Title: The Ulster Muster Roll
Date: c. 1630
Description: A muster roll was a list of able-bodied men who were capable of military service. The most important of the muster rolls of the early seventeenth century period was that compiled between the spring of 1629 and the spring of 1633 by Lieut. William Graham, the muster-master of Ulster. This contains over 13,250 personal names from all nine counties of Ulster.
Unfortunately, a return does not survive for every estate. For instance, there are no names for the extensive Chichester and Conway estates in south County Antrim, or the servitor estates in the barony of Kilmacrenan, County Donegal. Nonetheless, the muster roll can be used as a guide to the distribution of the settler population in Ulster c. 1630.
The full muster roll was published as Men and Arms: The Ulster Settlers, c. 1630, edited by R. J. Hunter and prepared for publication by John Johnston (2012). Hunter and Johnston’s edition includes much supplementary information on the settlers, drawn from numerous contemporary sources, such as the Ulster inquisitions, state papers and the 1641 depositions.
This database comprises an index to the muster roll. Along with the name of the settler, the index includes the name of the owner of the estate and, if recorded, the barony (or sometimes the town or lordship). Original spellings have been retained. Given the variety of ways an individual name could be spelled, it might be useful to search this database using the initial few letters of the surname, e.g. Ham for Hamilton.