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Genealogy at the Linenhall By Gerry Healey It is with some trepidation that I begin this evening’s talk by defining genealogy, since I am pretty sure that all those present tonight will know much more about it than I do. However, I can turn to the highest possible authority on the English language, and assure you that genealogy is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “an account of one’s descent from an ancestor or ancestors, by enumeration of the intermediate persons; a pedigree”, and a related meaning is “the investigation of family pedigrees, viewed as a department of study or knowledge”. In the past, interest in genealogy was confined to the upper echelons in society, who wished to demonstrate that they were of a higher order of being than the common masses. Sometimes, the old genealogies would be pure fiction, designed to prove that some upstart was in fact of illustrious lineage. In other cases, they would be meticulously researched, but would still have the undeclared purpose of excluding most of the population. Today, we live in more democratic times, and people of all ranks and professions are interested in tracing their roots. There is a story that in England, an aristocrat was having an argument with one of his farm labourers.” Don’t argue with me”, he said,” Don’t you realise that my ancestors came over with the Conqueror. “Yes, my Lord, was the reply, “And my ancestors were there to meet him”. The moral of this story is that, when people talk about “old families”, we should not forget that all families are equally old, but some are better documented than others. The purpose of resources like the Linen Hall Library is to help you find the way, to uncover some of the secrets of the past, where these may still be discovered. It is still easier to find your ancestors if you come from an aristocratic background. If a reader came into the library, and said “My name is Sir Hugh Denis Charles Fitzroy, 11th Duke of Grafton. I would like to trace my family tree. ”After a discreet look at Debrett’s Correct Form, to find out how to address a Duke, I would reply “Yes, Your Grace”, and direct him to Burke’s Peerage, where he would find out very quickly that his title descended from Henry Fitzroy, born in 1663, the illegitimate son of King Charles II and Barbara Villiers. A little more research would tell him that another of his ancestors, the third Duke, was Prime Minister from 1766 to 1770. No doubt a great deal more information about this family could be gleaned from the history books, but more ordinary people can get caught up in great historical events, and leave their record behind. An American visitor came to the library, and said “My name is Cuthbert. I think my ancestor was a United Irishman.” I brought him a newspaper from 1797, the last issue of the Northern Star, published by the United Irishmen . He saw there the following advertisement :- “Joseph Cuthbert, tailor and ladies’ habit-maker, (now confined in Kilmainham Jail, on a charge of high treason), solicits the continuance of his numerous friends and customers to his house, as the business is now conducted by a skilful foreman. He hopes the unmerited persecution he has suffered, on his being acquitted by a jury of his country, to be immediately detained upon a new warrant, that the usual liberality of Belfast will be now exerted in his favour. He requests those indebted to him to pay Mrs. Cuthbert” Optimistic to the end”! This was the American visitor’s ancestor, and he was one of several people to advertise their plight in the dying days of this newspaper, which was about to be suppressed by the British Government. It’s not usually as easy as that! A genealogist should have an enquiring mind, but not necessarily a tidy one. If you are the sort of person who thinks that A should be followed by B, with C waiting its turn patiently, then genealogy may not be for you. There is a saying, attributed to Somerset Maugham but probably much older, “Every story should have a beginning, a middle and an end”. Someone once replied to this “Yes, but not necessarily in that order”. He clearly had the right mentality for genealogical research. You must be prepared to start at the end, with the present day, and work your way back until you get stuck, somewhere in the middle. You are unlikely to get back to the beginning. We have a book in our genealogy collection called “Can you trace your line to Adam ?”. Don’t expect to be so successful! But you will enjoy making the effort, and you will probably make some unexpected discoveries along the way. This remark leads me to the Linen Hall Library. I have worked there for over twenty years, but am still making unexpected discoveries, and adding to my own knowledge, while helping others to find out what they are seeking. It is just possible that some of you have not been to the library, and may not be familiar with it. The library has existed since 1788, making it the oldest in Belfast. In the early days, many of the members were United Irishmen, including Henry Joy McCracken, who went to the scaffold with arrears of subscription owing to the library £1.6.1. One day, I brought this to the attention of one of his descendants, doing genealogy research in the library. He insisted on settling the debt, thus restoring the family honour. He gave me £1.30, then asked for a receipt. Thomas Russell, the librarian, another leading United Irishman, was to be hanged for treason at Downpatrick in 1803, and later became the hero of a popular ballad, by Florence Wilson, called “The man from God knows where”. Since then, the library has concentrated on collecting history, rather than making it, a somewhat safer pursuit. A very important collection of works on Irish history has been assembled, which inevitably includes much material of interest to genealogists. Many years ago, we commissioned a genealogist to undertake a survey of genealogical material in the library. He was very impressed with what he saw, and his enthusiasm inspired us to reorganise our works on genealogy, and to establish a separate genealogy collection, where as much material as possible is held at the one place, and is available on open access shelves. If you come to the library, and go up to the fourth floor, you can see this collection for yourself. One of the most important items in the collection is Griffiths Valuation. Where there is no surviving census information, Griffiths Valuation helps to plug the gaps. This was a survey of all the land in Ireland, for taxation purposes. The Poor Law Act of 1838 established a system of Poor Law Unions, each of which would elect Poor Law Guardians, who would raise a compulsory rate, to pay for workhouses, where poor people, unable to support themselves, would be housed. Register books were kept in each workhouse, and these are important for genealogists. They list the name ,sex, marital status, occupation, religion, physical condition, and former place of residence of each inmate. As this was to be a nationwide system , it was decided to survey the whole land on a uniform basis. The whole project, which took about twenty years to complete, was directed by Sir Richard Griffith, hence Griffith’s Valuation. The aim was to find the net annual valuation of every piece of property in Ireland. Teams of valuers went round the country, accompanied by spadesmen, to assess the value of the soil. The valuers kept notebooks-field books, house books, and tenure books-giving the names of the occupants and detailed descriptions of the house and land, as well as details about the rent that was paid, and the nature of the lease. The whole valuation was printed, and we have it in the library. For Counties Antrim, Armagh , Down , Fermanagh and Londonderry , we have the original printed work. For the rest of Ireland, microfiche is available. The Valuation is arranged by county, though in fact the Poor Law Unions (there were 163 in total) did not respect county boundaries, and it may be necessary to search in more than one county. Within each county, the records are arranged by barony, parish and townland. These were traditional boundaries which are no longer used officially, though supporters of the townland have been waging a rearguard action against the new postal codes. There are 273 baronies in Ireland, and about 64,000 townlands. When we speak of parishes we mean civil parishes rather than church parishes, though the modern civil parishes were based on medieval church boundaries. To trace your ancestor, it is very important, in fact practically essential to know the parish and townland from which he or she came. If you do not have this information, the Householders Index may be helpful. It tells you the number of times a name appears in each barony and parish. This can save you a lot of unnecessary checking, especially if you are looking for an uncommon name. Not surprisingly, the surname Smith, whether with an “I” or a “Y”, was very widespread throughout the county. However, there were only six Jollys, who can be narrowed down to two parishes in the same barony. You can also take my word for it that there were no Beckhams in County Antrim at that time, and certainly no Ronaldinhos. Recently, the library acquired a CD-ROM , which lists alphabetically all the names in Griiffiths, indicating the parish where each person lived. This would appear to supersede the Householders Index, but some critics have suggested that this new index may not be totally comprehensive, so it would still be advisable to check both it and the Householders Index. Griffiths Valuation does not replace the Census, but it is the best that is available to us. Its great limitation is that it lists the main householder, but not the other members of the household. It is important to remember that the printed Valuation is not the whole story. There was only one printed edition, but there were later revaluations, and also notebooks called the Cancelled Books, which record any changes in ownership of the property. These notebooks can be particularly valuable in indicating whether someone has died or emigrated. They are available at PRONI, and take the story up to the 1930s. The Tithe Applotment Books are another important source. Tithes were levied on the agricultural community, for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland. They were originally paid in kind, but a series of Composition Acts, from 1823 , made it possible, and later compulsory, to pay them in cash. As most tithe payers did not belong to the church that they were paying for, the tithe was a particularly unpopular tax. Tithe Wars broke out in some regions, with policeman and protesters being killed. It was costing more to collect the tax than the amount of money that the tax was raising. In 1838,the tithes were replaced by a fixed rent charge, to be collected by the landlord. The Tithe Commission acts allowed for a revaluation of the country, which was carried out between 1823 and 1836. The Applotment Books list the tenant’s name, townland, area, valuation, and tithes payable. They are not so comprehensive as Griffiths, because they were confined to rural areas, and because people who were too poor to contribute anything were not listed, but they are worth checking. The books are in PRONI. The Householders Index indicates whether a name in each parish paid the tithes, but does not say the number of times that it appears, as it does for Griffiths. In addition, we have on CD-ROM an alphabetical index to the names in the books for the six counties of Northern Ireland. It may be possible to follow up your researches in Griffiths and the Tithes by checking the record of individual landed estates, remembering that most people in Ireland were tenants, rather than owners of property. If you can trace the name of the landlord, and find that the estate papers have survived, then you may be able to inspect such documents as rent rolls, leases, lists of tenants, maps of property, account books, wages books, and estate correspondence. You may find the landlord listed in the Valuation .If not, then we have a very useful publication called “Return of Owners of land in Ireland”, published in 1876, which lists all the landlords of Ireland, county by county, giving the extent of their holdings. “Manuscript Sources for the history of Irish civilisation” by Richard Hayes is an important source for information about the whereabouts of estate papers. You might expect the Census records to be an important source for genealogists, and this would be correct, but with serious limitations. The first attempt to hold a census in Ireland was begun in 1813, but was abandoned two years later; not only was the bulk of the population hostile to the idea, but many of the assessors were incompetent and even illiterate. These problems were soon overcome, and the first proper census was carried out in 1821.It listed for each household the names, ages, occupations and relationship to the householder of all the occupants, plus the acreage held by the householder, and how many storeys high the dwelling was. This last detail was omitted from the next Census, in 1831, but for the first time the religion of the inhabitants was recorded. The 1841 Census was the first to be compiled by the householders themselves. Additional information requested included the date of marriage, and the ability or lack of ability to read or write. It was required to give details about absent members of the household, and also to list those who had died since 1831, their ages and relationship to the householder, and the cause and year of their decease. Further censuses followed, every ten years throughout the nineteenth century, and this is where the picture starts to get murky. During the First World War, the Censuses for 1861,1871, 1881 and 1891 were destroyed by government order. The earlier Censuses were preserved, until the fire in 1922, which destroyed most of them. Few survived the flames. So far as the North is concerned, two parishes in Fermanagh, Aghalurcher and Derryvullen, were the only survivors from 1821.For the whole of Ireland, much of County Londonderry is all that remains of the 1831 Census, and the single parish of Killeshandra in County Cavan escaped the flames which otherwise destroyed the 1841 Census.1851 is particularly interesting, because quite a lot of County Antrim still exists, and the returns have been reprinted, with an alphabetical index of names. These give us a tantalising glimpse of what we have missed as a result of the fire. In the first place, they show that household sizes were much larger than today.4600 households are listed, and over 28000 names. They also illustrate a way of life much tougher and dictated by poverty than we are used to today. Let us take one household, the Elliott family in the parish of Rasharkin. The head of the household was Margret Elliott, a widow, aged 43, a yarn spinner, who had married William, a farmer, in 1826.He died in the autumn of 1849, of lung inflammation. A few months earlier, their one year old daughter, Ellen, had died, the cause of death being described as “drop on brain”. This presumably means dropsy, or oedema, the build up of water on the brain. Margret had eleven children living, five sons and six daughters, aged between two and twenty four, all still at home. Five were at school, four worked as linen weavers, and one was a labourer. In the Dinemore household, in the town of Glenarm, four of the seven children were living away from home, one working for a shoemaker, and three in domestic service. Even more striking is the Boyd household in the parish of Kilwaughter. Ruth Boyd, a widow, lived with one unmarried daughter, both sewing and knitting for a living. She had seven other grown-up children, all away working in Scotland. However, not everyone in the Census was poor, and some people were not in the position of having to work or leave. John Benn , Esquire, landed proprietor, in Dunaghy Parish, shared a house with his wife, three unmarried grown-up daughters, and a servant. If the whole of the 1841 and 1851 Census remained, they would be of enormous importance to historians, as it would be possible to compare Ireland before and after the Census. The Census records for 1901 and 1911 were, mercifully, still in local custody at the time, and can be consulted by genealogists. The 1901 Census is available in PRONI, and it is possible to see the 1911 Census in Dublin. If they did not exist, people might be trying to trace their early twentieth century ancestors by examining a fascinating book , one of my favourite works of reference, called the Irish Motor Directory, published in 1912.This lists everyone in Ireland who owned a motor car or a motor bicycle, and helpfully puts C for car , or B for bike, beside each name. If this sounds like an immense undertaking, there were only 567 cars and 416 motorbikes in the whole of Belfast. County Down had only 204 cars and 128 motorcycles, so we are talking about a select band. Under the circumstances, the Irish Motor Directory is an unnecessary census substitute, but in the nineteenth century, we have to look to other sources to make up for the absence of the census. The Blackwood Pedigrees are a unique collection of Ulster pedigrees, compiled by Reginald Blackwood, who died in 1961. He was President of the library for eight years, and a governor for over thirty. He left an extensive collection of genealogical and historical works to the library, and also over ninety notebooks, containing about 1,000 hand written family trees. Many of the families he would have known in person. It is obvious that he kept a close eye on the families that he wrote about, because there are numerous press cuttings throughout the manuscripts, dealing with births, marriages, and deaths and in some cases divorces and bankruptcies. I have brought a couple of examples with me, one of the Barbour family, of particular interest to Lisburn people .One poignant press cutting records the death of John Milne Barbour Junior, the son of the Minister of Commerce, in a plane crash in Scotland in 1937.He was clearly a keen aviator, as his obituary states that he had taken part in the King’s Cup air race two years earlier. The marriage is recorded of his Aunt Helen, to Thomas Andrews of Titanic fame, and I have also brought along Blackwood’s Pedigrees of that remarkable family. A new biography, written by Clive Scoular, has just come out of John Andrews, the second Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, which , and I quote from the title page ,also includes short biographies of his three distinguished brothers; Thomas - Titanic’s shipbuilder, James-Lord Chief Justice, William-cricketer extraordinary. One important rule for ancestor hunters is-hope for the best, but brace yourself for the worst-after all, we may not be sure who Jack the Ripper was, but it is possible that there are people alive today who can claim descent from him, but may not want to. One interesting example from Blackwood relates to a scandalous court case, as reported in the News of the World. The defendant, whose name I shall not divulge tonight, was an osteopath, of Station Road, Budleigh Salterton ,in Devon (though he was originally from Northern Ireland).He was a former Army captain who had been blinded in the First World War. He was accused of improperly assaulting his housekeeper, a widow of unimpeachable character, on her first day of employment. She was referred to as “Mrs. X”. She started her duties on the afternoon of April 1. During the evening she declined the defendant’s suggestion that she should sit down for a chat. Later he asked her to get some brandy, and then some whisky. She could not find any whisky so she gave him some from a bottle she had brought with her. As she handed him the glass, he pulled her on to his knee as he sat in the armchair. After she had refused to kiss him, he committed the offence complained of (what exactly that was we are not told). He said he was divorcing his wife, and would marry her afterwards. The next morning he apologised and asked her, to prevent a scandal, not to leave, emphasising his blindness. Later, during a telephone conversation, she heard him accuse her of spending £7 on household goods. When she questioned him he told her to get out of the house. She climbed over a neighbour’s wall and phoned the police. The verdict in the case was guilt, the sentence that he could not treat any female patients for two years. The next year, he appealed against the ban, supported by his wife (he had since remarried). The appeal was unsuccessful. As I don’t want people looking up Blackwood’s for the wrong reason, I should point out that this is the only example of this sort of thing that I have found in his pedigrees. The Greeves Pedigrees, compiled by Ronald Greeves, like Blackwood a former President of the library, are also of importance for genealogists. Although far less extensive, they tend to be more detailed than the Blackwood records. Also of interest to genealogists are some transcripts of parish registers for Seaforde, Clough and Loughinisland. There is a volume listing marriages in the Downpatrick area from 1727 to 1862, and obituaries from 1693 to 1862.We also have a transcript of the marriage registers of the parish church of Belfast, 1745-1799. The Flax Growers List, officially known as the Claimants Names Adjudged Premiums for Growing Flax, 1796, is a very rare volume. For many years, it was our proud boast that we had the only copy in existence, but another one turned up very close to here, at the Lisburn Museum. This is a list of all the people who were growing flax in Ireland in 1796, arranged by county and parish, though the names within each parish are in no particular order. An alphabetical index for the whole of Ireland is available on microfiche. Thirty one counties are included, the exception being Dublin, where presumably no flax was being grown. In Waterford, there was only one claimant, in Kildare only six. By contrast, Tyrone has 38 pages of premium winners , Down 20, and Armagh 19. This indicates that Ulster was already the centre of the Irish linen industry, and so the Flax Growers List is of great importance for local genealogists.
Another important source is Ireland’s Memorial Records, eight volumes
listing the men in Irish regiments, and Irish soldiers in British
regiments, who died in the First World War. This project was carried out
by the Irish National War Memorial Committee between the years 1919 and
1922, and contains 49,400 names, including some who served in the Navy,
the Air Force and colonial regiments, though the listings are not
comprehensive for those, though it tries to be for the Army. Special
features of these volumes are the beautiful symbolic border designs, by
the artist Harry Clarke. One example is the following:- Margaret Kenny stealing stockings Mary Meade stealing feathers James Clarke stealing hay William O’Hara stealing a loaf of sugar
Alice Logan stealing a handkerchief Let us look at another Journal of the Irish House of Commons for February 1800, which contains “An account of the names of the several persons who have given in claims or made any demands for relief as suffering loyalists to the commissioners for ascertaining the same” The information listed was as follows:- Claimants names- Occupations- Abodes Place where loss was sustained Nature of loss Sum claimed In each case, where the commissioners allowed a claim, half the amount was actually paid Here are some examples Rebecca Moore –widow Ballymoney £85.2.1claimed Houses burned and loss of rent Robert Moore-Randalstown £45.3.4 House, tools, Furniture David Moore, watchmaker Watches, a clock and tools £11.18.3 This last claim was allowed, and he actually received £5.19.1 But the claim by David Moore, grocer, of Ballygrooby, for clothes, furniture, and liquors to the value of £146.6.1. was rejected, as were quite a lot of these claims. But there were about 6000 names on these lists, and they are of great genealogical interest, but understandably, places like Wexford have the largest number of claims, and there are fewer from the North than you might expect. The Belfast Charitable Society is one of the few institutions older than the Linen Hall Library in Belfast. It was set up in 1752 to provide a poor house and hospital for Belfast, and was originally financed by lottery tickets, just as the library today required lottery money to expand. Some time ago, the archives of the society were presented to library. The archives includes Committee Books, and reports by Doctors, housekeepers, and Stewards, and also reports of residents, even after death, since we have the Poor Law Burial Ground Register. The steward’s reports are interesting in showing the extreme drabness of the diet, containing mainly stirabout and potatoes, with cow’s heads for meat. One book of special interest is the entry of inmates between 1873 and 1911.This is an offence and punishment book, though in fact the people mentioned have usually committed no offence, but simply died. One exception was Charles Magill, aged 70, born at Poyntzpass, Roman Catholic, he had lived in Belfast 54 years, address 19 College Square North, and was a wine and spirit merchant. He was admitted in 1911. He was reprimanded in 1913 “for throwing bread at Nurse Douglas” . He died in 1914. Another resident, James Alexander, of Isabella Street, a widower, Church of Ireland, occupation caretaker and labourer, was four times cautioned for fighting, and “ordered to be discharged the next time reported”. Presumably he was at it again and got thrown out, since the book contains no record of his death. The women were usually better behaved, but one exception was Sarah Jane Turtle, from the Shore Road, Methodist, who was confined to the house for a month after “returning to the house under the influence of drink-and insulting the Lady Superintendent”. She eventually left of her own accord.
One item which is of special interest to Lisburn researchers
is Cuttings Book 21, which contains cuttings from the Lisburn Standard
1916-1919, edited by James Carson, “some extracts from the records of old
Lisburn and the Manor of Killultagh”. Although this is not primarily for
genealogists, there is a considerable amount of genealogical information
in them. This includes the names of the original inhabitants who built the
town, the Lisburn Volunteers of 1798, a directory of Lisburn for 1819,
subscribers to Lisburn Newsroom 1836, and a record of Lisburn voters in
the 1852 voters in the 1852 Election, including those who did not vote.
This underlines the point that much material in the Irish history
collection, though not specifically classed as genealogy, may nevertheless
be invaluable to family historians. Our extensive collection of Belfast street directories, for example, which date back to 1807, also containing much information about other Ulster towns. Newspapers can be a very importance source, and we now have a very extensive collection, much of it on microfilm. Newspapers can give us the atmosphere of a bygone era, when attitudes were very different from today. For example, I saw a hospital photograph in an old newspaper, about fifty years old, that showed a patient sitting up in bed smoking, with the nurse lighting his cigarette. More seriously, all sorts of material, not excluding advertisements, may be helpful to genealogists. The advertisements for ships may give you and idea about which vessel your ancestors set sail on, though finding passenger lists may not be easy. It was not uncommon for business people to club together, to offer a reward for the recovery of stolen property. In some cases, husbands would issue notices refusing to be responsible for the debts of a runaway wife.There are numerous situations where you could come across one of your forbears. I mentioned earlier that the genealogy books in the Linen Hall Library could be found on the fourth floor, and nearly all of them are in fact on open access. You can walk along the floor from left to right, and view these items for yourself. To begin with, how to do it books, such as Ian Maxwell’s volumes on tracing County Armagh and County Down ancestors. Then, books on collective Irish families, such as McLysaght’s Irish Families. For those unfamiliar with these works, they give an account of the main Irish families, giving their place of origin, accounts of some leading family members, and in many cases the family coat of arms. Books on individual families are a highlight of the collection. We have several hundred, often privately printed books donated to us by the authors, sometimes in gratitude for help we have provided. Printed parish records are available, as well as the PRONI guide to the surviving church registers. The Gravestone Inscriptions series and the earlier Memorials of the Dead come next, then books on wills, indexes and abstracts since we have no original wills. Books on personal names are widely consulted, including a volume on Ulster surnames by Robert Bell, a former member of the library’s staff. There is a section on placenames, including the works of P. W. Joyce and the recent Place Names of Northern Ireland series. Army and Navy lists include Fighters of Derry, giving details of people on both sides of the siege, and O’Byrne’s Naval Biographical Dictionary of 1849, which lists Charles Rawdon Crozier, who was in fact dead when the book came out, lost on the Franklin Arctic expedition. Herlihy’s books on the RIC and Dublin Metroplitan Police are also in this section. The guides to clergy include the Irish Presbyterian Fasti, three volumes of manuscript histories of Presbyterian ministers, as well as Leslie’s multivolume series on the Church of Ireland. The alumni series includes the graduates of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, plus Methody, Campbell and numerous English schools. There are books on the Irish abroad, and a special section on passenger lists. Burkes and Debretts and similar volumes are useful to those from the higher echelons of society, and we have some volumes of the Almanach De Gotha, if you think you can establish a connection with European royalty or nobility. On the subject of the Wild Geese, the Irish who fled to Europe to escape the English conquest, there is a fascinating series of six books, written in Spanish, called Spanish knights of Irish origin. These relate to Irish exiles who applied to join Spanish orders of chivalry. This apparently necessitated an investigation of the pedigrees of the applicants, and makes interesting reading to those who can read Spanish. This has given you some idea of what the Linen Hall Library has to offer to genealogists. We cannot replace PRONI or GRONI, because we do not have the original records which have to be consulted there. We can, however, usefully supplement what they have to provide. We can estimate our usefulness by the fact that we often see professional genealogists in the library. Those of you who have yet to visit the library, please understand that you are very welcome to do so. We still meet people who are not sure if they are allowed in. We are a private subscription library, but we admit the general public. Only members may borrow books. Most of our Irish books are available for loan, and some, though not all, of our genealogy books may be taken out by members. If you exhaust yourself hunting for your ancestors, then you are very welcome to visit our coffee shop to get sustenance for further research. I hope I have whetted your appetite this evening, and that I will see some of you in the future.
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