One of our longest-served researchers, Duncan Scarlett passed away on 31 January 2025 aged 89 years. Duncan joined the Ulster Historical Foundation in 2002 after retiring from his teaching career, with his final role being principal of Graymount Girls’ School in North Belfast.
Duncan was a diligent, detailed and thorough researcher who was never defeated in his search for records for a client. One particular example stands out – he had been looking for records for a family for many years and decided to put the surname into the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)’s electronic catalogue when it was first launched, and was delighted to find an early will listed which had not previously been identified.
As well as carrying out research for clients of the Foundation, Duncan also worked on databases of names for our website, making sources more available to our members. This included the Hertford Estate Rent Roll which contains over 1300 names, covering much of the land in the parishes of Blaris [including the town of Lisburn], Lambeg, Derriaghy, Magheragall, Magheramesk, Aghalee, Aghagallon, Glenavy, Camlin and Tullyrusk; almost all by townland, from the early eighteenth century.
Duncan also wrote a case-study of Lambeg graveyard for our History from Headstones project: https://ulsterhistoricalfoundation.com/history-from-headstones/case-studies/lambeg-church as well as the chapter on the 1803 Agricultural Census in our publication Researching Down Ancestors (by Ian Maxwell) and an interesting article in the Clogher Journal on ‘Parishioners Protest at Morning Prayer: Aghavea Church, Sunday 19 November 1826’ (Vol. 17, No. 3 (2002)).