Prior to the 20th century, the vast majority of Irish people lived in rural areas, leasing land and property from the landowners who owned large estates, some of which were thousands of acres in size. These estates, often managed by land agents, generated large amounts of records, a number of which are particularly useful for expanding the knowledge of your ancestors. If you have exhausted the civil registration and church records, these records could be very useful in providing further information about earlier generations who lived on an estate and where exactly they lived through records such as rentals, leases and estate maps. Other valuable documents within estate records include military muster rolls, correspondence, land agent notebooks, wage books, account books and emigration records, all of which have the potential to provide information about your ancestors. Following the Great Famine, many landlords fell into financial difficulty and the government established the Encumbered Estates Court which allowed for the sale of their estates. The records generated include information about tenants and their leases that often contain really valuable information to expand your family tree.
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Great information for I can finally trace my Irish Ancestors
Excellent Webinar!! I loved this info today!!
Natalie Bodle, thank you for a very informative presentation and accompanying syllabus. You have given us numerous resources and ideas on what and where to search to further our research into the lives of our Irish ancestors.
Thanks Graham, I’m glad you found it useful.
Very good. By not going into too much detail, the presenter was able to demonstrate the research information potential of the various sources by the use of excellent graphical examples. A lot of ground covered in a 1 hour presentation.
Thanks Francis.
Thank you for discussing land records in Ireland. As a thought for the future, perhaps you could do a county-by-county look at Ireland and North Ireland similar to what you are doing for England?
That is something to consider Cynthia, although I don’t do talks on England?
Thoroughly introduces all aspects.
Excellent! I’m going to have to reach out to Natalie as my family came from near Ballymena and I’ll be visiting there next year. I really need to know how to make the most out of the limited time I will have there.
Certainly Thomas. No doubt you will be planning a visit to PRONI, so please read my blog post https://rootsrevealed.co.uk/preparing-for-a-visit-to-the-public-records-office-of-northern-ireland-proni/ about how to prepare for it.
This class gives me hope that I can find some more information about ancestors in Northern Ireland and maybe even the names of the previous generation.
Good luck with your searching Betsey.