I wanted to add a positive review about the genealogy services and to counter some of the negative... read more
I wanted to add a positive review about the genealogy services and to counter some of the negative... read more
My mom and I had an amazing and insightful session with Patrick at the Irish Family History Centre... read more
I was so happy I stumbled upon this place while walking thru Epic Ireland.
I was not prepared to do any real research, as I only had the first and last name of my Grandfather... Who was not even born in Ireland!!!! However, Claire and Patrick took the challenge with big smiles on their faces.
Soon they had figured out who in my heritage actually was Irish, and got me on the correct path. Now I can continue digging into my family tree on my own time.
Well worth the 9.50 euro!!!
THANK-YOU!!
My wife is the one with Irish heritage so I just sat back and enjoyed watching her ( with the help of the staff) find some clues to her Irish family tree.
They got her on the right track and were able to prove that she is in fact Irish.
If you do go here, don't go at the end of your stay in Dublin. You can get a complimentary follow up appointment. So it's best to go earlier in your stay.
My 50-minute appointment seemed a little scattered, although the guy who helped me was very nice. I came in with a very specific question: let's try to find the marriage record between this relative and that one to try to determine their religion. I had their names and their dates of birth and a town, but no parish. Oddly, the guy seemed reluctant or unable to narrow down to such a specific search in the database and help me locate some actual records. He made suggestions of how I could do it myself later. Which was nice. And they were fairly helpful suggestions that included a few things I hadn't thought of. However, I have only a few more days on this side of Ireland and I came in with the expectation that a "genealogist" or "genealogical expert" would be able to help me in that moment find or interpret a specific piece of information I had no luck finding myself with my more limited knowledge and databases. That was perhaps an unrealistic expectation. So I would say this: if you are really just starting out and have plenty of time, go for it. It's a little slick, but for 9 euros, fine. If you're looking for something specific, I'm not sure you'll find it, nor am I sure the genealogists are trained to find facts but more to introduce you to the practice of beginning to search for your ancestry and pointing toward other ancestry resources. The guy did give me a free ticket to come back. I'm not sure why; perhaps it wasn't his best session and he knew that and was being generous, which is why I am being generous in this review as well. Overall, you have to be pretty careful with such centres because they can prey upon people's deep desires to find their ancestors--information which is free at the libraries if you make enough time. The ultimate thing you get here is a pass to use the database for a month, but be forewarned: I read an article in the Irish times that stated that even with that membership you still have to pay for records themselves and many are duplicates. Though I have not started my membership yet so I have not confirmed this.
After I finished my visit to Epic, I was able to find my own Irish connections at this excellent Family History centre. There is great information to help you get started, with fun interactive screens to learn. There is also a bank of terminals giving access to great web resources to find those all important historic documents about your family. I found mine in the prison registers! Thats quite a story. There were experts on hand too that made it possible for me to understand what I was looking at, and told me what I needed to do next to find out more. Best of all they give you a pack with a month's access to two commercial web sites with millions of records so you can continue when you get home. Great value.