After several years of intermittent tracking down possibly related Tierney family records, I have not really gotten anywhere with transcription-type records from sites like Roots Ireland.

I have little to go on in Ireland for that part of the tree. While Tierney is not too bad a surname to search for in the scheme of things, they are hide and seek champions. Also, my related McDonald and Murphy lines are really giving me a run for my money.

And, after many attempts at triangulating relevant records on Roots Ireland, the money is running out.

If you don’t have time for the long version of this story, feel free to scroll down to the tool tip section below…

So, I’ve decided to start a different tactic – Instead of fussing with “credits” and the resulting, resounding sounds of  “ARGH!” rolling down my street as I realize I have purchased yet another completely unrelated transcription record, I will be ordering photocopy versions of original records directly from GRO Ireland at €4. a pop.

While there might not be too much of a savings involved in this change, I will at least have original documents to look at and will avoid relying on possibly mis-transcribed records. That will make me feel a bit better at least. So will chocolate chip cookies.

(To make sure I have the hang of the ordering process first I will start by tightening up the old tree by ordering original certificates for my relatively well-known Egan & Farrell lines near Ferbane in Kings County.)

If you would like a quick primer on how to order certificates from GRO Ireland, visit their Apply For Certificates page. Of course, you’ll probably want to use the Civil Registration Indexes (1845-1958) on Familysearch to look for possible records to purchase first.

Tool Tip – Hello Fax!

Now, with all of that background out of the way – to the real purpose of this post: As I filled out the GRO order form, my Oxymoronic Genealogical Impatience™ quickly kicked in when I noticed that you can fax certificate applications into the GRO. Forget that crazy old postal mail thing. That’s 20th century stuff, man. FAXING – THAT’S WHERE IT’S AT.

However, I do not own a fax machine at home any longer, and I can’t really start faxing Ireland from my company systems at lunch. (Well, I could, but you know, I’m the IT Director and that really wouldn’t be a good idea.)

Then I found that hello fax is offering a deal if you sign up with your Google account –

In honor of our launch, get 50 free fax pages / month & unlimited e-signatures

Within 5 minutes of creating the account I had sent off my first few certificate orders to GRO Ireland.

In addition to Google Drive, you can also integrate the service with other commonly used services – not a bad deal for free. The only thing that is not entirely clear is how long the 50 free pages/month will last – we’ll see!