O'Hara