Irish Records

Index to Methodist Ministers

1 May By Dwight

The Methodist Church in Ireland spread rapidly after separating from the Church of Ireland in 1817-18. Methodists called for the individual to experience Jesus personally. This radical message in essence bypassed the professional clergy in the Anglican parishes throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Tracing Ministers

Pivotal to spreading the Methodist message were ministers who would preach to all classes in societies making no distinction. For this reason, the common people would find the message appealing, as it provided hope in often desperate circumstances.

If you have a Methodist minister in your family, you will be interested in the “Index to Methodist Ministers” database hosted by The University of Manchester library. The database covers 1819-1968. The source is “Ministers and Probationers who Have Died in the Work” which appeared in the back of the 1968 edition of Ministers and Probationers of the Methodist Church, printed by the Methodist Publishing House in London. A link from Ancestry.com under the database “UK, Methodist Ministers Death Index, 1800-1963” sends you to the Manchester database.

This serial was published periodically with updated ministerial lists in each edition. The periodical ran from 1819 to 1968. The database acts as a finding aid to Methodist clergy in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Codes Used in the Ministerial Database

The index is alphabetical and although it provides only basic information, it is enough to allow research to continue. The names in the index are coded as follows: P (Primitive); U (United) and W (Wesleyan). Other codes include: Est. (Clergymen of the Established Church); I (Ministers in the late Primitive Wesleyan Methodist Conference in Ireland before the Amalgamation in 1878); W1 (Died in the 1914-18 War); and WW2 (Died in the 1939-45 War).

This list is similar to the “Index of Methodist Ministers Who Served in Ireland” being compiled online by the Methodist Historical Society of Ireland. Their codes include: M (Methodist); MNC (Methodist New Connexion); P (English – Primitive); PW (Primitive Wesleyan); W (Wesleyan); WMA (Wesleyan Methodist Association); Est. (Clergymen of the Established Church); WW1 (Died in the 1914-18 War); and WW2 (Died in the 1939-45 War).

Using the Information from the Database

Once you have identified a minster contact the Methodist Historical Society of Ireland or The University of Manchester for more biographical information.

If you would like help with your genealogy please call 385-214-0925.

Calendar of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1920

9 Apr By Dwight

The FamilySearch website has a very useful and free of charge database for identifying probate material. “Ireland, Calendar of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1920” is an index to the published calendars. The original published books are alphabetized within each year. The database on FamilySearch means you can search for an extended amount of time, even when you only have sketchy information.

The published calendars cover all counties up through 1917. After that there are separate calendars. This index to calendars is also duplicated, and free of charge at the National Archives of Ireland website.

The Scope of the Search

Much like other websites, the database search capability does pose some difficulties. Searches tend to have standardized fields, most of which do not apply. For this reason you might want to put in the limited information; such as name, county of death and range of dates.

You may be surprised who left wills. For example, these calendars start in 1858, a decade after the massive deaths and immigrations due to the Potato Famine. The reduction in the population meant land and wealth was freed up for many who stayed. So although your ancestor may have immigrated, siblings may have stayed and took over family holdings.

If you know a townland where the family lived, then you should be able to determine relatives who stayed. However, do not rely on a townland name when using the database search fields. You still will need to go into the calendar itself, which is scanned as part of this database.

The Search Does Not Stop with the Index

Once you have found entries in the index that are of interest to you, then you will need to click onto the image. At that point, you are linked to the image of the book itself. It will provide a basic abstract of the original will or administration.

From the abstract you will need to look at the microfilm of the original document. This will be a manuscript, which can be found at the Family History Library. The originals are housed at the National Archives of Ireland. By referencing the manuscript, you will have all the information in the document. The exception is the Principle Registry, which records do not survive.

Reconstructing the Family History

The index can be used in conjunction with the Griffith’s revision books, church registers, and the 1901 and 1911 censuses. In short, a more complete picture of your family history can be reconstructed through this will database.

If you would like help with your genealogy please call 385-214-0925.

The Irish Hell-Fire Clubs

4 Feb By Dwight

The infamous Hell-Fire (Hellfire) Clubs is a fascinating and bizarre topic and has direct applications for genealogists. Trained historians have plowed through many of the same sources genealogists do in order to reconstruct the history of the Hell-Fire Clubs. This makes understanding how historians identify pertinent documents and then utilize them can provide lessons for all family historians. Plus, it’s a great story!

What Were the Hell-Fire Clubs?

So what were the Hell-Fire Clubs? They were secretive brotherhood organizations which ritually acted out and practiced anything counter-culture to their time period. They were founded by freethinking, living on the edge, Protestant elite gentry. The clubs were intended to counter the heavy hand of the established Protestant Church in every opposite way possible. Prostitution, sex, orgies, drinking, blasphemy, dark occult practices, and any other type of cultural depravity were accepted. Combine all that with rumors of Satan worship, homosexuality (illegal at the time), murder and human sacrifice and the Club’s reputation as a type of “holy other” would be solidified. By the 1770s the Hell-Fire Clubs had disbanded, but their influence remained in other groups such as the Pinkindindies and Cherokees.

Locations of the Irish Hell-Fire Clubs

The first Irish Hell-Fire Club was founded in 1735 in Dublin at Mount Pelier. There were three additional “regional” Hell-Fire Clubs in Ireland: Askeaton, County Limerick; Grangemellon, County Kildare and an unspecified location in the Midlands. However, there were other meeting places, such as Doonass, County Clare. Research shows these were rendezvous points for similar groups. The ruins of the Dublin Hell-Fire Club, is a tourist attraction. More can be found on the Abandoned Ireland website.

The Definitive Work on the Irish Clubs

The definitive work on the Irish Hell-Fire Clubs is Blasphemers & Blackguards: The Irish Hellfire Clubs, by David Ryan. An article by the author can be found on the Writing.ie website.

One fascinating aspect of this book is the author takes some of the same sources we would use in genealogy and reconstructs the history of a very secretive and forbidden society. For the family historian it demonstrates what can be done with sound logic, limited records and not being timid with controversial subject matters. Most of his research was conducted at the National Library of Ireland. His sources include private manuscripts, estate papers, print files, printed sources, newspapers and biographies. To use these sources to reconstruct a secret society is nothing short of amazing. We as family historians can learn much from such authors’ research by the manner in which they crafted their stories.

Additional Hell-Fire Club Information

To round out the story of the Hell-Fire Clubs, the English counterpart provides a rich supply of history and research. The best known is the elaborate Hell Fire Caves, which is a major tourist destination, located in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.An interesting commentary on the Hell-Fire Clubs comes from the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and the Yukon website.

A Word of Warning

A word of warning on topics such as the “Hell Fire Club.” If you are looking for history, be careful what you place in the search engine. You may get more than you bargained for, as all websites are not historical!

If you are seeking professional assistance with your genealogical research you may call us at 385-214-0925.

A Townland Name as a Regional Description

24 Jan By Dwight Leave a Comment

I was researching a family in Doocastle, Kilturra Parish, County Mayo recently. The Tithe Applotment (1834) listed who I thought was the family in Eskreagh & Lugadoon. Doocastle itself was not listed. The Tithe book crossed the border into County Sligo, with the manuscript separating out the townlands by county. While Eskreagh & Lugadoon was suppose too have been on the Mayo side, I couldn’t find that it became an official townland name a few years later, when the Ordnance Survey teams standardized names, spellings and boundaries.

I had noticed online other researchers were asking the same questions I was. My only solution was to think up a strategy right on the spot.

Comparing the Tithe and Griffith’s Valuation Informaion

I took the seventeen households listed in the Tithe and tried to identify them in Griffith’s Primary Valuation on Kilturra Parish, Mayo (1856) and Sligo (1858). I found some of the exact names in Griffith’s living in Doocastle. I also found the other Tithe surnames limited right across the border on the Sligo side. At this point, I took a map of this area and marked each Griffith’s townland where the Tithe entry appeared. The results were fascinating.

All surnames and exact given and surnames were limited within a short distance of Doocastle, County Mayo. I surmised that Eskreagh & Lugadoon must have been a regional name for this area of Kilturra Parish in both counties. When the Ordnance Survey teams completed their job in 1837; this localized area simply disappeared.

The Tithe was Generated Using Localized Place Names

I also reasoned the Tithe Applotment was generated using local knowledge of farms and townland names. Thus, the people of the community were tithed and funds went to support the Protestant Parish.

I was satisfied the man I found in Eskreagh & Lugadoon was the man I was seeking in Doocastle. If I had simply thrown up my hands and quit, I would not have confirmation to continue building this case.

If you are having trouble with Irish place names and what they really mean in the record then Click Here.

Identifying an Undocumented Source

21 Nov By Dwight Leave a Comment

I sent correspondence to a historical society in Ireland seeking information on a specific family. They sent me back some fascinating possibilities. One item was an abbreviated transcript of a 1786 lease agreement mentioning the person I was looking for. At that time, the ancestor was aged 12 and he was one of the “lives” mentioned for the duration of the lease agreement between this father and the grantor of the lease. The grantor was not mentioned in the abstract. However, there was no source cited, let alone a volume and page.

How to Backtrack a Source

You are sure to find situations like this all over the Internet as people plow through records, but don’t necessarily document them properly. In this case, I assumed the source was the Irish Registry of Deeds. The abstract did have a place name, so I looked at the “County Index” also called “Lands Index” for that locality around 1786.

The volumes around 1786 didn’t have the lease, so I expanded my search. The property and lease was mentioned in later transactions; one in 1805 and another in 1816. That was good enough for me as I was able to figure out the father had died prior to 1816 (there was an 1811 will for him in the indexes, no second copy survives).

The Irish Registry of Deeds Confirmed a Lease

I’m still on the lookout for the 1786 original lease, but for the moment, I’m quite happy the Registry of Deeds confirmed the abstract. There’s much more in the deed books and no doubt in the landlord papers for that geographic area. This was all a good day in Irish research!

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Valuation Records (1864-1933) a PRONI Database

18 Aug By Dwight Leave a Comment

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast recently placed online “Valuation Revision Books”: www.proni.gov.uk/ This is a major source for documenting the taxation process for a particular parcel of ground within a townland. In other words, the search feature is geographical rather than name based. The scanned collection includes a fully searchable place name index to the approximately 3,900 volumes covering 1864-1933.

If you know the locality, especially the townland where your ancestors lived, then you can utilize that to narrow your search for a particular range of years. I use these revision books when I need to know what happened to a family residing on a certain piece of property. With the PRONI database, you can also search the land backward, say from your findings in the 1901 or 1911 censuses.

The scanned document images are in color making this very useful as the different changes are coded by the ink color of the pen corresponding to various years. This collection covers counties the Northern Ireland counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry/Derry and Tyrone.

This collection has until this compiled database, has only been available in manuscript books at the PRONI. This alone makes this a major addition to the world of Irish history and genealogy. As you document changes in the tenure of a piece of property, you can extrapolate perhaps when someone died, immigrated, became too old to be responsible for the tax, or maybe was evicted. This clues you into other records. It also helps you to determine changes in the landlords so you can look for rents and leases from the estate papers.

I highly recommend this free database. It may open up new research avenues for you and provide valuable social history of a townland along the way.

Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland (1830-40)

25 Sep By Dwight Leave a Comment

As part of the Ordnance Survey mapping of Ireland in the 1830s, they envisioned memoirs of each parish, covering the landscape, buildings, historic sites, landed estates, population statistics and information about the people of the parish. The project was abandoned after Ulster was completed.

What was left behind was an invaluable tool for understanding the counties and parishes which were covered. For each parish surveyed there is a detailed commentary which provides an important pre-Famine look at society in Ireland.

These Memoirs were published by the Institute of Irish Studies, the Queen’s University of Belfast in association with the Royal Irish Academy in their 40 volume series Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland (1990-2002) and includes counties Antrim, Armagh, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Tyrone, South Ulster: Cavan, Leitrim, Louth, Monaghan as well as Sligo. These can be purchased from many commercial venders including GlobalGenealogy: www.globalgenealogy.com

Originally this project was to also include notes on emigrants including seasonal harvest workers bound for England and Scotland who worked in and around the ports of Liverpool and Glasgow. Before abandoning this part of the project, the team had recorded emigrants leaving for counties Antrim and Londonderry. These have been published in Brian Mitchell’s Irish Emigration Lists, 1833‑1839: Lists of Emigrants Extracted from the Ordnance Survey Memoirs for Counties Londonderry and Antrim (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1989): www.genealogical.comThe emigrant lists are arranged by parish with a general index to all names. The records give name, age, year emigrated, townland of residence, destination and religion.

Additional information on the Ordnance Survey and the Memoirs can be found on the Royal Irish Academy website: www.ria.ie/library/special-collections/manuscripts/modern-manuscripts/ordnance-survey-of-ireland-(1).aspx and on Bill Macafee’s website: www.billmacafee.com/otherrecords/osmemoirs.htm

Irish Petty Court Session Records

4 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

A fascinating resource is the Petty Court Session records. These are on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL): www.familysearch.org and now online and indexed as “Petty Session Order Books, 1851-1910”: www.findmypast.ie The originals are at the National Archives of Ireland: www.nationalarchives.ie for the Republic of Ireland only. This archive of records covers some 5.2 million cases. The goal of Findmypast is to also digitize the court records for Northern Ireland.

I know it is difficult to find social history for a given townland, which leaves gaps in trying to write about the lives of your ancestors. The Petty Sessions Court records tell the townland the parties were residing, the accusation, and the sentencing. This means you can piece together a very intimate history of your townland by exploring the court cases involving the residents. Remember, townlands are small, and everybody knew everything. Your ancestors would have known about a court case involving the neighbors! Whether it’s theft, violence, or any other seedy activity, the Petty Sessions Court can give you details found no place else.

An area was served by a court seated in a town. A list of the towns can be found on the Findmypast website. You can use the “County” field in the search which brings up everybody with the name you are looking for. At that point, it will give you the details andyou can purchase the entry or look at the FHL microfilm. The index will give you the names of witnesses, defendants and complainant.

In conclusion, these records are worth your time, not only when looking for a particular person or case, but also when trying to reconstruct the social history of a townland and its people. These are a truly amazing if not seedy source!

National School Records of Ireland

2 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

The National School system was based upon the Model Training School which trained teachers with government aid at Kildare Place in Dublin. Founded in 1811, this Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in Ireland would become the Kildare Place Society. The goals of this society were to mix together children of all religious denominations, and after much hard work, eventually achieved its goal. They would organize 1,621 schools for 137,369 students. The national system took over in 1831.

Each local National School kept its own records. Most records for the six counties of Northern Ireland are housed at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. The archive has an online introduction to their collections “National Education Records”: www.proni.gov.uk/local_history_series_-_05_-_national_education_records.pdf The National Archives of Ireland is the official repository for education records in the Republic of Ireland. However, their holdings are by no means complete. Their online “Guide to Sources on National Education”: www.nationalarchives.ie/research/research-guides-and-articles/guide-to-sources-on-national-education does inventory the holdings. In the Republic, registers may be kept locally, with the church, at a university or library. Much National School material has been microfilmed and is at the Family History Library (FHL): www.familysearch.org

National School records contain different forms. Usually the name of the pupil, entrance date, age, religion, residence, occupation of the parent, school progress, and withdrawal information. The withdrawal section provides immigration information.

This is a resource worth studying as they contain much information about the pupil. Always check the FHL microfilm collections first to see what can be easily obtained. If not there, then pursue what is on deposit in Ireland or Northern Ireland.

PRONI Guide To Church Records

1 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

If you are not familiar with the online guides the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI): www.proni.gov.uk in Belfast produces, you are in for a treat. One of my favorite ones is the Guide to Church Records: www.proni.gov.uk/guide_to_church_records.pdf

It’s under “Guides & Leaflets” then “Online Guides,” and then “PRONI Guide to Church Records.” Let me explain what this guide is and what it isn’t.

The Guide inventories church registers from denominations in the province of Ulster. This includes the counties of Northern Ireland, and counties Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. The PRONI has done an excellent job of microfilming and collecting these records. If a particular register is still held locally, then this is noted. For the most part, the collections are by civil parish, and then by denomination, detailing the records, years covered, and reference number. Belfast City has its own category.

With the reference number, you can look at the record yourself at the PRONI, hire an agent, or perhaps see if it is on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL): www.familysearch.org

As a finding aid, the PRONI Guide to Church Records is hard to beat. It also lists items in their collection which may be in another Irish province.

Now for what this guide is not. Not all denominations are represented in the PRONI collections. Notable ones would certainly include Adventists, Plymouth Brethren (Christian Brethren), Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Salvation Army, independent and Gospel Hall congregations. This list of minority churches does not cover them all, but it does provide you with an idea as to the limitations of the work. However, coverage is very good for: Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, branches of Presbyterianism, Methodists, Society of Friends (Quakers), Congregational, Baptist, and Moravians.

This is a Guide I personally use anytime I have an Ulster case. If you have Ulster ancestors, it’s worth your time to explore.

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