Five things you didn’t know about your Kerry ancestors

Do you have County Kerry ancestors? Here are some fun facts you might not have realized about the county situated in the south-west of Ireland.

Here are five facts you may not have realized about the ‘Kingdom’ of Kerry:

1. The population of Kerry peaked at 293,000 in the 1841 census of Ireland. Due to the Famine, this had shrunk by 55,000 only 10 years later.
   
   
2. Your rebel ancestors may have come from Kerry as it was one the most active counties during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

1. If your ancestors came from Kerry, they may well have been involved in cotton spinning or fishing. These two trades thrived there in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today, tourism is one of the county’s most lucrative industries.
   
   
2. When tracing your Kerry ancestor’s vital records, you’ll need to know which civil registration districts to focus on. Eight districts are associated with County Kerry – Cahersiveen, Dingle, Glin, Kanturk, Kenmare, Killarney, Listowel and Tralee.
   
   
3. Some fantastic Kerry records can be found on Findmypast, including detailed directories, where you can trace your Irish ancestors living in the towns and villages of Kerry in the nineteenth century.

For more stories on tracing your Irish heritage from Findmypast click here.

The Findmypast story began in 1965, since there were no online records, employees spent many hours poring over microfiche machines until the first website was launched in 2003. Since then they have expanded to cover the UK, Ireland, Australia and North America.