Hi. I am researching my paternal line. Farrell. I have seen records with many different spellings. All I know so far is up to my 3rd g grandparents all born in the States. I would love to find where in Ireland they came from. My 3rd g grandpa James Ferrill born in Madison County Kentucky around 1806. Can someone please point me in the right direction.? I have done ancestry DNA. Thank you
You can use this site to see where the surname was found across Ireland in the mid 1800s.
https://www.johngrenham.com/surnames/
In this case the answer is pretty well everywhere. So not very helpful. You perhaps need to trace back through your family to a generation that was born in Ireland. And then search using specific names and years of birth. There aren’t many records for Ireland in the 1700s or early 1800s and research at that period can be hard going, especially with a common name.
Hi Melanie and Elwyn, took an interest in this as I have a Farrell lady in my paternal line born circa 1820 in Longford. As Elwyn says the name is pretty much everywhere, I looked up the name in McLysaghts Surnames of Ireland and it states it is O Fearghail which from the Gaelic means "Man of Valour" the chief of the family back in history was from Longford, a county and town in the midlands of Ireland.
There are a number of Irish private Facebook pages doing genealogy and also all Ireland ones, most counties appear to have a few, a warning however a lot of people are in your position searching at the outer reaches of Irish records, 1800 plus or minus 20 years or so, also not sure of where exactly they are from, there are also a numberof them using Gedmatch programs based on local areas to see what they can find but in my experience while interesting it is difficult to find matches who are more aware than you will be. Any of them I am on are well moderated, helpful and polite.
Good Luck
Pat
Thank you all so much for the great advice. I'm hoping one day I can find my Irish ancestors