Advanced Irish Records

A series of source records that tend to be less consulted, though significant, are electoral, poll, and tithe records. In Ireland these comprise such things as 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 will discuss records of public office, freemen, and freeholders.  Though not restricted to this period, their understanding is imperative to pre-1700 research in Ireland. The course will discuss the value of these records and their challenges, a description of their contents, including the dates of coverage and types of persons included in their details, as well as a discussion on their availability, access to them in, and outside of, Ireland as well as brief lists of bibliographic and indexed sources to these collections. 

If you are considering this course, you probably have experienced or learned an amazing amount of detail on genealogical strategies and Irish record collections. Many of these involve direct connections to "pure genealogical detail", meaning: the strategies for research, and the record collections upon which they are based, tend to provide assured genealogical detail. In other words, if you use the strategies properly in conducting your research and use them on the record collections described in the basic and intermediate level Irish record courses, you will find pure genealogical information. It may or may not be relevant to your family however it is direct genealogical information.

In the advanced level of the Irish Certificate, we begin to examine some of the record collections that are less reliable in providing pure genealogical detail and the genealogical detail in them is often difficult to locate specifically. These documents are further, often hard to locate; often are not indexed, abstracted or even available to the public; and tend to be very difficult to wade through. Often the genealogical detail they hold is very elusive. The great thing about these records, however, is that in most cases the information, if found, will be direct and often provide good primary evidence of facts on subjects and events in periods where few other genealogical records survive.

Unlike tax & electoral records which you learned about earlier, court records/state papers/parliamentary documents are always present for examination for the bulk of most recent Irish history, though their details will often vary significantly from period to period. Like tax & electoral records, however, they tend to be a very underused record collection by genealogical researchers. 

The sad fact, of this is that we underestimate their potential for research extensions and this hinders our own pedigree developments significantly when it comes to undertaking Irish research. If we have not already learned this, for Ireland, every record collection needs to be examined because of the lack of available comprehensive & extant historical records.

Further, these record collections are often seldom discussed by many writing genealogists because they are so misunderstood and because they are simply very difficult to research, all giving rise predominately therefore to their lack of use. This course will provide you with an understanding of the importance of court, state & parliamentary records when undertaking your genealogical research.

Most genealogists and family historians do understand inherently the significance of all source materials for extracting genealogical information though often we forget that some sources, no matter how little of information they sometimes provide (or appear at the onset to provide), often those little bits of information establish the important details of ''presence'' and ''locality'' which, if nothing else, may confirm further research into other more detail and primary source documents.

As genealogists we cannot discount, or even underestimate, the importance of establishing presence and locality on someone for these are the two basic building blocks to any pedigree development. Without either one of these, you are looking for the proverbial ''needle-in-a-haystack.'' How many of us have seen pedigree's with only dates and no localities of events, or even worse only names of ancestral relationships? Pedigrees of this order are useless and one cannot establish meaningful lineal relationships without knowing or determining the basic building blocks which you have learned through these courses and your other genealogical studies.

The one thing that becomes apparent 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. No other genealogical record collection has survived in Ireland for so long and cover such a wide swath of human history on the Irish people. The downside, at least towards using them for genealogical research, is that most of the material is of Irish people with property, social status, or involving strictly social, economic, and political policy of the times. Therefore, for these record collections to be of any use to most of us, our ancestors need to have (for the most part, but not always) had money and/or political influence of one sort or another. The reason I say, ''not always'' is that there are still many, many documents in these collections that deal with and report on the common man and woman (e.g.: religious returns, petitions of dissenters, etc.).

So, do not feel that because your family may not have owned property that some of your ancestors won't be in these collections—as you will learn in this course. This may be no further from the truth.

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.

A case study will be presented and examined.

The earliest records of a military and genealogical nature are contained in the ancient and medieval Annals of Ireland and other Gaelic manuscripts. These as well as later printed source materials provide valuable lists of officers and soldiers in local forces, accounts of military activity including officer personnel, local incidents and names of rebellious persons, the various records often accompanied with biographical and genealogical notes. We will discuss these records, their value, some historical background of these record collections, and their availability.  

 In addition, our course will lead us through to the very important pension records which often documented places of residence, birth, parentage, marriage, and children.  It must be remembered that it is often thought that pensions records related solely to military and naval activity but in fact, there were civil as well as military pensions granted in Ireland.  We will conclude with a small look at the Irish and Royal Irish Constabulary records.

In the Irish Basic and Intermediate level, you have learned an amazing amount of detail on genealogical strategies and Irish record collections. In the Advanced level, we begin to examine some of the record collections that are less reliable in providing pure genealogical detail and the genealogical detail in them is often difficult to locate specifically. One record collection for Ireland that are in many ways unique to this country and the entire United Kingdom are those of 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 will provide you with an understanding of the importance of estate, plantation and settlement papers when undertaking your genealogical research. 

There are no complete records of emigration, immigration or naturalization for Ireland. There are some collections of this information available from Irish record sources; however, the bulk of meaningful source material will more likely come from the receiving country or sending country than from Irish sources.  In both cases, we will examine the materials that are available involving the Irish, the time periods they cover, and their availability and access. It is often a sparse and scattered collection of records that are not easily investigated; however, can provide a wealth of information on ancestors and their subsequent residences or earlier origins.