Sources for Family and Local History

There are many books, articles and web sites listing sources which family and local historians can use to find out about their ancestors or investigate the history of a locality. Some of the web sites are listed in the right-hand menu.

I have not included the vast number of genealogy sites which now exist throughout Ireland. If you are interested in contacting or visiting any of these sites there is a genealogy section in the National Archives of Ireland web site which covers the whole island of Ireland. Also the Irish Family History Foundation web site will guide you to the county centres within Ireland that carry out research into family histories and often have online databases which you can search. The following web sites cover most of Ulster - Antrim and Down, Derry/Londonderry, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone.

On this site you will find examples of sources relating to specific areas. As I said in the introduction to the site, at the moment these refer to my home county of Antrim, particularly the area around Ballymoney. I hope to add material relating to other areas in the province at a later date.

I also intend to use this section of the site to put up a few papers which deal with the nature and availability of certain kinds of sources. They are papers which I used over the years when running workshops on local history. It is taking me some time to unearth them, revise them, tidy them up and put them in a format for upload to the internet. They will appear in the table below. To date I have only managed to produce one.

Because the papers are intended to be read as hard copy, they are in .pdf format and will open in a separate window.