|
Ancestry Daily News
3/14/2002 - Archive
| • |
One of the Irish Questions: Estate Records, Yes or No? |
One of the Irish Questions: Estate Records, Yes or No?
There are always Irish questions: Do I have Irish ancestors? Do I
research my Irish ancestors? It's supposed to be so difficult. Then, almost
every step of the way comes the question of whether to persist, to try another
source, or in this case, should I look for estate records?
Estate papers can contain almost anything; the most useful genealogical documents
found in them include leases, rent rolls, and maps. Among other potentially
valuable documents are deeds, accounts (some with wage books), correspondence,
inventories/surveys, militia or yeomanry lists. You will not find mention of
the poorest cottars and laborers who usually made their rental agreements with
middlemen—tenants and sub-tenants of the landlord.
Getting to Know the Landscape
Genealogical data alone is dry stuff—add the setting, the history, and
it becomes interesting. How a landscape changes over time reveals a lot of social
and economic history. Did your ancestors, during the 1700s, live in a region
characterized by small farms, cattle fattening, dairying, tillage, or the production
of linen? Were they in the 20 percent or so of Ireland where there were generally
smaller and long-established estates and where radical change, at that time,
had little impact? How and where people lived affected living conditions, and,
in the next century, determined the impact of the potato famine.
Therefore, with land records, add the landscape; and I recommend doing so through
the pages of the Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, (F. Aalen, K. Whelan,
M. Stout, editors, Cork University Press and University of Toronto Press, 1997).
It is a wonderfully constructed investigation, full of maps, facts and social
history. The Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape describes all of these
factors, adds contemporary illustrations, plots the data in maps, and explains
the why and where of dependency on the potato–in a concise and readable way.
The section on demesnes (manors) explains how they came into being and that
the Crown grants which established them often include clauses relating to the
establishing and governing of towns.
That took me to another book on my shelf, Irish Towns: A Guide to Sources
(W. Nolan and A. Simms, editors, Geography Publications, Dublin, 1998). An entire
chapter is devoted to estate records. Modern urban living probably conditions
us to think of countryside and town as different places with different records.
Not necessarily so, 'country' records may reveal 'town' sources; and in fact
estate papers are the best place to find information on some well known towns
in Ireland, e.g., the town of Maynooth among the papers of the Earls of Kildare.
Genealogical Value
The interest of historians in estate papers is apparent. What about genealogists?
Advice from genealogical books and Web sites on tackling estate records varies
from enthusiasm to caution to no mention at all. Those that mention the subject
ignore the local history and stress the value of leases, rent rolls and any
other lists. There are warnings about the sheer volume of stuff, and the problems
of finding anything useful without good finding aids.
Should you consider estate records? That depends on what you want to discover,
and whether you know enough to identify the estate; townland is best, parish
will do. If all you know is the county of origin the odds are against taking
this on; but special circumstances such as a small number of estates in the
county, and better than average catalogs of contents, might make the search
worth considering.
Landlords can be identified from one or more of several sources, including gazetteers
and directories, books of local and regional history, detailed local maps, valuation
records. Be sure to find the owner of the estate, and not some middleman or
tenant.
Landowners of Ireland (U.H. Hussey de Burgh, 1878) and Landowners
in Ireland: Return of Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876, and
GPC 1988) are other suggested resources. The first lists those who owned land
worth more than five hundred pounds or bigger than five hundred acres. The second
was a government publication including all those (owners and ninety-nine year
leaseholders) with one acre or more; organized alphabetically by county, it
can effectively 'hide' some major owners with land in several counties.
Locating Information
It gets easier all the time to find brief summaries about estate records
collections. Using the Internet, turn to three sites:
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
proni.nics.gov.uk/
Irish Ancestors
scripts.ireland.com/ancestor/browse/index.htm
Historic Manuscripts Commission
www.hmc.gov.uk/
The PRONI site has a section for private collections, which includes historical
notes, illustrations and references. Irish Ancestors has select counties and
a subsection, Estates, for each. Some of the listings, are extensive and others
not yet complete. The information summarizes the contents of the National Archives,
the National Library, and published sources. The Historic Manuscripts Commission
site, within the National Register of Archives area, has searchable family name
and place name indexes.
Check all three Web sites. Some of the largest collections of estate papers
are in PRONI and these include references to lands in southern counties. Some
of the Dublin collections contain manuscripts about northern estates, and there
were many families with estates in England as well, and hence Irish papers are
deposited in UK record offices. Don't forget the Family History Library in Salt
Lake City–not a lot of material, but it may be what you want.
It's a huge topic, and an interesting one. If you are going to tackle estate
records, you'll be better off taking it on seriously with background reading
on the landscape and the records, with research into what is stored where, and
with a plan.
Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA (Scot) has been researching her British ancestry for
thirty years. She founded Interlink Bookshop and Genealogical Services (www.interlinkbookshop.com)
in 1988; she currently lectures in Canada and the United States and is president
of the Association of Professional Genealogists. You can e-mail Sherry with
suggestions for future British genealogy articles at sherryirvine55@myfamily.com.
She will not be able to send personal replies, but will feature some questions
in upcoming issues of the Ancestry Daily News. Sherry also regrets that
she is unable to assist with personal research. Sherry is also the author of:
Your Scottish Ancestry: A Guide for North Americans
Your English Ancestry: A Guide for North Americans
|
|
 |
|
