I am reserching my husband's Great Grandfather, James KEATING. The only information I have is that he was born in Dublin about 1842. He emigrated to New Zealand about 1865 and he had a brother William born abt 1839. Not much to go on, but here's hoping.
NEW ZEALAND:Do you know much about their emigration? The dates, the reason why they left,who they might have travelled with?..etc.? Generally, more information was given at the port ofarrival rather than the port of departure. If you knew which city they arrived at, this could be a goodplace to find more information -and perhaps even find out an exact place of origin. There are lots ofbooks and documents available about the Irish emigration to NZ. There is a website you could lookat: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/irish/2 for information about the Irish in New Zealand. The next thing you could do is find the counties and places in Ireland your family names are mostprevalent. Look at the website http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/ and perhapssomething will match some other clue you may have found elsewhere? If nothing turnsup ? it is advisable to try different variations of the spellings of the names. If you have a possiblefirst name you could try the Irish Census 1901, 1911 at www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ or the landvaluation record called Griffiths Valuationhttp://askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml also have a look on these sites sir good luck. The National Archives of Irelandhttp://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/ The National Library of Irelandhttp://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx The National Archives UK ? genealogy search:http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/The National Archives of Irelandhttp://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/ The National Library of Irelandhttp://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx The National Archives UK ? genealogy search:http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/
As I stated in my posting, that is all the information I have. I have checked all the information that is available. I think he slid down a rainbow to get to New Zealand, probably Port Chalmers. He must have come steerage, and their names aren't on any of the lists of immigrants. They are usually shown as "55 in steerage".
The only hope I really have is that someone researching another member of the family has a James and William that they can't track down.
If there was a census for the period 1840 to 1865 I would probably wouldn't have this problem. I suspect that his parents were James and Elizabeth but that is only on a certificate that is very suspect.