Lecture programme - Christchurch, New Zealand

• 9:30am - Introduction to Irish and Scots-Irish Family History Research (includes church and land records)
• 10:50am – Understanding Irish townlands: the importance of place, identity and administrative divisions in Irish research
• 11:50 - Short Q&A
• 12:00 noon - Lunch
• 1:00pm - Using landed estate records: tracing families in the eighteenth and nineteenth century
• 2:10pm - Irish education and school records: the records of the National Education system
• 3:10pm - Q&A
• 3:30pm – Programme ends

The seminars provide very practical and detailed information and will explore strategies for researching Irish and Scots-Irish ancestors. The programme content covers the whole island of Ireland, not solely Ulster.

The presenters are from one of Ireland’s foremost genealogy research organisations and publishing houses and they will give advice on what to do and where to go next.

These sessions will help the beginner and the seasoned genealogist alike.

This presentation provides a broad overview of Scots-Irish and Irish research and sets the program up for the day, covering a range of topics which include: the 1922 fire and how it affects what can be found in Irish records as well as exploring some of the major collections of records and how to access them, which will not be covered in the other presentations, including an overview of church and land records.

Understanding the importance of our land divisions and sense of place to local people in rural Ireland (irrespective of location) are crucial to success in Irish genealogy. This presentation explores the different administrative divisions: e.g. townland, barony, parish, County, Poor Law Union, etc, their origins, how they relate to each other, and their relevance and usage in the historical records.

The documents generated by the management of landed estates in Ireland are among the most valuable of records for the local and family historian. This presentation will look at the background to landed estates in Ireland, before going on to discuss the more useful sources found in estate collections. And while historically because of the nature of these records they were the least likely to be digitised/transcribed, that too has been changing in recent years, and attention will be drawn to where some of these records can now be found online.

The records of the National Education system, introduced in 1831, can be a most useful collection of records for tracing families, especially in the period 1860–1920, and where the records survive back to the 1850s and 40s. As well as providing information on school children the records offer information on teachers, and the establishment of schools and how they were run. They can give details of family movements within Britain and Ireland, and indeed emigration to America, Canada and Australasia. Prior to this period some records also exist for private schools, schools supported by various religious bodies, and schools established to educate the children of the poor. The session will explore the value of these records for family history research.

The programme will conclude with a general Q and A and the presenters will also attempt to help participants with some helpful guidance and practical advice to trying to solve their own Irish genealogical brickwalls.