Family Tree
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Your Genealogy Problems Solved
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Have a genealogy question for Chris?
Email [email protected] with
‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.11 – 24 May 2022 • Issue 631 Next issue: Search old newspapers on FindmypastI’d like to trace my father’s ancestors, but
because he was born in Poland, I don’t
know where to start. Can you help?
Marian KalibabkaCyndi’s List (https://cyndislist.com) is a
vast directory of international resources.
For Poland alone it has links to over 400websites. One problem you’ll face is that
Poland’s borders have changed many
times, which might affect where to find
some records. FamilySearch covers this in
depth at http://www.snipca.com/41555.You can narrow your
search using mother’s
maiden names and
sub-districtsFive credits (£2.50) buys you an image of the
original birth certificateperiods, which means it doesn’t release
birth records until one hundred years
have elapsed, and marriages for 75 years.Search for family on GRONI
To demonstrate how the system works,
we’ll look for the birth record of my
grandmother Martha Smyth, who I know
was born in Belfast in 1922. Under ‘Search
Registrations’ I clicked the ‘Search for a
birth registration’ link to open a search
page. Credits cost 50p each on the site – a
useful tip is to have at least one credit (^1
in our screenshot above) so you can
access some basic information in search
results. Visit the account section at the
top right of screen^2 to buy credits.
I entered my grandmother’s name, but
as Smyth and Smith are interchangeable,
I selected Variants^3 in the toolbox menu
to the right of her surname. I could haveY
ou may have read that there’s
little point in researching Irish
ancestry because all the records
were lost in a fire at Four Courts in
Dublin in 1922 during the civil war.
But other sources have survived that
can help you find essential information- in particular, birth, marriage and
death records (BMD).
Bookmark the best sources
Registration in Ireland began in 1845
with the recording of non-Roman
Catholic marriages (including non-
denominational civil ceremonies). Then
from 1864, all births, marriages and
deaths were recorded. For the north, the
Irish Government’s Irish Genealogy site
(www.irishgenealogy.ie) contains records
up to 1920 from the original General
Register Office in Dublin.
However, after the partition of Ireland
in 1921, a new General Register Office for
Northern Ireland (GRONI) was
established in Belfast, and its site (https://
geni.nidirect.gov.uk) also offers access to
NI records from the start of registration
and - uniquely - for all Northern Irish
events since 1921.
Its records cover births from 1864 to
1922, marriages from 1845 to 1947 and
deaths from 1864 to 1972. The site also
includes military deaths during World
War 2. It operates online privacy closurenarrowed the results further by adding
her mother’s maiden name, Watton^4.
The GRONI site allows searches
within ranges of five years, but I know
Martha was born in 1922, so I entered
that date in the ‘Year or year range’ box.
Unlike the Irish Genealogy site, GRONI
lets you enter both the registration
district and sub-district when searching.
But because Belfast has many sub-
registration districts, I chose the first
option only.
The results included an entry for my
grandmother, showing her birth date as
4 March 1922. I then had the option of
paying one credit for an ‘Enhanced
record’ (a transcript), or five credits to see
the image of her birth certificate (see
screenshot below). Purchased records
remain on your account for only 72
hours, so save the relevant information
before the time runs out.Find Northern Ireland’s BMD details
Records held in Belfast can help fill gaps caused by a fire in
Dublin. Chris Paton explains how to...
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