Who Do You Think You Are?
Who Do You Think You Are?
Family, home and place
It’s not hard to find out who you are and about the place where you and your family come from. A recent course helped to remove the mystique of family and local history and provided some fun while learning. A five-week get-together called Family, home and place was held to help gain some tools and resources for researching family and local history, it took place during February and March at the new Gateway Centre, Antrim. The course was fully booked and culminated in a very successful visit to the Public Records Office at the Titanic Quarter in Belfast. This was facilitated under the Ulster Scots element of the Lough Neagh Landscape Partnership, funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund and Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council. The recently opened Gateway Centre on the shores of the lough seemed a very apt place to have the course, thinking about water, place, identity, travel and migration.
The was facilitated by Dr Liam Campbell of Lough Neagh Partnership and Dr William Roulston, who is Research Director of the Ulster Historical Foundation. William holds a PhD in Archaeology from Queens University Belfast and degrees in history from Ulster University.
He has written a number of books, including Fermanagh: History and Society (edited with Eileen Murphy, Dublin, 2004), Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors (Belfast, 2005), Restoration Strabane, 1660-1714 (Dublin, 2007), Three centuries of life in a Tyrone parish: a history of Donagheady from 1600 to 1900 (Strabane, 2010) and Abercorn: The Hamiltons of Barons Court (Belfast, 2014). He is a Member of Council for both the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland and the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
This course will be rolled out in other areas around the lough in the coming months as will courses called Know your place – a bit better , a six week get-together on gaining some tools to help read our landscape a bit better – to look for the clues and the features, history and heritage that tell the story of your home area. You’ll enjoy the craic and homemade food by a roaring fire, facilitated by Dr Liam Campbell, Lough Neagh Partnership.
If you wish to register your interest, please email: Liam.Campbell@loughneaghpartnership.org
In the meantime – possibly having some time on your hands, you can get ahead by looking at some of these useful websites – have fun !
Genealogy, history and mapping websites
https://www.townlands.ie/
www.logainm.ie
www.indirect.gov.uk/services/search-proni-historical-maps-viewer
www.heritagemaps.ie
www.communitiesni.gov.uk/services/sites-and-monuments-record
Sites-and monuments-record, Historic Environment Division
www.ulsterplacenameni.org
Website showing locations and meanings and old spellings of townlands and place-names in NI
www.ancestryireland.com
Ulster Historical Foundation
www.ancestryireland.com/scotsinulster
Hearth money roles ( 1600s ) Protestant householders (1740) and Flaxgrowers Lost (1796)
www.rootsireland.ie
Irish Family History Foundation ( subscription)
www.census.nationalarchieves.ie
1901 and 1911 and pre 1901 census fragments for all of Ireland
www.geneolgy.nationalarchieves.ie
Wills, valuation records, census returns
https://geni.indirect.gov.uk
Births 1864-1918, marriages 1845-1943 and deaths 1864-1968
www.irishgeneology.ie
Church records for certain counties and civil records from 1864 for NI until 1921
www.askaboutireland.ie/Griffith-valuation
Griffith’s valuation1848-1864
http://downsurvey.tcd.ie/down-survey-maps.php
Mid 17th century maps of Ireland
www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/InformationServices/TheLibrary/SpecialCollections/DigitalResources
www.Ireland.Anglican.org/about/rcb-library
Church of Ireland Library
www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com
Presbyterian records
www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
British Newspaper Archive
www.ucs.Louisiana.edu/bnl/
Belfast Newsletter Index 1737-1800
Mellon Centre for Migration Studies
