Family and Local History

Family History

Family History must now be one of the most popular hobbies in the world. The number of people searching for their ancestors on the internet, or in record repositories, must have increased exponentially over the last decade. If you go to the North of Ireland Family History Society web site you will see the number of branches that now exist throughout Northern Ireland and there are links to sites worldwide.

Here are some thoughts on how you might go about researching your family history in Northern Ireland. Click here. This paper also includes a bibliography.

I have just finished a CD on Researching Derry & Londonderry Ancestors: A practical guide for family and local historians. It will published fairly soon by the Ulster Historical Foundation.

Local History

I became interested in local history in the late 1960s both as a hobby and a serious academic study. This was a time when increasing numbers of people were becoming interested in their locality. Since that time many local historical societies have been formed and many now have web sites. The Federation for Ulster Local Studies plays its part in supporting local history throughout the province. Here you will find links to all of the member societies that have web sites.

Since retiring from academic life I have been able to devote more time to local history as a hobby. I have also found that over the last forty years I have accumulated a vast amount of sources relating to various parts of the province where I gave lectures, ran workshops, etc. I thought that some of this material might be of use to people, so I decided to put some of it up on the internet.

This material can be found at the Localities link in the top menu. Before you look at the sources you might want to read this on the approach that I tend to follow nowadays when I am investigating a locality.