West Ulster Genealogy Services

03/01/2026

A NEW YEAR CONUNDRUM

Grace Clancy, the grandmother in my current project, should have been a slam dunk for the 1911 Census - married and in her 20s, unusual name, not many ways to spell it, definitely never left Ireland - but could I find it? Nope. Can you spot why?

20/12/2025

ARE MY EYES DECEIVING ME?

This is probably the biggest conundrum I have ever come across in 25 years of researching family history.

How can two people, Mary McHugh and Ellen McHugh, be born in 1867 and 1869 respectively, to Manus McHugh and Anne Sweeney, in the townland of Maas, Iniskeel, Co Donegal, and yet manage to appear in the 1851 Census?! Yes, you read that right. They were born in the late 1860s and yet appear in the 1851 Census.

Now, you may be thinking that there IS no census for 1851 and you would be right. But, it did exist until is was destroyed in the 1920s. And if you wanted to prove that you were over 70 years of age, and entitled to the Old Age Pension that was introduced in 1909, then you needed to ask the Census office if you were in the 1841 or 1851 Census, because there were NO birth certificates before 1864.

Those requests have been collected together in large folders in the national archives and are available online here:
https://censussearchforms.nationalarchives.ie/search/cs/index.jsp

So, have a wee look, what am I missing? It has to be something obvious. You cannot be in the 1851 Census if you were not born til 1867 or 1869. And there can surely NOT be two couples called Manus McHugh and Ann Sweeney having children in Maas in the 1850s and 1860s.

13/12/2025

MYSTERY SOLVED!

In the recent post on my genealogy class in Glenties, I wrote that we could not understand why Peter McGeehan, was living in Glenties while his wife, Rose Kennedy was living in Churchill, and why he went off to Glasgow before the 1911 Census, where he died in 1918? Well an observant lady called Angela Kirk messaged me when she saw the post to point out something I had completely missed. In the 1901 Census, under the column "Marriage", Peter McGeehan had written, "Married unfortunately". I think that answers our question!

08/12/2025

TEACHING AT GLENTIES

I had such a good time teaching a group of 12 delightful people at St Connell's Museum and Heritage Centre in Glenties and want to thank them for making me feel so welcome. They were all excellent students, IT competent, adept at researching and very keen to advance their researching skills and either create or enhance their family trees. So impressed were they with GenoPro, the software that I use to construct trees, that most of them bought it.

What made the course even more special was that Glenties is the home of not just one giant of Irish literature but two! And we had members of the class researching both. Two students, Thomas and Amy, were researching the ancestry of the wife of Brian Friel, the renowned playwright who penned "Dancing with Lughnasa" and many other plays. And Mary was descended from McGills so she wanted to see how she was connected to Patrick McGill, the author of "Children of the Dead End" and many other stories. So, have a look and see what progress we made.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the real highlight of my trips to Glenties. Every week, Anne, the museum curator and instigator of the course, treated my good self to a generous slice of her home made lemon drizzle cake. Yummy!!

26/11/2025

LINKS ACROSS THE WORLD

I had great craic chatting with Stephanie on zoom a couple of weeks ago and hope that the conversation we shared is helpful to all those in the diaspora who are searching for their Irish roots.

https://youtu.be/FFeQPT2ll3E

20/11/2025

HEROES of the THE GREAT WAR - A SHARED HERITAGE

Dougie Bartlett of the Roe Valley Historical Society has sent me this wee video of myself holding forth when I spoke to the society in Limavady a couple of weeks ago. The theme of the talk was that we in the province of Ulster have a shared heritage, we have as much in common as divides us, and I was using World War one to demonstrate this.

First, as per the video, I wanted to show that yes, there is a strong connection between the Ulster Unionist community and WW!, especially with respect to the Battle of the Somme, and this was true of Limavady as much as anywhere else. But then I moved on to show that the Irish Nationalist community also played a very significant role in the British army during WW1 by highlighting the fact that THE most famous newsreel clip of the war actually shows a man I once researched who was a member of the IRA.

Thanks again to Limavady for the warm welcome I received.

21/10/2025

ANOTHER PRACTICAL RESEARCH SESSION FOR Strabane History Society

Hope to see some of you there. (Holy Cross College used to be called St Colman's High School)

26/09/2025

THE AUTUMN IS HERE, IT MUST BE GENEALOGY COURSE TIME

Great venue, hope to see some of you there.

An opportunity to explore your family tree in St Connell's Museum, Glenties they are hosting Boyd Gray from West Ulster Genealogy Services on a 6 week course to explore your family tree. This training is provided free of charge thanks to funding received from International Fund for Ireland. To book your place on this please complete the online booking form https://forms.gle/jciST9WdU8jypZjm7

29/08/2025

AI ENHANCED FAMILY HISTORY PHOTOGRAPHS

We all have dozens of old faded or cracked pics of our nearest and dearest that we would love to enhance. Now AI claims to do it at the click of a button. So, where do we stand?

What do you think of these efforts from "Copilot"? I would love to hear your comments. Do you think the likenesses are good? What are the issues? Are there other programmes and are they similar?

25/08/2025

DISHONESTY

I see Facebook has discovered yet another wheeze to drag more clicks out of us. They now include comments on totally unrelated posts under our "Notifications" just to get us to click on them and garner Fb a few extra coppers. Despicable.

24/08/2025

YES, A MAN CAN BE IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE!!

Researching the McKeegans of Cushendall for Catherine in Scotland, I ran into a wee conundrum. Catherine's great great grandfather seems to be in two places at the same time. Surely not possible? I think it is.

Our John McKeegan appeared to be in Glenaan:
- in the the Griffiths Valuation in 1861
- when a son is born in 1879
- when his land passed to Daniel McKeegan in the GVRBs in 1911
- in when he died in 1912

BUT, he also appears to be in the townland immediately north of Glenaan, called Falmacrilly:
- when he married in 1872
- six times when his children were born between 1873 and 1882
- when the 1901 and the 1911 Censuses were taken
- and ........ in 1912 when he died and his will was read.

And it is this last that proves he IS the same man no matter where he thinks he lives. Same name, same death date, different addresses. Have a look at the photos.

It is resolving these little puzzles that makes researching family history so much fun.

02/08/2025

WUGS TALK at ST CONNELL'S MUSEUM, GLENTIES

If you are up Glenties way in West Donegal on Tuesday, 5th August, at around 11am, feel free to call in at St Connell's Museum where himself will be giving an illustrated talk on how to go about researching your family history, using three local families. Anne McLoone's of Maas is just one of them.