Genealogy Chat

hi does anyone have any tips on finding the register of people in workhouses in Northern Ireland? my grandfather was, we believe born in to a workhouse the youngest of 6 and his mother died at his birth. he was born we think in when he died we found a copy of his birth cert and he had ripped the parents bit off. he had been called Peter Callahan but had added the O anf the g in pen to the cert to make it O'Callaghan, how anyone did not notice ..i dont know. he died in 1981 and the birth cert has gone missing i have his date of birth as 02/04/1919 any help would be great!!! michelle

There is a lot of information on Irish Workhouses if you google 'Irish Workhouses' in parenthesis. There are many books also written on the subject, but a register of people in these workhouses online from Ireland is rather asking a lot of Irish Genealogy! I have purchased books through Irish Bookshops found online dealing with this issue in Tipperary and Kilkenny and many books will mention many names as I have found in both these counties. However, the information will not drop on to a plate for you. Most Irish information has to be earned the really hard way, by the old fashioned methods of tracing family history. Most Irish names beginning with 'O' like O'Callaghan/O'Sullivan/O'Shea/O'Neil etc were either anglicised to Neil/Shea/Callaghan etc or the history of the dropped O came about through the 'soupers' that were considered betrayers of the Irish cause during famine times. Suggest you read about 'Soupers' . Below is one website on 'soupers' There are many others if you google search. http(://)homepage(.)eircom(.)net(/~)archaeology(/)two(/)famine(.)htm Janet

If you phone the General Register Office Northern Ireland (GRONI) and give them the details they will give you a search for £5.50 and send all the information that is on the birth certificate. You can order the certificate, if you want it, for an extra £5.50. As you have the exact date it should be easy, there are unlikely to be two exactly on the same date. Google for GRONI, and there are a couple of numbers, if one does not seem to answer - try another. I have done this and they are very helpful. Jen

thank you both so much i will try this method. interesting i went on irishancesty and it came up witha peter callan in armagh and qhite a few others as well of the same surname so fingers crossed i maybe able to xrefrence these with the birth cert. so he could have added the O the g and h to make O'Callaghan probably so he could not be traced when he came to England aged 14 years...would be very interesting to find out why he left at that age. thanks again Michelle