The Irish Roots Guide E-Book

Tony McCarthy

• Herausgeber: The Lilliput Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 167

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Irish genealogy now attracts unprecedented interest both at home and abroad. Many who try to trace their roots, however, are disappointed. This practical, fact-filled book can turn failure into success. The Irish Roots Guide – offers clear, step-by-step instructions – provides an introduction to each of the important documentary collections – equips you to do your own research in the Irish archives, showing how to avoid pitfalls – adopts a fresh approach to family history, debunks myths, and never forgets that half of our ancestors were women. Whether your research is to be a lifelong hobby or a once-off quest, this book will prove indispensable.

Leseprobe

THE IRISH ROOTS GUIDE

Tony McCarthy

THE LILLIPUT PRESS

FOR ANGELA

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Illustrations

Preface and Acknowledgments

Foreword by John A. Murphy

1 Introduction

2 Sources: General Information

3 Twelve Major Sources

I Census Returns and Related Material

II State Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages

III Catholic Parish Records

IV Land Commission Records

V Valuation and Poor Law Records

VI Tithe Applotment Books

VII Estate Records

VIII Wills and Administrations

IX The Registry of Deeds

X The Religious Census of 1766

XI Hearth Money Rolls

XII Records of the Graveyard

4 Using the Sources

Stage I

Stage II

Stage III

Stage IV

Riordan Family

McCarthy Family

5 Degree of Success to be Expected

6 Storage and Retrieval

7 Future of Irish Genealogy

Bibliography and Sources

About the Author

Copyright

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1 Birth certificate of Margaret Riordan

Figure 2 Chart showing ages at death, based on 1841 census returns

Figure 3 Facsimile of page 63 of Matheson’s Special Report on Surnames in Ireland

Figure 4 Griffith’sValuation, County of Cork, Barony of Carbery West, Parish of Kilcrohane

Figure 5 Family circle chart

Figure 6 Stage I family circle chart

Figure 7 Family circle chart with names added at Stage II

Figure 8 Chart showing the sixth generation within eight important administrative divisions

Figure 9 Information chart to facilitate the selection of lines for further research

Figure 10 Family tree of McCarthys of Liscullane

Figure 11 Family circle chart with names added at Stage IV

Figure 12 Time-spans covered by major sources

Figure 13 Family circle chart at an early stage of research, numbered for use as an index

Figure 14 Page 38 of notes

Figure 15 Page 5 of index

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When your ancestors are Irish, ‘doing your family tree’ can be difficult, time-consuming and costly. This book provides all the guidance necessary to accomplish the task; it helps you to make optimum use of your time and keep expenses to the minimum. It should be read through and then used for reference.

A number of people have assisted me in the production of TheIrishRootsGuide. Mr Maurice Thuillier and Mr Sean Lydon read an early draft and offered some useful suggestions. Mr Tim Cadogan of the Cork County Library and Mr Kieran Burke of the Cork City Library were most helpful when I was researching various genealogical sources. I spent a great deal of time in Irish archives. Knowledgeable and obliging staff made my task easier than I had imagined. To all those I wish to express my thanks.

It is impossible to write a book like this without a degree of plagiarism. I have tried to include in the ‘Bibliography and Sources’ all the works I have used.

I would like to thank the Deputy Keeper of the Records, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland for permission to quote from the Earl of Listowel’s papers; and the editor of the JournaloftheCorkHistoricalandArchaeologicalSociety for permission to quote from an article by Mr R. Henchion.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Angela, without whose help this book would not have been written.

FOREWORD

The search for family roots is no longer the exclusive activity of North Americans and Australians interested in their Irish forebears. At home, more and more Irish people are anxious to trace their ancestry.

Today, amateur genealogists are facilitated by the availability of well-organized records but they are also frustrated by a lack of any clear idea of where to begin their investigation, and how to continue their labour of love.

Such people – the great majority of family researchers – will find Tony McCarthy’s book an invaluable guide. Indeed, the author can fully stand over his claim that his work is ‘the most complete guide available to the twelve best sources of genealogical information’.

He suggests a novel approach to ‘doing the family tree’, reminding us to cherish all our ancestors equally, not just in the male ‘mainline’. His very readable book combines learning and usefulness with common sense and humour, as he gently warns us of frequent errors and pitfalls.

Finally, it is worth noting that the work has the seal of academic approval. For his independent research, the author has been awarded an honours MA degree by the National University of Ireland.

JOHN A. MURPHYEmeritusProfessorofIrishHistory UniversityCollegeCork

1

INTRODUCTION

About ten years ago I started to research the history of my own family. As soon as I began to accumulate information, I found it necessary to clarify my objectives because I felt dissatisfied with the family tree that I found myself constructing. I had begun by concentrating exclusively on the male line; my purpose being to trace it back as far as possible. This is the traditional procedure, employed in the most readily available guidebooks. Popular literature on the subject also encourages the reader to equip himself with a historyofhissurname and the family coatofarms.

I am unhappy with this procedure for many reasons. It consigns the greater part of one’s ancestry to oblivion, while attaching exaggerated importance to those who bore one’s surname. The notion that a surname is but a means of identification, a tag or label, would be strongly contested by some, but it would be foolish to maintain that its significance is on a par with the most important thing conveyed to us by our ancestors – life. In this respect it is undeniable that the role of each one of our ancestors was crucial and equal.

MALE LINE

How then has what might be termed ‘mainline genealogy’ triumphed over invincible biological fact? A widespread misunderstanding of Burke’s and Debrett’s publications is, I suspect, one of the main reasons. Burke’sPeerage,Burke’sLandedGentry and similar genealogical works very deliberately concentrate on the male line, to the extent of listing children, not strictly in order of birth, but boys first, followed by girls. In the introduction to Burke’sIrishFamilyRecords, the reason given for this procedure is ‘primogeniture’, the right of succession belonging to the first-born male, or to the eldest surviving male. The principal purpose of Burke’s and similar family trees is not, as is widely believed, to give a comprehensive account of the ancestry of those listed. It is to illustrate how title and property descended through various generations. A family tree of this type is like a map showing the route taken by title and property from times past to the present. It is quite legitimate and understandable for anybody who has inherited property, be it ever so humble, to wish to trace the inheritance back through the generations; and as all property descends in the same way, he will find himself concentrating on his male line. However, I suspect that most people who trace their family trees are, like myself, descended from the non-propertied majority. In that case to concentrate on the male line is to follow uncritically Burke’s and Debrett’s model.

The domination of the male line over the female line in genealogy is consistent with male domination, up to recent times at least, in almost all spheres. Once, women were virtually regarded as mere incubators, within whom the male seed grew to viable proportions. Science has shown that men and women are equal partners in the process of procreation. Children in secondary school learn in biology class that chromosomes are the genetic building-blocks; that 23 chromosomes are provided by the male sperm and an equal number by the female ovum. However, genealogy, by its insistence on the exclusive importance of the male line, still proceeds according to the primitive perception of women. It must only be a matter of time before this gross example of male chauvinism is swept away by liberated women tracing their foremothers. Indeed, it has become fashionable for women to retain their own surnames after marriage and even to impose double-barrelled names on their offspring. Should this tendency persist over a number of generations, a surname could become a veritable genealogical table.

SURNAME

Quite often, little may be unearthed about individuals who lived in past centuries, apart from Christian name, surname and the townland in which they lived. A common surname helps people to identify with their ancestors. This is another reason why family historians have tended to deal with the main line only. People don’t feel comfortable with a list of ancestors whose surnames differ from their own. They are like strangers.

Studying the history of one’s surname leads to a stronger identification, an emotional bonding with it. One begins to regard oneself as a Sullivan or a Kelly. A feeling akin to nationalism develops. The notion of belonging to a particular clan or sept is popular in Ireland and even more popular in the United States. Such notions do not stand up to analysis, however. Our parents have two surnames, our grandparents four. Stretching back another generation, our great-grandparents have eight surnames. If social convention did not eliminate seven of these, the clan fantasy would not exist. One cannot belong simultaneously to eight clans.

COAT OF ARMS

Buying the coat of arms associated with one’s surname completes the process of identification with a small segment of one’s ancestry. Such a purchase is doubly foolish. First, it shuts out from one’s consideration the vast majority of those to whom one owes one’s existence. Second, the belief that every surname has its corresponding coat of arms is incorrect. Commercial interests have sought to increase their market by promoting the idea that, just as every birthday has its star sign, every surname has its coat of arms. This is not true. Coats of arms belong to particular families and not to all those who bear a common surname. They may be seen in the same way as hereditary titles. If your name happens to be Gerald Grosvenor, it does not mean that you may call yourself the Duke of Westminster. Only the families to whom the hereditary title or coat of arms belong may use them. One authoritative writer on heraldry makes the point that those who purport to sell representations of a person’s arms, simply on the evidence of his surname, may be open to legal action by the purchaser, since the vendor is describing his wares incorrectly and making money by false pretences.

To be entitled to use a coat of arms in Ireland, it is necessary to show unbroken male descent from some person to whom arms were granted by patent and officially registered either in the Genealogical Office or in its predecessor, Ulster’s Office of Arms. An alternative method is to prove that a particular coat of arms was in use by your family for a hundred years and three generations.

The idea of sept arms is partly to blame for the general confusion concerning coats of arms in Ireland. It seems to have been accepted at one time that proof of sept membership entitled one to use the arms of the sept. The acceptance of the principle of sept arms, however, never implied that arms appertained to surnames. A sept is a collective term describing a group of people who not only bore a common surname but also inhabited a particular area or whose ancestors are known to have inhabited that area.

There are several distinct septs of O’Kelly, for example. The O’Kellys of Meath would have had no more right to the arms of the O’Kellys of Ui Maine than a Murphy or an O’Sullivan. Officially no one is entitled to use sept arms except the chief of the name.

NEW APPROACH

Having rejected the traditional approach to ‘doing the family tree’, I could see no logical alternative apart from researching all my ancestral lines. On the face of it, this seems like a daunting task, especially when we consider that the number of our ancestors per generation doubles with each step we take backwards in time. We have two parents; six steps further back, we have 128 great, great, great, great, great, grandparents; three additional steps and the number is over 1000. Go back to the twentieth generation and the number of ancestors tops the million – quite the reverse of the expectations of ancient genealogists, who thought they were tracing families back to two individuals, Adam and Eve, and indeed often claimed to have done so. The million ancestors, of course, is a theoretical number. It is based on the false premise that our ancestors were related to one another in no way but the obvious. When first cousins marry, their children have six and not eight great-grandparents. Family trees are full of such interconnections. In any case, Irish records are so bad that one is lucky if all one’s ancestral lines do not disappear around the fifth or sixth generation.

GUIDE BOOKS

At this point, having clarified my objectives, I began to think of how to attain them. I found that there are several publications available which claim to guide those wishing to research their family history. They range from Margaret Dickson Falley’s weighty two-volume work, IrishandScotch-IrishAncestralResearch, through the shorter HandbookonIrishGenealogy by the Heraldic Artists, down to a variety of cheap pamphlets. Although I learned a great deal from these publications, I didn’t find any one book to be completely satisfactory.

Their chief defect is that they try to be too comprehensive: to offer guidance to everybody with Irish roots. The fact that ancestors must be looked at in the context of their social position is largely ignored. This is a crucial mistake because a person’s class had a great bearing on whether or not he figured in particular types of records. Few will consult a Church of Ireland register in search of a Catholic baptismal entry (although in some Donegal and the midlands registers, many such entries are to be found). Searching the Registry of Deeds for a small tenant farmer’s lease is almost as fruitless an occupation as searching nineteenth-century newspapers for a cottier’s death notice.

A second defect is the lack of suitably detailed information about the documents which form the source material for ancestral research. It comes as a surprise to the beginner when he discovers that the entries in many Catholic registers are written in Latin, in bad handwriting and on paper spotty with decay. Novices are inclined to accept as facts the information in state registers of births, deaths and marriages, whereas these sources are full of errors.

Thirdly, one is given very little idea of the degree of success to be expected. How far back can one hope to trace a line? Glib references to the O’Neills of Ulster having the most ancient documented pedigree in Western Europe, and to other old Irish genealogies are misleading and no substitute for solid, well-researched fact. How much detail can one hope to get? When should one decide that one has reached the end of the line? None of these questions receives a satisfactory answer.

SOCIAL GROUP

A comprehensive guidebook covering all social groups would run into several volumes. This book aims to be both compact and relevant to as many people as possible, and so I have focused on the group from which the overwhelming majority of Irish people are descended.

Under pressure from English merchants and manufacturers the British parliament had so restricted Irish trade in the eighteenth century that the country was forced to rely upon agriculture. The landlords thus found themselves with a virtual monopoly of the means of livelihood. The French traveller Gustave de Beaumont wrote in 1839: ‘The Catholic of Ireland finds only one profession within his reach, the culture of the soil.’

The 1841 census indicates that 66 per cent of all Irish families were ‘chiefly employed in agriculture’. Under the broader heading: ‘chiefly employed in agriculture plus proportion of other pursuits’, the figure is raised to 73 per cent.

The 1861 census provided for the first time reliable figures of Church membership. Out of a population of five and three quarter million, four and a half million, or 77 per cent, were Catholics, under 700,000, or 12 per cent, were members of the Church of Ireland, and a little over half a million, or 9 per cent, were Presbyterians.

It is perfectly clear from these figures that Catholic tenant farmers and their families constituted the majority of the Irish population in the last century. It follows that most people with Irish blood in their veins, both at home and abroad, are descended from this group. I have concentrated therefore on tracing roots from the point of view of the man or woman descended from nineteenth-century Catholic tenant farmer stock. Of course, the Irish Catholic tenantry was, in itself, a very large and diverse group. At one extreme the proprietors of large grassland ‘ranches’ present a picture of prosperity and are almost indistinguishable from middlemen landlords. At the other extreme, the landless labourers who rented potato gardens from year to year from tenant farmers suffered grinding poverty.

The concentration on the Catholic tenantry does not mean that there is nothing in this book for those descended from other social groups. The book is the most complete guide available to the twelve best sources of genealogical information. Only two of the record collections dealt with are exclusively agricultural; only one is exclusively Catholic.

2

SOURCES: GENERAL INFORMATION

Before dealing with genealogical sources, an understanding of the administrative divisions of Ireland is important. It is also useful to know a little of the history of Irish records.

ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS

Of the ten administrative divisions most frequently referred to in this book, four are civil divisions of considerable antiquity: County,Barony,CivilParish and Townland; four are associated with legislation introduced in the mid-nineteenth century: PoorLawUnion,DispensaryDistrict,SuperintendentRegistrar’sDistrict and Registrar’sDistrict; and two are ecclesiastical divisions: Diocese and Parish.

The county is the division with which people are most familiar. The creation by statute in 1606 of Wicklow finalized the county framework as we know it today. The county was and still is the principal unit of local government. Most collections of documents are organized on a county basis.

The barony is an important county subdivision. The usual number per county is seven to ten. Cork with twenty has the largest number; at the other end of the scale, Louth has only five. Occasionally a barony occupies part of two counties, in which case it is known as a half-barony in each. There are 331 baronies in Ireland. The origin of this particular division is unclear. It is thought to be Norman or pre-Norman. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries it was utilized officially in surveys, land transactions, censuses, etc.

There are 2508 civilparishes in Ireland. They often break both barony and county boundaries. Originally, as the name implies, they were ecclesiastical divisions, but they became important civil divisions in time. They originated in the thirteenth century or in some cases even earlier.

The townland is the smallest administrative division in Ireland and there are 60,462 of them in the country. The average townland size is about 350 acres, though individual size varies enormously – the smallest townland is a little over one acre while the largest is over 7000 acres. A difficulty which may crop up with townlands is that many have the same name. There are 56 Kilmores and 47 Dromores, for example. Knowing the name of the county and the barony in which the townland you are researching is situated usually overcomes this problem.

The Poor Law Act of 1838 introduced a new division to Ireland: the poorlawunion.