Genealogy and the economic drain on Ireland: Unintended consequences

Abstract

In the last decade, with the increase in the digitization of genealogical documents and the prevalence of the Internet across the globe, online genealogical research has become a popular pastime among the citizens of the western countries. While this increase in popularity has been an economic boost for online companies that specialize in genealogy, it has had the unintended consequence on Ireland of decreasing the incoming revenue of the genealogy tourism industry. In this paper, I explain the situation and its causes, as well as the current practices being used to stem the decrease and possible solutions to be used in the future.