Details of 1,000 families who emigrated from west Limerick over a 200year period have been compiled by two Australian genealogists.
The authors, Kate Press and Valerie Thompson, were assisted by 245 contributors from Australia, New Zealand, the US, South Africa and Co Limerick.
The newly-published book, West Limerick Families Abroad, is "the tip of the iceberg," said Ms Press.
A teacher of Irish family history for the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, Ms Press said: "We have covered a lot of families, but thousands more left there."
The problem was "some people walk very quietly over the land". Often the descendants did not even know what country their ancestors came from.
"There is a lot of information about the ones involved in public life or out here because they were convicted. But a lot of people came as free settlers. If they paid for their own passage and were free settlers, they could just disappear into obscurity," she said.
The project came about as a follow-up to Poverty to Promise, a book by Ms Thompson, who lives in Sydney, and Dr Christopher O'Mahony, a former Limerick archivist. It concerns the emigrants who left the Monteagle estate in Co Limerick between 1838 and 1858.
"We just found there were so many people who spoke to us after that book was published and wanted more information and wanted it expanded," Ms Press said.
She is a former editor and desktop publisher for the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies. She said that already there had been people requesting a further work, expanding the genealogical study into the surrounding counties.
"There are so many Clare people in Australia. Most of the early Irish emigrants here are from Munster. The biggest number of Irish emigrants in Australia came from Tipperary," she added.
When families broke up, some members chose the US or Canada while others emigrated to Australia. Ms Press herself is descended from the Sheehys and Shines, who came from the Shanagolden area of west Limerick, while one of their members went to Canada. "Most Australians, if they look far enough, will find they have American or Canadian or New Zealand cousins."
The Internet has revolutionised the study of genealogy, which is the third most popular hobby in the US. "There are so many links being made and so much material being put on the Internet."
West Limerick Families Abroad is available from the Celtic Bookshop in Limerick. Its index and other details are on www.alphalink.
com.au/datatree/westlim-1.htm