Hi Robert,
Thanks for your message.
Have you tried looking at Church records for more information? Parish registers were collected and remain at local level, so the fact that you have a parish name makes things much easier! Access to many of these registers usually comes at a cost but increasingly more records are appearing online and some are even free. Do you know what religion the family were?
Most Catholic records are held locally. One website which may help you though is the irishtimes website. Here they give an overview of what records are available in each specific parish. For Dunleer follow this link:
http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Louth&parish=Dunleer&churchid=217
There are many websites which offer access to the records. Irish Genealogy (www.irishgenealogy.ie) offers free access to some records, but not all. The project is on-going. Other centres such as the Irish Family History Foundation (www.rootsireland.ie) offer access to the church records, but this is by paid access.
For Church of Ireland Records you could also try http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42 and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/
The Public Records of Northern Ireland (PRONI) hold copies of all surviving Church of Ireland registers which cover the six counties of Northern Ireland, but they also cover other counties including Louth. Copies of the registers from the Republic of Ireland which were microfilmed by PRONI, are held by the Representative Church Body Library. http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history/family_history_key_sources.htm
You could also try searching for the family in the 1901 and 1911 census records for record of the family. You can do this here:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/
Some other websites which may help you in your research are:
The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/
The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx
Family Search: https://familysearch.org/
I hope that this helps. Remember to post as much information as you can with regard to the people you are researching. The more information you post, the more likely it is that one of our volunteers will be able to advise or assist you. Also include information concerning which sources you may have already used so others may further your search.
Kind regards,
Genealogy Support
