But a talk at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum on February 28 will help people uncover hard-to-find information.
Ulster Historical Foundation executive director Fintan Mullan and research officer Gillian Hunt are visiting Dunedin from Northern Ireland to present a seminar that will help both beginners and active family historians.
Mr Mullan and Ms Hunt said one of the challenges when researching Irish and Scots-Irish ancestors was the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland.
Established in 1867, the record office was housed in part of the Four Courts complex, the principal law courts of the country.
It became the focus of attention in spring 1922 when anti-treaty rebels used the Four Courts as their Dublin headquarters.
The rebels opposed the Free State treaty with Great Britain and wanted a completely independent Irish republic.
A standoff with the new fledgling Irish Free State government went on for several months, when with pressure from the British government, the Free State army attempted to retake the complex at the end of June 1922, triggering the Irish Civil War.
The record treasury, where armaments and munitions were being stored, was completely destroyed in the first days of fighting.
Millions of documents, some going back 800 years or more, went up in flames, they said.
Some of the collections destroyed included more than 1000 Anglican Church of Ireland registers dating back to the 1600s.
Other documents that were incinerated included early census returns from 1821 to 1851 and practically all pre-1858 wills and testamentary records.
While the loss of these historical records made Irish family history research more difficult, it was not impossible.
Many huge collections held elsewhere in other archives, public offices or in private hands have survived.
Records of the great landed estates in Ireland can also throw light on forebears’ lives, the historians said.
Since the destruction of the Public Record Office, archivists, historians and family historians had been incredibly resourceful in trying to make good the loss.
They have used alternative sources such as wills, property records and personal collections to rebuild information for research.
Recently, the Virtual Record Treasury project was launched at virtualtreasury.ie, which aims to digitally reconstruct the Record Treasury as it was before the fire, showing what was lost and what might still exist in other archives.
- Ulster Historical Foundation lecture tour: Researching your Irish and Scots-Irish Ancestors, Wednesday, February 28, 9.30am-5pm, Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. Email enquiry@uhf.org.uk for more information.
JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN
- Ulster Historical Foundation executive director Fintan Mullan and research officer Gillian Hunt say New Zealand was among the last major British territories to receive Irish immigrants, mostly post-1840, except for some military personnel.
- Many migrants, often leaving dire conditions, had little idea of their destination.
- They were motivated by letters from earlier migrants depicting a promising life that could be in some cases be in contrast to a life of penury and starvation in Ireland.
- Opportunities such as the gold rushes in Australia and New Zealand offered the prospect of a "quick buck" and escape from life on an Irish farm which was often mundane, repetitive and tedious.
- Some would have gained an understanding of what life they were going to by seeking out details from newspapers or fraternal societies.
- Other migrants, with little means other than the desire to escape, may have been taking the plunge on the scantiest detail about what awaited them.
