Can anyone help me trace my paternal line?

GarethCrawshaw

My father (Michael Anthony Crawshaw, originally Coen) was born in December 1952, in Halifax. My grandparents (Michael John Coen & Agnes Coen nee Smorthit) subsequently got divorced and Agnes remarried (Dennis Crawshaw) in 1960, at that point Dennis adopted my father and his brother (Stephen P Coen). My family never mentioned anything to do with my grandfather when I was a child and i still have very little information about him, other than approximate year he was born (1931) from my grandparents wedding certificate and that he was Irish and his father was called Thomas. I've found this to be a needle in a haystack to try and find where in Ireland Michael was born and more details of his mother. I have really struggled with this branch of my family tree and have been researching for ~8 years and still made no progress. I'm really hoping that someone or this group as a whole can help me break down this brick wall in my research.

dontiknowyou

We can help you better if you share a PID.

GarethCrawshaw

Thank you, apologies I'm new to this forum, the person ID is L2KY-H59, that is my grandfather's PID

dontiknowyou

This appears to be your Agnes Smorthit's marriage record: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVD6-1TQ2

And this is her person page: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L2KY-HRQ

A natural next step would be to attach that marriage record to her page.

GarethCrawshaw

Apologies, I think it's fair to say my Great Grandfather Thomas will be dead (G849-H7V) but I know little to nothing about him. My grandmother Agnes is deceased as well and her PID is L2KY-HRQ

dontiknowyou

When you have a missing puzzle piece, build around it. So build out Agnes's line a bit; one historical record begets another.

You know some things about Thomas Coen, such as roughly where and when his son was born. Put that on his page as a Residence. Also, give him a birth year of about 1900.

But I would focus on Agnes Smorthit to start. There are several historical records for her in FamilySearch and her surname is extremely rare; that is always a big advantage because there are few false leads.

DebDT

https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/104-ireland-genealogy-research

You have received a lot of good information from the above posts. This group may also provide instruction on searching Irish genealogy.