The Parish Source Guide section includes a listing of genealogical sources for all 300+ civil parishes in the nine counties of Ulster. This is an ongoing project to identify and collate materials of interest and will be updated on a regular basis as new resources are discovered.
Of all the administrative divisions in use over recent centuries, the civil parish provides the most convenient way of organising the available material. The parish was an important unit in civil administration and many sources, such as the ‘census substitutes’, were organised by parish. Nonetheless, researchers should be aware of a number of issues that arise from this approach. The most important of these concerns the listing of church records by parish.
While the network of civil parishes was aligned closely with the network of Church of Ireland parishes, the arrangement of Catholic parishes differed somewhat. Furthermore, Presbyterians were organised by congregation and the bounds of an individual congregation could cross more than one parish boundary. The best approach for researchers is to examine sources for both the parish of primary interest and its nearest neighbours.