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Chapter FOUR
CHURCH RECORDS
Church records are by far the most useful of Irish genealogical sources. They can give a complete overview of a family and sometimes even several generations of multiple families. Because of the destruction of census returns in 1922 and the relatively late start of state registration of births, deaths and marriages, for most families church records are the only direct evidence of their ancestry in the early nineteenth century.
ROMAN CATHOLIC RECORDS
Parishes
The Catholic parish system is largely a product of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Official repression of Roman Catholicism in the eighteenth century was a mixed blessing. Whatever its effect on individual clergymen, it forced a degree of flexibility in Church organisation which allowed parishes to change and expand to cater for shifting population patterns. As a result Catholic parishes tend to be larger and more populous than those of other denominations, with records that are extensive and time-consuming to search. Equally, the names of Catholic parishes can be difficult to pin down, since they may incorporate parts of earlier parishes or take the name of the major town. Westport parish in Co. Mayo for example, has also been known as Aughaval, Oughavall, Lecanvey and Drummin. As in so many other areas of Irish genealogy, you may need patience and some lateral thinking to pinpoint the parish you want. Because parish records are the single most important Irish record source, you should keep some points in mind:
.Searching microfilm copies of the original registers, particularly Roman Catholic registers, can be mind-numbingly tedious. Researchers can wake up from a trance in front of a microfilm reader several years further on in the records from their last episode of self-awareness, but with no memory of searching the intervening years, and may have to go back and re-check. Unless you have the powers of concentration of a Zen master you will need to take frequent breaks and keep a written note of the precise period searched.
.For the same reason it is almost unthinkable to search the records of every parish in a county by hand. If this is what you're facing, you should consider narrowing the search to the marriage registers, which are much less extensive, or commissioning a search from the local heritage centre if they have a database transcript -unless, of course, you know what the sound of one hand clapping is.
.Be very sceptical of reported ages. If another source has informed you that a baptism should be recorded in 1850, the minimum you should be prepared to search is 1847 to 1852. And the maximum? Anything up to fifteen year discrepancies can happen.
.Anyone who has spent time on the microfilms will embrace an index or transcript with joy and relief But be wary. The original registers already contain mistakes made by the all too human clergy, and a transcript always adds another layer of error from the even more human transcriber. This is especially true of material on the Internet. If you don't find something in a transcript, you cannot presume there isn't something in the original. If you do find something, you should check it against the original anyway.
Dates
The earliest Catholic parish records in the country appear to be the fragments for Waterford and Galway cities, dating from the 1680s, and for Wexford town, dating from 1671. Generally speaking early records tend to come from the more prosperous and anglicised areas, in particular the towns and cities of the eastern half of the island. In the poorest, most densely populated rural parishes of the West and North, precisely those that saw most emigration, the registers very often do not begin until the mid or late nineteenth century. However the majority of Catholic registers begin in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and even in poor areas, if a local tradition of Gaelic scholarship survived, records were often kept from an earlier date. Killenaule in rural Tipperary has records from 1742.
What Catholic records contain
Catholic registers consist mostly of baptismal and marriage records. For some reason, possibly because the clergy were already overworked, the keeping of burial records was much less thorough than in the Church of Ireland. Fewer than half the parishes in the country have a register of burials before 1900, and even where they do exist, the registers are generally intermittent and patchy. Strangely, given the cultural importance of funerals, almost no Catholic burial registers exist for the southern half of the island.
Baptisms and marriages are recorded in either Latin or English, never in Irish. Parishes in the richer areas where English was more common tended to use English, while in Irish-speaking parishes Latin was used, but there is no absolute consistency. The Latin presents very few problems since only first names were translated, not surnames or placenames, and the English equivalents are usually self-evident. The only possible difficulties are: Carolus (Charles); Demetrius Geremiah, Jerome, Darby, Dermot); Eugenius (Owen or Eugene); Gulielmus (William); Honoria (Hannah, Nora); Ioannes or Joannes John); and Jacobus James). The only other Latin needing explanation is that used in recording marriage dispensations.
Baptisms. Most baptismal registers record:
A full Latin entry might read:
Baptisavi Carolum, filium legitimum Ioannii Carthy et Honoriae Sullivan de, Kilquin. Sponsoribus, Danielus Quirk, Johanna Donoghue.
More often the entry is abbreviated to:
Bapt. Carolum,f I. Ioannii Carthy et Honoriae Sullivan, Kiiquin. Sf: Danielus Quirk, Johanna Donoghue.
Which translates as: 'I baptised John, legitimate son of John Carthy and Nora Sullivan of Kilquin, with godparents Daniel Quirk and Johanna Donoghue.' In many cases even the abbreviations are omitted and the entries simply record dates, names and places.
Marriages. Marriage registers always give:
Other information that may be supplied includes the residences (of all four people), ages, occupations and fathers' names. In some rare cases the relationships of the witnesses to the people marrying are also specified. A typical Latin entry would read:
In matrimonium coniunxi sunt Cornelium Buckley et Margaritam Hennessy, de Ballybang. Testimonii: Danielus McCarthy, Brigida Kelliher
Abbreviated, the entry reads:
Mat. con. Cornelium Buckley, Margaritam Hennessy, Ballybang.
Test. Danielus McCarthy, Brigida Kelliher.
This translates as Cornelius Buckley and Margaret Hennessy, of Ballybang, are joined in matrimony; witnesses, Daniel McCarthy, Brigid Kelliher.
Because of the expansion of Roman Catholic parishes over the course of the nineteenth century, the apparent starting dates of many Catholic registers can be deceptive. Obviously if a parish was created in 1850, its records only begin in 1850. But the areas in the new parish did not just pop into existence; they were previously in another parish which almost certainly has records from before 1850. For example the Catholic parish of Abbeyleix in Co. Laois (Queen's County) has records listed in the National Library catalogue as starting in 1824. In fact the parish was only created in that year. Before then its records will be found in Ballinakill which has records from 1794. So where surviving records appear too late to be of interest, you should always check the surrounding parishes for earlier registers.
Where are Catholic records?
The National Library has microfilm copies of registers from about ninety-six per cent of Catholic parishes from all thirty-two counties of Ireland. All are available for public research, with the exception of parishes in the dioceses of Kerry, and Cashel and Emly. For Kerry you need permission from the bishop, but this is usually faxed to the National Library after a phone call. No records from the diocese of Cashel and Emly are available for research. The local Archbishop withdrew permission for public research in the 1980s, with the aim of obliging researchers to use the services of Tipperary Family History Research (see Chapter 9).
A separate microfilming project was carried out by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland for the six counties under its jurisdiction. The results are generally identical to the National Library copies, although in some cases PRONI has used a later cut-off date.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also has an extensive collection of Catholic parish register microfilms made up partly of copies of some of the National Library films and partly of material microfilmed by the Church itself Of the 1,153 parishes in the country the LDS library has records of 398.
The Irish Genealogical Project has computerised almost all Irish parish records, though there remain some significant gaps. The records are held in local heritage centres throughout the country and not directly accessible to the public. You have to commission research. Details of the centers will be found in Chapter 9.
For published works and the Internet, see Chapter 8.
Researching Catholic records
If you know the parish. Simple. The National Library microfilm catalogue is organised by diocese, the PRONI catalogue alphabetically, and the LDS catalogue by subject and geographical area. All these catalogues are now online. For the LDS it may take several weeks for a family history centre to order and receive the film. Be careful of variant parish names.
If you know a placename but not the parish. Any of the Townland Indexes from 1851, 1871 or 1901 will show the relevant civil parish. The 1851 index is searchable online at www.seanruad.com or www.ireland.com/ancestor. There are then a number of ways to find the corresponding Catholic parish. Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) is the only nineteenth-century source that systematically relates civil to Catholic parishes. Although sometimes vague, it is the basis of all the other sources that show the link between civil and Catholic parishes. These include Brian Mitchell's Guide to Irish Parish Records (Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1987), the National Library 'Index of Surnames' (or 'Householders' Index') and James Ryan's Irish Records (Flyleaf Press, 1998).
If you know the county but not a placename. This is where things start to get interesting. It is most emphatically not a good idea to lash into all the records in a county one by one. That way lieth madness and despair. To undertake a general search of a county, you have to narrow your focus first. You can do this by using the count of householders in the National Library 'Index of Surnames' which is based on the Primary Valuation of 1847-68 (see Chapter 5), or via www.ireland.com/ancestor which does a similar count. It helps if the surname is unusual or if you know more than one surname. Be vigilant for variant spellings. Or of course you could pay for a search of the parish records from the local heritage centre if they have the records.
If you don't even know the county. Then you'll have to find it somehow (see Chapter 8).
CHURCH OF IRELAND RECORDS
Parishes
In general the Church of Ireland retained the older medieval parochial divisions in use before the Reformation, which were also used for administrative purposes by the secular authorities. So civil parishes, which were the basic geographical units in early censuses, tax records and land surveys, are almost identical to Church of Ireland parishes. The records of each parish cover a relatively small area and are fairly easy to search in detail -that is, where they have survived the destruction of 1922.
After the Church of Ireland ceased to be the established Church in 1869 its marriage records before 1845 and its baptismal and burial records before 1870 became the property of the state and therefore public records. Unless the local clergyman was in a position to demonstrate that he could house these records safely, he was required to deposit them in
the Public Record Office. By 1922 the original registers of nearly a thousand parishes, more than half the total for the country, were stored at the Public Record Office. These were all destroyed in the fire at the PRO on 28 June of that year. Fortunately a large number of registers had not found their way into the PRO. In many cases local rectors had made a transcript before surrendering the originals, and local historians and genealogists using the PRO before 1922 had also amassed collections of extracts from the registers.
Dates
Church of Ireland records are generally much older than those of the Roman Catholic Church. From as early as 1634 local parishes were required to keep records of christenings and burials in registers supplied by the Church authorities. As a result a significant number, especially of urban parishes, have registers dating from the mid-seventeenth century. The majority however start in the years between 1770 and 1820; the only countrywide listing of all Church of Ireland parish records which gives full details of dates is the National Archives catalogue, a copy of which is also to be found at the National Library. In addition the Irish Family History Society has published A Table of Church of Ireland Parochial Records (ed. Noel Reid, IFHS, 4th ed., 2001), and the Guide to Church Records: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI, 1994) gives details of PRONI's holdings.
What Church of Ireland records contain
Burials. Unlike their Catholic counterparts, the majority of Church of Ireland clergymen recorded burials as well as baptisms and marriages. The burial registers can also be of interest for other denominations; the dead are apparently quite ecumenical. Information given is rarely more than
Clear family connections can be difficult to establish from these.
Baptisms. Most Church of Ireland baptismal records supply:
Quite often the address is also recorded. The omission of the mother's maiden name can be an obstacle to further research. From about 1820 the father's occupation is supplied in many cases.
Marriages. Since the Church of Ireland was the Established Church, the only legally valid marriages, in theory at least, were those carried out by an Anglican clergyman. Inpractice, of course, recognition was given to marriages of other denominations. None the less the legal position of the Church of Ireland meant that many marriages of members of other Protestant Churches are recorded in Church of Ireland registers. The registers do not give a great deal of information, usually only:
Even addresses are not common, unless one of the parties is from another parish. More comprehensive information is to be found in records of marriage banns, where these exist. Although it was obligatory for notification of the intention to marry to be given in church on three consecutive Sundays, written records of these are relatively rare. After 1845, when non-Catholic marriages were registered by the state, the marriage registers record all the information contained in state records including occupations, addresses and fathers' names.
Marriage licence bonds. As an alternative to marriage banns, members of the Church of Ireland, could take out a marriage licence bond. The parties lodged a sum of money with the diocese to indemnify the Church against there being an obstacle to the marriage; in effect the system allowed the better off to purchase privacy. The original bonds were all destroyed in 1922, but the indexes are available at the National Archives. The Dublin diocesan index was published as part of the Index to Dublin Will and Grant Books, RDKPRI 26, 1895 (1270-1800) and RDKPRI 30, 1899 (1800-1858). The Genealogical Office holds abstracts of prerogative marriage licence bonds from 1630 to 1858 (GO 605-7), as well as marriages recorded in prerogative wills (GO 255-6).
Other: As well as straightforward information on baptisms, marriages and burials, Church of Ireland parish records very often include vestry books. These contain the minutes of the vestry meetings of the local parish, which can supply detailed information on the part played by individuals in the life of the parish. These are not generally with the parish registers in the National Archives of Ireland, but the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin have extensive collections.
Where are Church of Ireland records?
1. The National Archives of Ireland. Early Church of Ireland records are still legally public records and the Archives, as the successor to the old Public Record Office, should have custody of them. Perhaps due to the experience of the first round of custody ending in 1922, the Archives now hold microfilm copies. The most up-to-date account is in the Archives' catalogue of Church of Ireland records, available in the reading room at the National Library, and in ATable of Church of Ireland Parochial Records (ed. Noel Reid, IFHS, 4th ed., 2001).
2. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. For the northern counties of Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Louth, Monaghan and Tyrone, surviving registers have been microfilmed by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and are available to the public in Belfast. The Guide to Church Records: PublicRecord Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI, 1994) gives details.
3. The Representative Church Body Library (RCBL). The Church of Ireland's main repository for its archives and manuscripts now holds the original records from some 800 parishes in the Republic of Ireland. For those counties that are now in the Republic - Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Louth and Monaghan ,-- copies of PRONI microfilms available to the public at the RCBL.
4. Local custody. For a decreasing number of parishes the registers are still in local custody and you have to ask the local clergyman to search them. The current Church of Ireland Directory will supply the relevant name and address, and the suggested donation.
PRESBYTERIAN RECORDS
Dates
Presbyterian registers generally start much later than those of the Church of Ireland, though in areas which had a strong Presbyterian population from an early date, particularly in Antrim and Down, some registers date from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Before registers were kept, Presbyterian baptisms, marriages and deaths are often to be found in the registers of the local Church of Ireland parish. The only published listing is still in Margaret Falley's Irish and Scotch- Irish Ancestral Research (repr. Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988) which gives a very incomplete and out of date picture of the records. For the six counties of Northern Ireland and many of the adjoining counties the Guide to Church Records: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI, 1994), also online at the PRONI website, provides a good guide to the dates of surviving registers. The copy of the list held in the Office itself includes a listing of registers in local custody which covers all of Ireland but is much less comprehensive for the South than for the North.
What Presbyterian records contain
Presbyterian registers record the same information as that given in the registers of the Church of Ireland (see above). It should be remembered that after 1845 all non-Catholic marriages, including those of Presbyterians, were registered by the state. From that year therefore Presbyterian marriage registers contain all the invaluable information given in state records.
Where are Presbyterian records?
Presbyterian registers are in three main locations: in local custody, in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, and at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast. The Public Record Office also has microfilm copies of almost all registers in Northern Ireland that have remained in local custody, and also lists those records held by the Presbyterian Historical Society. For the rest of Ireland, almost all the records are in local custody. It can be difficult to locate these since many congregations in the South have moved, amalgamated or simply disappeared over the last sixty years. The very congregational basis of Presbyterianism further complicates matters, since it means that Presbyterian records do not cover a definite geographical area; the same town often had two or more Presbyterian churches drawing worshippers from the same community but keeping distinct records. In the early nineteenth century especially, controversy within the Church fractured the records, with intense opposition between seceding and non-seceding congregations in the same area. Apart from the PRONI listing, the only guide is A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church, currently out of print, which gives a brief historical outline of the history of each congregation. Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) records the existence of Presbyterian congregations within each civil parish.
The Society of Friends, or Quakers, kept wonderful records. There are two main repositories for these: the libraries of the Society of Friends in Dublin and Lisburn. The LDS library in Salt Lake City has microfilm copies of the records of the Dublin Friends' library. In addition to births, marriages and deaths, these also contain considerable collections of letters, wills and family papers, as well as detailed accounts of the discrimination suffered by Quakers in their early years. The National Library has microfilm copies of most of the Dublin and Lisburn libraries' holdings (Pos. 1021-4, Pos. 4125-7 and Pos. 5530-1).
OTHER DENOMINATIONS
Methodism, as a movement rather than a Church, gave its members a great deal of latitude in their attitude to Church membership, so that records of the baptisms, marriages and burials of Methodists may also be found in Quaker, Presbyterian or Church of Ireland registers. In addition the ministers of the Church were preachers on a circuit, rather than administrators of a particular area, and were moved frequently from one circuit to another. Quite often the records moved with them. For the nine historic counties of Ulster, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has produced a county-by-county listing of the surviving registers, their dates and locations, appended to their Parish Register index. No such listing exists for the rest of the country. Pettigrew and Oulton's Dublin Almanac and General Register of Ireland of 1835 (and subsequent years) provides a list of Methodist preachers and their stations, which will give an indication of the relevant localities. The next step then is to identify the closest surviving Methodist centre and enquire of them as to surviving records. Many of the local county heritage centres also hold indexed copies of surviving Methodist records.