Category Archives: State Records

Signing the Ulster Covenant – in County Westmeath?

by Dr. Janice MannA recent search of the Ulster Covenant for a family from Ulster led to a surprising discovery.In 1912 Liberal British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, in desperate need of the support of John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party, proposed a third Home Rule Bill – providing self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom

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Bradshaw Murder at Philipstown

In the recent episode of Who Do You Think You Are? for Irish television, Pat Shortt discovered an ancestor accused of the murder of his landlord, Mr. Bradshaw of Philipstown House.  While some details of the murder were found in the local press, it was the police file of the investigation into the murder that revealed the complex story of the Bradshaws,

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CSORP

The Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers (CSORP) is a vast and rambling collection of material that is pitted with gems for genealogical research.  If your ancestor had any interaction with the machine of the state, there is a possibility that they will be documented in this collection.The CSORP can be found in the National Archives of Ireland. 

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Irish Birth Marriage and Death Indexes

The Irish birth marriage and death indexes, which were released with great fanfare on the government website www.irishgenealogy.ie last year and quickly withdrawn for security reasons, have been released again.  However, this time the public can only view the index entries for births over 100 years, marriages over 75 years and deaths over 50 years.

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Excise and Inland Revenue Records

Excise and Inland Revenue Records Despite the amount of genealogical and family history records either freely available or though pays sites online, the national repositories of the United Kingdom and Ireland still hold a vast amount of material that can only be consulted on site. The British National Archives, Kew, has over  the past number of years

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Ejectment Books

Have you ever wondered why your ancestors may have suddenly and seemingly inexplicably left their family farm?  The Ejectment Books might provide an answer. The Ejectment Books contain information on cases brought before a judge at county Quarter Sessions concerning the ejectment or removal of tenants from the landholdings by their landlords or agents.

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The Settlement of the Ashe Family in Cavan

The following is an account of the settlement of the Ashe family in Cavan. Sir Thomas Ashe and his brother, John Ashe, began to develop their respective estates in Ireland in earnest from the beginning of the 17th century and before the plantation of Ulster.  In a recently-published account of the Ulster Plantation in counties Armagh and Cavan it was

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The Dublin Gazette & Iris Oifigiuil

The use of newspapers for the study of family history is well known.  However, the name of one of the oldest publications in Ireland, the Dublin Gazette, will be less familiar, despite its myriad of potential uses to the family historian. The Dublin Gazette was first published on 5th November 1706 and was the official publication of British Government

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The Ordnance Survey Name Books

The Ordnance Survey of Ireland, conducted between 1824 and 1846, is the only survey of Ireland to have ever been conclusively finished.  Under the direction of Thomas Larcom, the Master-General of the Ordnance Survey and the Board of Ordnance, a complete Map of Ireland at the scale of six-inches to one-mile was published. One of the most important

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