My Great-great-grandfather William O'Keeffe arrived in Sydney, Australia as an immigrant in 1839.
His place of birth was given as Dunmore, Co. Cork, his father Jeremiah. William was born about 1809/10.
Hi Robyn,
Thank you for your message.
Have you tried looking at church records from the parish to see if you can find more information?
The civil parish of Island belongs to the Catholic parish of Clonakilty. Using the Irish Times website you can see that Catholic records for the parish begin as early as Aug 1809:
Irish Genealogy have begun a project whereby they are uploading Irish church records to their websites free of charge. Only a small number of counties have been covered so far including parts of Cork. Fortunately, this includes Clonakilty parish so you should be able to find whatever records are available for the family here:
http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/
If the family followed the Church of Ireland check the National Archives of Ireland and the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin. Here are their websites: http://www.nationalarchives.ie/ and http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42
Lists of these surviving registers can also be found at the National Library of Ireland.
You could also check for record of the family in the land records pertaining to Ireland in the 19th century. There are two:
The Tithe Applotment Books (1823-1838) found at http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp
and Griffith?s Valuation (1848-1864) found at http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/
Civil registration began in Ireland in 1864 so any births, deaths or marriages in the family after this date would be recorded in these records. Civil records are available from the General Register?s Office in Dublin. Here is their website:
http://www.groireland.ie/research.htm
You can search the indexes to these records online at:
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1408347
Have you tried looking at the 1901/1911 census records to see if there were any O? Keefe?s still in the area at the time? They can give lots of useful information. You can search these here:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/
Some other websites that you may find useful are:
The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx
Family Search: www.familysearch.org
Genealogy Links: http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/cork/index.html
Failte Romhat: www.failteromhat.com
I hope that some of this is helpful.
Please be patient - as our programme has only begun to rollout across the island of Ireland and volunteers in some areas may not yet be organized.
Kind regards,
Genealogy Support