John Grenham

John Grenham

The only cast-iron rule of family history is that you start from what you know and use it to find out more. Take your granny and work back from her.
How to trace your Irish family history: a step-by-step guide

It’s easier than ever to trace your ancestry, using online church records to DNA kits

Genealogical roots: there is no doubt that a revolution in access to records has taken place.
Irish Roots: seven years of genealogical delving

Our column calls it a day with a look at recent progress aided by the internet

Irish Roots: Who makes a living from genealogy in Ireland?

There are several ways to turn an interest in family history into paid work

Irish Roots: The Revolution Papers is a work of genius

This is the best piece of popular history publishing in Ireland for many years

Irish Roots: Digging up burial records

Until recently, death records supplied no family information

Irish Roots: Why genealogy is seasonal

The great annual family gathering causes the post-Christmas genealogical website spike

Irish Roots: Free-range, grass-fed Irish genealogy

Irish Roots: Hiding from Big History

Irish Roots: Home of begrudgery

Evidently the B word is exclusively Irish, which clearly means something about the national psyche

Irish Roots: One-stop site for everything that connects to genealogy

This is the centre of the Irish family history universe

Irish Roots: John O’Donovan’s glorious letters

For anyone interested in local history in rural Ireland they are a magnificent treasure trove

Irish Roots: Floundering with valuation maps

New maps accompanying ‘Griffith’s Valuation’ just add to mountain of undated maps

Irish Roots: Have Irish surnames stopped changing?

The evolution of surnames has slowed throughout the developed world

Irish Roots: the use of Gaelic patronymic prefixes

How the Os and Macs came back to make their names

Irish Roots: how our surnames were Englished

Because any Anglophone record-keepers who knew Irish had only a smattering, mistranslation was the rule

Irish Roots: How Gaelic surnames changed beyond recognition

During the 17th century, the Gaelic institutions crumbled under the weight of the English conquest, taking with them the centralit(...)

Irish Roots: Norman surnames

Irish Roots: Viking surnames

True hereditary surnames were only introduced in Scandinavia in the late 18th century

Irish Roots: Irish Family History Foundation can get it right

There can be too much complaining, especially in the face of additional new transcripts

Irish Roots: Irish surnames as historical evidence

Irish roots: Notebook fills one gap left by lack of Dublin census

Between January and October 1875, William Malone noted down details of every household he visited, eventually ranging over the who(...)

Irish Roots: Freedom of Information and a file on informants

Various arguments are used to keep a historical document from the public eye

Irish Roots: a headstone in Terryglass

Negative outcomes can be just as important as positive ones

Irish Roots: Were there Irish slaves in Barbados?

Irish Roots: The late, unlamented Certificate of Irish Heritage

Irish Roots: Why we love Heritage Week

Irish Roots

Post-traumatic summer weather amnesia

Irish Roots: Online newsreels are a treasure trove

The Pathé, Movietone and AP digital archives store a wealth of local history

Irish Roots: Localised 19th-century Irish surnames

Irish Roots: Reactions to the National Library’s parish registers site

Irish Roots: List of irregular marriages from 19th-century Dublin published

Irish Roots

Ancestor! Cure your erectile dysfunction now!

Like it or not, races and nations do have their own characteristics, their own flaws and talents, and large parts of these stem from inheritance. To recognise this is not racist, any more than ignoring it is egalitarian
Irish Roots: We’re stuck with our ancestors – or are we?

Rachel Dolezal has been accused of adopting a black identity, but can we really rewrite our own genealogical history?

Irish Roots: The origins of Molly Bloom get curiouser and curioser

Marion Bruére Quin may have partly inspired Joyce’s character, and provided a link with Lewis Carroll

Finding your roots: Vast jungles of genealogical half-truths and supposition have spread online, and the need for experienced guides has grown, not diminished
Irish Roots: Professional genealogy lives on despite internet

Association of Professional Genealogists of Ireland has name change in light of globalisation

Irish Roots

Glory be to the Ordnance Survey

Irish Roots . . . Bloomier and bloomier

Irish Roots: Beware of ‘legacy searches’

Irish Roots: Genealogy dug up and mapped

Irish Roots

Lovely, Gnarly Nitty-Gritty Dublin Records

Irish Roots

Upcoming NLI parish record microfilm site is 90 per cent squint-free

Irish Roots: establishment of Ireland as European centre of genealogical excellence urged

Anyone with even the remotest interest in Irish genealogy should read this new report

Irish Roots: Registrations Indexes return

Irish Roots

The Other Clare Roots

Irish Roots: The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population?

A recent study in Nature maps very fine regional variations in genetic make-up in the UK

Irish Roots

Healing the extended family

Irish Roots: Godzilla next door

Irish Roots: Why Irish online genealogy is so peculiar

Irish Roots: Leave something for the next generation to discover

Irish Roots: Digging the line between them and us

Irish Roots

Standardised surnames and place names

Irish Roots: 1916 and all that

Irish Roots

But what has FindMyPast done for us lately?

Irish Roots

The top 100 genealogy websites?

Irish Roots

How not to run screaming from the microfilm room

Irish Roots: John Grenham

Science, your mammy and the common cold

Irish Roots

Pure Irish death

Irish Roots

The revolution will continue in 2015

Irish Roots

Surname maps: Ireland remains unique

John Grenham: Irish Roots

The long and winding road to haystack of needles

John Grenham: Irish Roots

Viking society contained very little in the way of humane prisons, flat-pack furniture or Lego

Irish Roots

Weird foreign surnames. Like ‘Walsh’.

John Grenham: Irish Roots

Online Catholic parish registers from the National Library of Ireland available in summer

Irish Roots

Thom’s Directory online

Irish Roots

Protestants and the Irish Society for Archives

Irish Roots

RF Foster’s ‘Vivid Faces’ and genealogy

Irish Roots

Pushing Irish jelly up a hill

Irish Roots

What do we lose when records are digitised?

Irish Roots

Surprisingly synchronised cycles

Irish Roots: Get advice from genealogists

Back To Our Past 2014 takes place at the RDS

Tree and root irish roots image for monday tom page
Irish Roots

LinkedIn Hell

Irish Roots

Guinness in the blood

Irish Roots

The Mayor of Boston’s Family Tree

Irish Roots

Long Live the Revolution!

Irish Roots

The Monica Roberts Collection

Irish Roots: chain migration - "Nobody ever left Ireland to go to America"

The accumulation of tens of thousands of individual and family decisions drove people overseas

Irish Roots: genealogy overdose

Are these your symptoms?

Irish Roots: Recovering the Great War Dead

The work of local historians and genealogists

Irish Roots: A rich source of records in Kew

Free downloads from the (other) National Archives

Irish Roots: Hidden ancestors

Why can’t you find your ancestors online?

Irish Roots

The General Register Office and IrishGenealogy.ie

Tree and root irish roots image for monday tom page
Irish Roots

False friends and Boston

Irish Roots

Resurrecting Church of Ireland records

Irish Roots

The General Register Office indexes online

Irish Roots

The Placenames Commission improved by abolition

Irish Roots

Accenuate the negative

Irish Roots

Records for Bloomsday

Irish Roots

Identifying an Irish place-name

Irish Roots

Attack of the killer apostrophes

Irish Roots

Why Irish administrative areas are so peculiar

Irish Roots

Reverse genealogy

Irish Roots

Gorgeous funerals

Irish Roots

The Genealogy Roadshow and the No. 16 bus

Irish Roots

Pre-1901 censuses launching today

Irish Roots

Irish genealogy: hyper-competitive, post-modern capitalism?

Irish Roots

The original records are rotting

Irish Roots

Conga lines of dancing Northern Irish civil servants

Irish Roots

Rootsireland must change to survive

Irish Roots

Ancestry.com’s impending monopoly

Irish Roots

There’s something about Paddy

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