Online maps to help in tracing Irish ancestry

AMERICANS searching for their roots have been given access to a new website allowing them to start digging for clues before they ever arrive on Irish soil.

In Boston this week, Ordinance Survey Ireland launched its genealogy mapping service for the families of immigrants who want to pinpoint where their ancestors were reared.

The online archive of 30,000 maps will be available through the internet and provide a resource that previously only existed in paper form in the country’s libraries.