There has been four days allocated for
actual research for this trip to the Emerald Isle. Three of those days have
been used. Tomorrow is the fourth day for research. After that, the trip will
involve visiting parts of Ireland that allow us to get a bit of experiencing
life in Ireland both present and past.
Today, I finally had the
opportunity of visiting PRONI, (Public Records Office for Northern Ireland). We
had an orientation session with one of the staff who describes himself as an
historian. He is a great speaker, but he spent almost two and a half hours
telling us what kind of records we can find at PRONI and how to access them. He
also showed us some maps from the early 17th century. They don’t
seem to have lost any of their colour over the past 400 years.
When we were finally finished the
orientation, most of the group went to visit the Presbyterian archives. I was
originally going to go, but I decided to stay at PRONI to try to figure out
their system. I’m glad that I did as the group came back to start some research
about 4:30 pm. I was ready to go back to the hotel.
Shortly after I arrived back, my
brother and I decided to go to dinner. We decided to go to a local bar or restaurant,
knowing that it would be less expensive than some of the other places and it
would have the menu that we both wanted, local food choices. We asked at the
front desk about a place to go and we were directed to the Crown Fine Dining.
Robinson’s is at the top of the building, the Crown on the second floor, and
Fibber McGee’s is on the main floor. It took a while for our meals to come, but
it was well worth the wait. My brother had the lamb stew, while I had gammon
and champ. I had learned yesterday that champ is mashed potatoes. The potatoes
are compressed into an oblong egg-like shape. Tonight, I asked what gammon was.
It’s a thick ham steak and I enjoyed every bite of the gammon and champ. My
brother also enjoyed his meal. The restaurant was about eight blocks from our
hotel and so we had our exercise both before and after dinner.
While at the archives, I knew that
I needed to find my great-great-great-grandparents marriage. I understand that
it was approximately 1822 that they were married. I just had a thought now that
it might be as late as 1828. I do know that they were married before
immigrating to Canada in 1832. They also had at least one child before leaving
Ireland. I also know that they were Methodists and that they maintained their religion
for the rest of their lives. I was trying to find the Methodist church records
so that I could look for their marriage and any other information that I could
find there. One of the finding aids that we were taught about was The PRONI
Guide to Church Records.
While in Dublin, I was able to determine that they
were not married in Galway. However, I may want to revisit that. Time will
tell. Margaret’s headstone in Ontario gave information that she was originally
from County Cavan. It would have been nice to know where in Cavan. I had also
learned that the husband generally travelled to the wife’s home to be married.
Some of the husbands even moved there permanently.
There are a number of
parishes in Cavan and I would have to look through each of them. I also did not
know what the names of the parishes were and what records were available in
each parish. I was beginning to think that I would have to go through the guide
and hand-write every piece of information about the parishes. After the first
four sets of information, I said to myself, “Self, there has to be a better and
faster way of doing this. This is going to take longer than the time that I
have available.” I had the idea that I could purchase a copy of the guide and
then I would not have to write out the information.
I should also mention that
we had been told that there is a book that we should purchase. It has a map of
every county with every parish indicated. When I approached one of the staff,
she grabbed this book and came over to show how to use the two together. This
is when I sat down to write the information and was inspired that I was being
inefficient. I talked with another staff member and he told me that there is an
online copy of the guide on their website. I thought that it was something that
was a living document but it is in PDF format so it can be downloaded free of
charge. I like those words (free of charge) and I also like the idea that it is
in electronic format. Less space on the shelf.
I was also shown how to
determine how many people of a given surname would be in the county that you
are researching in. The staff member used Griffiths Evaluation, which dates
from the mid 1840s to 1880s. I saw that the Tithe Applotment books might be a
better choice as they date from the 1820s which is the time period that I am
looking at. When I decided to do this, the website suggested to use
FamilySearch.org. So I did. I went through and found which parishes had people
of their surnames and now, I just need to find which parishes have both of the
surnames and get the records for those parishes.
I see that I have forgotten to
mention that I read some of the beginning of the guide to the church records
and found that in the beginning, the Wesleyan Methodists hierarchy strongly
suggested that people should have their children baptised in the parish church
or, in other words, the Church of Ireland (Anglican Church). Because there are
very few marriage records before 1860, I am of the understanding that the same
situation stands for marriage records. I now have some of the tools to find the
marriage and christenings that I am looking for.
Tomorrow, we go to the Ulster
Historical Center in the morning and to the Northern Ireland Family History Society
Library in the afternoon.
And so the adventure continues.
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