If researching ancestors prior to the introduction of civil registration of all births, deaths and marriages in 1864 (non-Catholic marriages registered from 1845), the main sources of information on family history are the registers kept by local churches. Unfortunately, many of these date from no earlier than the nineteenth century. Nonetheless enough has survived to provide many people with information on their forebears. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has a vast collection of microfilms and photostat copies of church records, as well as some original material, relating to all denominations in Ulster. The main categories of church records are as follows.

Church of Ireland

St Cedma’s Church of Ireland in Larne, County Antrim Open Enlarged Version The Church of Ireland is an episcopal church with a hierarchical system of church government and services which follow an accepted liturgical form and structure. From 1537 until 1870 the Church of Ireland was the state church in Ireland, and was therefore often referred to as the Established Church or simply the Church. Because of its close links with the Church of England, it was also known as the Anglican Church. Despite its standing, however, the Church of Ireland never enjoyed the support of more than a minority of the population of Ireland, probably no more than 10% during the eighteenth century. From 1634 the Church of Ireland was required to keep proper records of baptisms, marriages and burials. For a handful of parishes there are records dating from the seventeenth century. Analysis of Church of Ireland registers has shown that many people who belonged to other denominations frequently appear in these records.

Presbyterian Church

Bangor Abbey Church, County Down Open Enlarged Version From the middle of the seventeenth century the Presbyterian Church has been the dominant Protestant denomination in Ulster. In the early seventeenth-century, with the influx of large numbers of Scottish settlers, a number of clergymen with Presbyterian convictions arrived in Ulster from Scotland. In 1642 the first Irish presbytery was founded at Carrickfergus. Following the Restoration of 1660, ministers who refused to conform to the teachings and government of the newly reinstated Church of Ireland were dismissed. Despite periods of persecution Presbyterians began to form congregations and build their own churches from the 1660s. Numerically, they were far superior to Anglicans and this was a major source of concern for the both the government and the Established Church in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Secession Church

The Secession Church was a branch of Presbyterianism that emerged following a split in the Church of Scotland in 1712 over the issue of official patronage. Before long it had gained a foothold in Ulster. In the nineteenth century nearly all of the Secession churches were received into the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church

The origins of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church go back to a dispute within the Presbyterian Church over the issue of subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith, the statement of doctrine of the Presbyterian Church. Those who denied the necessity of subscribing to this work were known by the name of 'New Light' Presbyterians or 'Non-Subscribers'. In 1725, in an attempt to deal with the situation, ministers and congregations of the 'New Light' persuasion were placed in the Presbytery of Antrim. About 100 years later the issue of subscription again became a source of contention within Presbyterianism and in 1829 a small section of the Presbyterian Church withdrew and formed what was known as the Remonstrant Synod. Along with the Presbytery of Antrim this group became the core of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church.

Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter) Church

The Covenanter or Reformed Presbyterian Church was composed of those who adhered most strongly to the Covenants of 1638 and 1643 and who rejected the Revolution Settlement of 1691 in Scotland. Of the early history of the Covenanters in Ireland very little is known, save that the denomination was small and scattered. It was not until the latter part of the eighteenth century that congregations began to be organised and ministers were ordained. Very few Reformed Presbyterian records have survived from the eighteenth century.

Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers or Friends, was founded by George Fox in England in the mid-seventeenth century. Soon afterwards the Quaker movement was brought to Ireland by William Edmundson when he established a business in Dublin in 1652. A few years later he moved north to Lurgan, County Armagh, and by the 1660s a Quaker settlement was firmly established there. The Quakers were particularly strong in the Lagan Valley and north Armagh – areas particularly associated with English settlement. Quakers were among the best record-keepers of any denomination.

Roman Catholic Church

The Reformation in Ireland did not result in the conversion of any more than a fraction of the native population to Protestantism, nearly all of whom continued to look to Rome for supreme authority in matters ecclesiastical. At an institutional level, however, the Roman Catholic Church suffered considerably as a result of the disruption caused by the plantations and wars of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Legislation in the form of the Penal Laws in the early eighteenth century also had an impact, though in spite these laws Catholic priests and bishops operated freely in most areas. In the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Roman Catholic Church was able to establish new parochial structures, based in the main on local demographics. Very few Roman Catholic registers pre-date 1800 and for Ulster none survive from before 1750.

Huguenots

Strictly speaking, the Huguenots in Ulster were not a denomination in their own right, but were the French Protestant refugees who left France mostly after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. Significant numbers of Huguenots came to Ireland with the most important colony in Ulster at Lisburn, County Antrim. About 1700 a 'French Church' catering for the spiritual needs of the Huguenot colony was built in Lisburn. It was demolished c.1830 and unfortunately, its registers have been lost.
 

The value of gravestone inscriptions for ancestral research has long been recognised. The discovery of a single gravestone may provide more information on the history of a family than could otherwise be gleaned from documentary sources. Prior to 1864, when official registration of deaths began in Ireland, a gravestone inscription may be the only source of information about the existence of an individual.

Graveyards

Robert Granger gravestone in Grange graveyard, County Tyrone Usually the deceased was buried in a graveyard in the parish in which they lived. However, this was not always the case. On many occasions the deceased was taken back to the parish of his birth for burial even if he was living somewhere else at the time of his death. Wills frequently include instructions from the testator regarding his preferred place of burial. At the Reformation most parish churches were taken over by the Church of Ireland. The existing church was either repaired or demolished and built afresh. However, even though the church may have belonged to the Church of Ireland, the graveyard attached to it was used by all denominations. The grounds of disused monasteries were also popular places of burial.

Inscriptions

Memorials from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries frequently communicate more information about the departed than do more recent headstones. Information about the deceased's life, occupation and place of residence will often be recorded. While there was a direct correlation between the wealth of the deceased's family and the elaboration of the memorial, it must not be thought that gravestones were entirely the preserve of the elite. From the late seventeenth-century an increasing number of headstones were erected by people from the middling strata of society.

Locating inscriptions

The gravestone inscriptions from a large number of graveyards in Ulster have been transcribed and published. The Ulster Historical Foundation also holds recordings of gravestone inscriptions for many graveyards in Ulster. Many Ulster inscriptions appeared in the Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead in Ireland, published in thirteen volumes between 1888 and 1937. In addition the inscriptions from a large number of other graveyards in Ulster have been published in the journals of local historical societies and in a number of books.

This section looks briefly at a few miscellaneous sources that can be used in the search for ancestors in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Many others are available and are dealt with in more detail in Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors.

Denization records

Names of Scots in Ulster who were given grants of denization in the early seventeenth century appear in the Calendar of the Patent Rolls of the Reign of James I. As a denizen a Scot occupied an intermediate position between an alien and a native-born subject. It meant that he was able to purchase land and was to his family's benefit in matters of inheritance. A database of these names is available on the Ulster Historical Foundation's website.

Muster rolls

 A muster roll was a list of able-bodied men who were capable of military service. They were armed at their own expense. Several muster rolls survive for Ulster counties from the early seventeenth century and copies of these are available in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. These muster rolls are usually arranged by estate and consist in the main of a list of names with perhaps the weapon, if any, possessed.

Hearth money rolls,1663–69

In the 1660s the government introduced a tax on hearths as a means of raising revenue. The returns, arranged by parish and usually with townland locations, list the names of all householders paying this tax survive for half the counties in Ireland with coverage most complete in Ulster. The hearth money rolls cannot be taken as a complete record of every household in the areas covered. There seems to have been considerable evasion, while for many houses of a less permanent nature occupied by Irish families no hearth tax was paid. The original hearth money rolls were destroyed in Dublin in 1922, but surviving copies for Ulster are available in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

The 'census of Protestant householders', 1740

What has generally been termed a 'census of Protestant householders' was compiled in 1740. The returns were made by the collectors of the hearth money and it is likely that the names were taken from this list. Furthermore, for the barony of Loughinisolin in County Londonderry, it seems that both Protestants and Catholics were included. The 'census' is no more than a list of names arranged by county, barony, parish and occasionally townland. A bound transcript copy of the returns surviving for all or part of most counties in Ulster is available on the open shelves of the Public Search Room at PRONI.

The documents generated by the management of landed estates are among the most valuable of records for the local and family historian. Until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Ulster was a province of landed estates. These estates ranged in size from over 100,000 acres to under 1,000. The best collection of Irish estate papers is housed in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. This comprises not only collections of estate papers for Northern Ireland, but also many for the Republic of Ireland, notably for County Monaghan. A two-volume Guide to Landed Estate Papers is available for consultation in the Public Search Room.

The range of records

Some categories of estate papers are more useful to genealogists than others. Title deeds are concerned with the legal ownership of an estate, and are generally of limited value to genealogists. The same can be said of mortgages. Wills and marriage settlements usually refer only to the members of the landowner's family. However, the following documents can all be extremely useful to those carrying out research.

Rentals

Rentals, rent rolls or rent books record rent payments made by a tenant to his landlord. The information provided will usually be limited to the name of the tenant, the extent and location of his holding and the rent payable by him in a certain year.

Leases

A lease granted by a landlord to a tenant gave him the right to occupy the property for a specific period of time. A lease was usually for a term of years, 21 or 31 being quite common, but leases for three lives were in fairly widespread use. A three-life lease expired when all the three persons named in the lease died.

Lease books

Lease books can be among the most useful of estate papers as far as genealogy is concerned. They record in condensed form the same sort of information contained in the original leases, such as the name of the lessee, the location and extent of the holding and the rent due.

Maps

Maps form an important element in most estate collections. These show the property of the landlord, who employed a surveyor to illustrate the extent of his land and the more important features on his estate.

Correspondence

The correspondence between a landlord and his agent can be of immense genealogical value. Not only does it include details of the day-to-day running of the estate, but mention is often made of those who worked on the estate.
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The Registry of Deeds was established by an act of parliament in 1708. The aim of the act was to provide one central office in Dublin 'for the public registering of all deeds, conveyances and wills, that shall be made of any honours, manors, lands, tenements or hereditaments'. The Registry of Deeds is located in a large Georgian building in Henrietta Street, Dublin. A small fee is charged for accessing the records.

Registration

To begin with registration was not compulsory, and the number of deeds registered varied from place to place. The deeds registered include leases, mortgages, marriage settlements and wills. This can provide the researcher with names, addresses and occupations of the parties involved as well as the names of those who acted as witness. During registration, which often took place years after the original transaction, a copy of the deed called a memorial was made. The details of the memorial were then copied into a large bound volume. It is these transcript volumes that are available for public inspection. A popular misconception of the Registry of Deeds is that it is of little value for those searching for Presbyterian ancestors. However, intensive research into the deeds has shown that, right from the beginnings of registration, a significant number do refer to Presbyterian tenant farmers and merchants. Furthermore, these deeds comprise a broad range of document types.

The indexes

Each registered deed was given its own unique reference number. In the indexes to the deeds the volume and the page are also given. This referencing system was used until 1832. After that the reference number includes the year in which the deed was registered. Two indexes are available to the researcher: the Index of Grantors and a Lands Index. The Index of Grantors gives the surname and the Christian name of the grantor, the surname of the grantee and the reference number (after 1832 the index includes the name of the county). The Lands Index is arranged by county, with one or more counties per volume. The entries are arranged alphabetically, but only with regard to initial letter. Each entry gives the surnames of the parties, the name of the denomination of land, and the reference number (after 1828 the Lands Index is subdivided by barony). The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has microfilms of both the indexes and the deeds (MIC/7 and MIC/311).

WILLS AND TESTAMENTARY RECORDS

Wills are among the most important sources for the genealogist. A single will can provide the names of the testator's wife, children, grandchildren, siblings, cousins, friends and neighbours. Details on the testator's possessions, both personal belongings and land can be recorded. Family members living abroad, for example, in America, might be mentioned. For these reasons, it is worth paying careful attention to all the information contained in a will.

The information in a will

Wills generally followed a standard format. The testator usually began by committing his soul to God. The preferred place of burial was often stated. Some form of provision would usually be made for the testator's wife. If the testator was on good terms with his children all of them could expect to receive a bequest from him, unless they had already been provided for. If the testator was a farmer he would usually leave the farm to his eldest son. It must be remembered that only a fraction of the population left wills. In some families the question of inheritance was settled without the need to make a will. Many people, of course, possessed so little that there was little point in making a will. On other occasions death came so suddenly that there was no time to make a will.

How to find a will

Prior to 1858 the Church of Ireland was responsible for administering all testamentary affairs. Ecclesiastical or Consistorial Courts in each diocese were responsible for granting probate and conferring on the executors the power to administer the estate. Each court was responsible for wills and administrations in its own diocese. However, when the estate included property worth more than £5 in another diocese, responsibility for the will or administration passed to the Prerogative Court under the authority of the Archbishop of Armagh. It must not be thought that just because the Church of Ireland was responsible for administering wills that only persons who belonged to that particular denomination left wills. Presbyterians and Roman Catholics also left wills.

Unfortunately, nearly all original wills probated before 1858 were destroyed in Dublin in 1922. However, indexes to these destroyed wills do exist and are available on the shelves of the Library at PRONI. Because the Church of Ireland was responsible for administering wills, the indexes are arranged by diocese, not by county. An index for pre-1858 surviving wills and will abstracts is available in the Public Search Room at PRONI. Altogether PRONI has over 13,000 copies and abstracts of pre-1858 wills.