Reverse Genealogy

Several avenues come to mind with the term "Reverse Genealogy", as we participate in these projects.

One aspect we are supporting, initiated by the Galway charity "Ireland Reaching Out" envisions taking local Civil Parish records and finding the descendants of those individuals. This is a wonderful concept, but it is a challenge to facilitate. The genealogist would somehow have to take a marriage record for instance, find all their children, find their children's marriages, and again find their children, and so on, until they found the generation of any living descendants. A difficult task.

A means for this approach has been performed successfully with US Census records from 1850 to 1930, and U.K. Census records from 1841 to 1911, in conjunction with BDM indexes, county or state marriage indexes, and cemetery groupings. But even so, moving "blindly forward", they are mostly circumstantial at best, and from our experience, reveal only one or two lines per family, and only for 1 or 2 generations with confidence -- without, or until, living relatives to consult, verify, or substantiate theories.

However, using that model in Ireland is a bit more difficult, where only the 1901 and 1911 census are available, which means that any Ireland Ancestors would have had to depart within that time frame -- and how does one follow the trail of a "missing" census entry for a person and determine they migrated into another country? We are therefore attempting these projects in simultaneous directions.

Such efforts seem more practical through facts obtained by obituary, will/administration, newspaper clipping, or parish press, but have been known to precede telephone "white pages" introductions or online webforum corespondance.

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If you have an interest in any civil parish in Ireland, this non-profit organization welcomes the Irish Diaspora to learn about it's history, and partner with the local community and residents. Even if you do not yet know what specific districts your people were affiliated with, the site also has a County section, for queries and networking.

As endorsed by the Prime Minister, they have brought to the fore the concept of Reverse Genealogy, and encourage such by local parish volunteers or tourism heritage community groups. They also facilitate the issuance of a certificate from the government acknowledging a tie to the homeland. A wonderful surprise if one did not know, before being contacted.