Finding Your Irish Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide, by David S. Ouimette; Provo, Utah: Ancestry; 180 pages; ISBN 1-59331-293-8; $14.95.

A brand new book on Irish genealogy is out. Ancestry just added Finding Your Irish Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide by David S. Ouimette to its collection of family history titles. My initial thoughts on the release were positive. For the avocation, more is better. Another book on Irish genealogy spreads the word further. It has the potential of bringing new people into the field. On a personal level there might be some new information that could advance my research.

There are some things about the book that I love. The pictures of Ireland are grand. It's easy to see that the reproductions of records and sources were carefully chosen. And they are numerous. I really liked the "Extract from Census Return of 1851" an old age pension claim dating from 1915. The tables are informative and clear, especially "Irish Family History Sources" and "U.S. Census Information Helpful for Tracing Irish Immigrant Origins." Two case studies, one on using the Canceled Land Books and another on researching Royal Irish Constabulary records, were inspiring and a pleasure to read.

On balance however there was more about the book that troubled than pleased me. The author uses more words than necessary. Here's an example: "Guilds often kept meticulous records of their membership, supplying the modern genealogist with family history details about early ancestors." The part of the quote I italicized appears in various forms in various places throughout the book.

Ouimette too gingerly deals with the reality of Irish research that every genealogist faces: the dearth of typical records and why. While the example of President John F. Kennedy's rigorously and professionally researched tree that shows ancestry back to 1821 has elegance, the immensely significant loss of records at the Four Courts in 1922 is buried in a lengthy chronology.

In an effort to be fair I read Ouimette's book through to the end and formed my opinions about it before pulling out and comparing it to A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Irish Ancestor's: How to find and record your unique heritage by Dwight A. Radford and Kyle J. Betit. The readability, comprehensiveness, attention to detail, and pragmatism of their book and their ability to satisfy readers from beginners to experts, are apparently unbeatable. They set researchers' expectations realistically on low and then provide mountains of information, explanation, sources, and tools. In contrast Ouimette's book seems superficial.