This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Doherty Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/YWC.2ACI/4956.1 Message Board Post: Bree, You will need to identify more specifically where in Ireland Hugh Bell Doherty originated which would include the County, Townland and/or Civil Parish. Civil records in Ireland didn't begin until 1864 (except Protestant marriages were recorded starting in 1845) and generally no census records from the nineteenth century survive. Your main resource, therefore, would be church records. In order to find this information, you will need to research Canadian records. Church and civil records for his marriage, death, children's birth records, cemetery record, obituary, will, tombstone, as well as sponsors for religious events, who were often relatives or neighbours from the home area in Ireland, should help in identifying his specific location. Irish emigrants generally referred to their townland or civil parish as their place of origination. For a fuller description of these civil divisions, please see http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/2435.asp Eilis O'Hara