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Family History Here are some thoughts on how you might go about researching your family history in Northern Ireland, based on my own experiences. 1920s to present-day Tracing your family from the present back to say the 1920s or 30s should be a relatively easy task. Family members (particularly the older folk) can supplement the knowledge that you undoubtedly have yourself. At this stage drawing up a rough family tree going back as far as you can is a useful exercise and can be added to as various relatives provide further information. A visit to local graveyards can be a quick way of checking on the ages of older relatives. Civil registers of births, deaths and marriages could be consulted in the General Register Office in Belfast to verify the ages of various people and the maiden names of wives, but at this stage this is rarely necessary until you reach the very early years of the twentieth century. When talking to relatives you should also try to establish whether any personal papers, photographs, family bibles, wills, etc. are available within the wider family circle. These historical sources can often take you back to much earlier times. For example when researching my own family I came across a piece of paper on which my great-great-grandfather had written out the ages and names of all the members of his family in 1879. Click here to see a copy of this paper. 1860 to 1920s To carry the story back to the early years of the twentieth century and the second half of the nineteenth century you will need to consult sources in record repositories such as the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and the General Register Office of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Belfast. As I see it, piecing together the history of a family in this period is matching up the three sets of records listed below with evidence from the civil registers of births, deaths and marriages, the church registers of baptisms, burials and marriages along with any family papers that you happen to have. The three three sets of records you need to consult are:
Clearly, whether you begin with the civil and church registers or the Griffith's Valuation and Census Enumerators' Returns is a matter of choice and what you already know. My own choice is to begin with Griffith's and the Census Returns. This is mainly because it gives me a better idea of where people lived at that time and it is important that you already have this information when you are searching the civil registers. Note, that before you use any of these records you must know which Barony, Civil Parish, Poor Law Union, District Electoral Division (DED) and Registrars' District a town or townland was situated in. Before 1860 It is much more difficult to find evidence of your family before 1860. If parish registers are available you could take the story of your family back to the beginning of the nineteenth century, or even earlier. One source which may indicate if your family name was present in an area around the 1830s is the Tithe Applotment Book. Going back into the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries becomes even more difficult and I would recommend that you leave it until you have amassed as much information as you can on the period from the 1830s to the present. When you do decide to venture into this earlier period, I would recommend that you read William J. Roulston's book - Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors: The Essential Genealogical Guide to Early Modern Ulster, 1600-1800, published by the Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast, 2005. Further Reading There is a vast amount of literature now available on genealogy and family history, not to mention an increasing number of TV programmes. Most of these books are available on the Internet. I have found the following useful. Tracing your Ancestors in Northern Ireland by Ian Maxwell (edited by Grace McGrath), published by PRONI, Belfast, 1997. PRONI has a series of free leaflets on Tracing your Family Tree which are available in the Search Room Tracing your Irish Ancestors by John Grenham, published by Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1999 (Second Edition). The Irish Roots Guide by Tony McCarthy, published by Lilliput Press, Dublin, 1991. The Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast are publishing a series of County Guides for the Family and Local Historian. To date, two have been published. Researching Armagh Ancestors: A practical guide for the family and local historian by Ian Maxwell, published in 2000. Researching Down Ancestors: A practical guide for the family and local historian by Ian Maxwell, et. al., published in 2004. Copyright 2006 W.Macafee. |