verte76 said:
Sting, there are ways you can trace your ancestry back for a long time. I have a record of an ancestor who was born in Scotland in the late 17th century, around 1680. Subsequent births took place in both Scotland and Ireland, and my folks came to this country, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, in the late eighteenth century. It's a ton of research and work, but it's doable.
There certainly are ways and I have searched "parts" of my ancestry back prior to 1500. But looking at any ancestor chart, even for the presidents, and you will discover dead ends in many area's around the 5th and 6th generation going back. Going 5 generations back(parent, grandparent, G Grandparent, GG Grandparent GGG Grandparent), every person has 32 Great, Great, Great, Grandparents. Some may have them complete, but most Presidents who have had their ancestry's researched by thousands of people will still not know all 32 of their Great, Great, Great, Grandparents. No doubt, several of those lines that are known will be traced hundreds of years back, but the further you go back after that, the more deadends will appear.
The fact is, the further in time you go back, the smaller the number of records there are that one can find their ancestors on.
Irish Catholics usually are not able to trace their roots in Ireland any farther back than 1800, which is the case with Reagan's father.
There a several things which make Genealogy in Ireland difficult. Census's and many other Genealogically important records were burned during the Irish Civil War in Dublin. The earliest surviving Census in Ireland is the 1901 Census. Civil registration of births, deaths and marriages did not begin until 1864. Prior to that, Church Records are very important. But Catholic record keeping did not begin in Ireland until the early 1800s, and some places not until the late 1800s. Protestant record keeping in Ireland started in the early 1700s, but many of those records were brought to Dublin prior to the Civil War to keep them in a central location and were burned in the fire.
Griffiths Land Valuation of Ireland from 1848-1864 is often used as a census substitute as it list the head of every household in Ireland during that time. The interesting thing is that if one can find their ancestor on this land valuation, they can go to the exact place where the house or dwelling place is or once stood during that time, for their ancestor. Most census's will only list a street or town where their person resided, but this land valuation allows one to find the exact piece of land that the ancestor lived on, regardless of what is there now.
Irish genealogy is exciting and there are many things that one can find, its just that research prior to 1800 for most will not be possible because there are simply no records available prior to that time in most area's of Ireland.