Advanced Irish Records

Optional Print Course Material: Irish: Court Records, State Papers, Parliamentary Documents

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

In the advanced level of the Irish Certificate, we examine some of the record collections that the genealogical detail in them is often difficult to locate. These documents are also harder to locate. More often they're not indexed, abstracted, or available to the public. However, information found will be direct and often provide good primary evidence of facts on subjects and events in periods where few other genealogical records survive. Seldom discussed by genealogists because they are so misunderstood and difficult to research, This course will provide you with an understanding of the importance of court, state, and parliamentary records for genealogical research. The one apparent note with this collection is that, unlike, many other genealogical sources, court/state/parliamentary records cover almost the entire period of late Irish history from the 12th century (in general) to the present.

Like, electoral and taxation sources, however, these record collections can supply, particularly for pre-1850 Ireland, some of the best pointers on periods of presence and locality, as well as indications of social strata, details on occupations, residences, physical descriptions, and family relationships or family structures.

Optional Print Course Material: Irish: Electoral and Taxation Records

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

A series of source records that tend to be less consulted are electoral, poll, and tithe records. In Ireland these comprise voters registers, hearth money rolls, poll tax rolls, land tithes, and subsidy rolls as well as many other taxation methods. The collection falls under two distinct series, each of which varies by period, and both of which will be discussed in this course.  Though they tend to be less informative than some of the other record groups, electoral and taxation records establish presence, among other details, in a period where few other records exist by which to do so. In addition, we discuss records of public office, freemen, and freeholders. Understanding these records is imperative to pre-1700 research in Ireland. The course covers the value and challenges of these records, contents, dates of coverage, types of persons included, access,  and brief lists of bibliographic and indexed sources. 

Optional Print Course Material: Irish: Estate, Plantation and Settlement Records

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

We examine the record collection for Ireland unique to this country, and the entire United Kingdom, are estate records, plantation documents, and settlement papers. They can be very difficult to use, however, hold original sources of information for periods that pre-date many of the later more customary genealogical source records.

This course provides an understanding of the importance of estate, plantation, and settlement papers when undertaking your genealogical research. 

This course considers records of immigration to Ireland and emigration from Ireland. A defining characteristic of Irishness is emigration, and a significant number of those taking this course are here to search for their ancestors who left Ireland. We have fragmented records that aren’t very detailed, and often there’s insufficient evidence to confirm a person’s identity. Additionally, these documents can contain details not found anywhere else. Naturalization records in other countries, for instance, might offer that elusive Irish location, enabling your research to span the Atlantic.

This material discusses these immigration/emigration sources focussing on the following elements:

• the various forms of records available
• what information they contain and their value and impact
• the challenges in accessing or using these records
• discussing any known available bibliographies, calendars, indexes, transcripts, and abstracts that might exist.