Hi, If you know that church records don't exist in the 1840s then you know the parish they came from. That's because by the 1840s LOTS of church records DO exist and weren't destroyed in the 1922 Four Courts Fire. So you search for local records. How do you do that? You get Grenham's "Tracing your Irish Ancestors" or Ryan "Irish Records" and you turn to the right county. You also use LDS to locate records. You also read the above mentioned anyone ever read that thing??) and free. Fianna (use Google) may have most of Ryan on line now. If you mean that you cannot find church records because they are not all nicely indexed in one place, then you need to do research to figure out where they came from in Ireland. You can continue to search for records over here or you can do a standard surname study to try to guess. There's a number of strategies you can use including Griffiths. However you will not find records in Ireland that record emigrants with the exception of a handful. There were a few named in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs in the 1830s in some Antrim parishes, but that's too early for you. To repeat: major records, minor records, in between, don't matter! When your ancestors left Ireland no one recorded they were leaving. There are a few exceptions but unless you know the county at least, they are no use to you. If you don't believe me (I do this professionally, btw), you can read up on the courses at www.genealogy.com/university.html on migration. Or I can recommend a book or two if you prefer to pay for the information. A very readible book is Radford and Betit's "A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering your Irish Ancestors". You can also find a lot of info about secondary sources at www.rootsweb.com/~bifhsusa . Best of luck! Linda Merle -------------- Original message -------------- From: "Walt"Irish"- Cent.NJ Shore via Boston" <WaltIrish1@comcast.net> > McKENZIE / MILLER ~ O'NEIL ~ SULLIVAN ~ SHEEHAN > Greetings All , > Any input greatly appreciated. Two of my Ire ancestors were > b. in the 1840's and b. & m. civil & church records do not exist. Both > did not m. in Ire and left in 1871 & 1895. Anyone with experience with > lesser known records 1850(64)-95 that might yield place of origin in Ire. > TIA . . . all the best , > Walt > Grandpa "Scot-Ulster-Irish" McKENZIE, Sr. > Central NJ Shore via Boston, MA, USAmerica > WaltIrish1@comcast.net >