GENEALOGYYOU CAN HAVE your sheets turned, your luggage toted and your room serviced . . . and you can have your family roots traced, too.
The Shelbourne Hotel, in Dublin, has the world's only genealogy butler, who helps guests of Irish ancestry trace their roots.
When guests book into the hotel they are told about the genealogist, Helen Kelly, and, if interested, sent an assessment form. The guests provide basic information about their ancestors, giving their names, approximate years of birth, parents' names and counties of birth, where possible.
Kelly then compiles assessment reports, which are presented to the guests when they arrive at the hotel.
Kelly says she often manages to obtain a document relating to an ancestor. "When they find a faded document with an ancestor's name on it, proof that that ancestor was born in Ireland, it just opens a wellspring of tears for them. Even the most hardened person's soft centre comes out at that point," she said.
Recently, a woman from New Zealand with roots in Northern Ireland arrived at the Shelbourne and, with Kelly's help, soon found herself holding her grandfather's birth certificate. The event not only moved her to tears but also provided her with an essential first step to applying for an Irish passport.
Kelly's knoweldge of the relevant Irish institutions means tourists on the trail of ancestors don't waste time looking in the wrong places.
"People arrive in Ireland and often haven't a clue where to start looking for their ancestry. They waste time because there's no one-stop shop in Dublin. They arrive at one institution and realise they should be somewhere else."
Genealogy, says Kelly, can be a complicated map to trace. "People think they should start with Brian Boru and work down, but it doesn't work like that. You have to start with yourself.
"The first thing you do is get out the family documents, talk to your older relatives, because they know quite a bit. Then you go on the paper trail in Ireland, and you do that in Dublin. You have to pound the pavements."
Although much information is available online, Kelly likes to direct her clients to some of the capital's institutions before they head on to explore their ancestral counties.
She charges €140 for the service, which includes her report, any documentation unearthed and her face-to-face meeting with clients.
Kelly, who has been the Shelbourne's "genealogy butler" for almost a year, says that there is growing interest in her service and that she now meets with clients in the hotel several times a week.
"We are in a very multicultural society, which is wonderful, but every one of us in that multicultural society should hold on to the essence of who we are and not lose sight of our individual heritage," says Kelly. "Personal history is hugely important."