John Grenham’s third edition of his essential Irish genealogy reference expands and updates what was already an excellent resource. The key changes include a 35% increase in content, an emphasis on Internet resources, larger Roman Catholic parish maps, Catholic parish name variants, and minor differences in organization and chapter titles. This is primarily a reference book. It stresses records and repositories over methodology. A spot on introduction covers Irish genealogy basics. The serious Irish genealogist may want to use either Radford and Betit’s Discovering Your Irish Ancestors1 or Ouimette’s Finding Your Irish Ancestors2 for a more detailed and hand holding introductions to the field. This book’s emphasis is on discovering the immigrant’s place of origin in Ireland. Grenham includes references to the key records in the major destination countries of the Irish Diaspora. Part one contains chapters on the key basic record types such as civil records, census records, church records and property and valuation records.

Part two address narrowly focused records types and resources such as wills, the Genealogical Office, emigration records, the Registry of Deeds, newspapers, directories, the Internet and occupational records.

Part three is what sets this book apart from other works on Irish genealogy. It’s divided into two major sections. The first lists county resources: census returns and substitutes, the Internet, publications (local histories local journals and directories), gravestone inscriptions, and estate records. Grenham provides on either a county-by-county or parish-by-parish basis what records exist and where they may be found. (The other key genealogy reference that does something along the same line is Ryan’s Irish Records3, which nine years older, is still worth consulting because of the detailed contact information for each parish.) The second division of part three addresses county Roman Catholic registers. Each section has a map of the Roman Catholic parishes. These are much improved over earlier editions, but one may still consult Micthell’s A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland4 for bigger maps. Grenham’s maps have the parish name printed on each parish rather than in a numbered list. This section details the years of birth, marriage or death records in various repositories along with the call numbers for the holdings The book ends with a table of variant names for Roman Catholic parishes, list of providers of research services, and lists of societies, repositories and publishers.

The main reasons to own this book are the chapter on Internet resources for Irish genealogy and part three with its listings of sources and publications with pointers to where the researcher can find them. Those who attempt to trace their ancestors in Irish records know it is not an easy jaunt through online indexes to censuses and other records, but rather a hard slug through a wide range of usually locally focused records. A book like this that details what records are available and where to find them is of invaluable assistance. This third edition adds enough new material to what was already an excellent resource to make it well worth purchasing.

• 1 Dwight A. Radford and Kyle J. Betit, Discovering Your Irish Ancestors. (Cincinnati, Ohio: Betterway Books, 2001.
• 2 David S. Ouimette, Finding Your Irish Ancestors (Provo, Utah: Ancestry, a division of My Family.com, Inc., 2005)
• 3 James G. Ryan, Irish Records (Provo, Utah: Ancestry Incorporated, 1997).
• 4 Brian Mitchell, A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland, 2nd edition (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing co., Inc. 2002).

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