Join genealogist Frank Cunningham on Zoom as he describes the pitfalls and potentials of researching your Irish ancestors!

The key to successful genealogy research is persistence. Keep asking questions and comparing files, and don’t be committed to one particular outcome. As Frank Cunningham has often discovered, you might not find the answers you’re expecting, but the more you know about your family, your ancestors, the more you know about yourself.

But with the seemingly infinite amount of information available on the internet, culling it and understanding its possible shortcomings has become a science akin to an art form. And there are often research roadblocks which arise from human behavior!

For example, for as long as people have been asking other people their age, some of those questioned have lied for a multitude of reasons. You may find a birth record for your great-great-grandmother dating back to 1885, then find a marriage certificate dated 1910 that seems to be hers, but which declares her age as 22. The dates don’t match, so you think you’ve got the wrong bride. Not necessarily.

Or another common Irish issue is family structures that are more flexible than we expect. A farm family with eight children might have sent one of their children to live with and help a childless neighbor. The child took the neighbor’s last name and eventually inherited the neighbor’s farm. All well and good for that child — but from a genealogical perspective, you’ve got a birth record, then the child simply disappears.

Frank J. Cunningham, genealogist, poet, and writer is a native of County Mayo, Ireland. He has lived in America for four decades. He reads Irish, German and French. Cunningham will share insights and tips about researching family ancestry designed for both the novice and the professional.