School Records can help fill in the gaps in our knowledge, especially those years before 1901.

This is the Admissions Register for CBS Youghal for 1857. It lists the name of a boy, his address, his age, parental occupation and the date he left the school. You might wonder how that fits in to a genealogy search.

The Griffiths Valuation is available on line, house by house for the whole country. The Youghal Valuations are dated 1851. Each house has only one occupant listed but you can match the school list with the Valuation – you now have the name of one parent.

Working backward , take the age of the boy – you can now figure out his birth year and therefore know when he was baptised. This will give you the name of two parents, usually and possibly godparents.

That in turn will lead you to “guesstimate” a marriage date for the couple. It may lead to information about other members of the family .

You can also work forward. Those  boys will be in their fifties or sixties in 1901 – this will help you search the census as you have a reasonably accurate age for the boy. These 1857 records come from the Christian Brothers Archives.