Using the Parish Source Guide

Each parish entry includes a range of information and the level of detail presented depends on the volume of surviving material. To begin with, some geographical information on each parish is provided. After this the main records are categorised under the a series of headings:

Geographical information

The geographical details included for each parish include the county, barony, diocese, poor law union and probate registry, as well as the main places in the parish, such as towns and villages.

The name of the barony will be helpful when using grand jury records and the Registry of Deeds. A parish will always be found entirely within one diocese. Knowing the name of the diocese will be useful in identifying, among other things, the correct diocesan will index.

When the Poor Law was introduced to Ireland in 1838 the island was divided into a network of poor law unions, each of which had a workhouse, and were administered by Boards of Guardians. Probate registries, dealing with testamentary matters, came into being in 1858.

A number of parishes crossed county boundaries and on the southern fringes of Ulster a few parishes extended beyond the province of Ulster into the province of Leinster. In these instances, the records concentrate on resources specific to the portion of the parish within Ulster.

Resource categories

The following categories of records and other resources appear in the Parish Source Guide. Note: not every parish will have items for all of these categories.

Graveyards	Graveyards and cemeteries in each parish are listed here. Our Graveyards of Ulster map will help you pinpoint the location of each of these burial grounds. If the inscriptions have been published, this will be indicated.
Churches	The different churches in each parish are listed here. For details of what is available for each of these churches, researchers should refer to the PRONI Guide to Church Records.
Vestry records	The availability of vestry records is indicated here, along with any useful lists of names for the 1600–1800 period.
Landed estates	If estate records are available for a particular parish, this is indicated by providing the name of the estate owner. We are currently working on a comprehensive listing of estate records for Ulster.
Schools	At present this category includes National, Public Elementary and Primary school records in PRONI.
Local government	Records relating to corporate towns are listed here, along with other relevant items, such as documents from the Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers in NAI.
Law and order	This category includes a range of items bearing on aspects of law and order, such as police records, as well as petty sessions courts.
Business records	Here the name of the business (usually a family name) is given as well as the place from which the business operated. It is important to remember that while the business may have been based in a specific town or parish, its customer base may have extended much further.
Famine Relief	Useful documents in the Famine Relief Commission Papers in NAI are identified here, especially subscription lists.
Family papers	Collections of documents, including diaries and correspondence, relating to a particular family are listed here.
Census	The availability of nineteenth-century census records is indicated here. Many of these will be available through the NAI website, but others will be found in genealogical collections in different repositories.
Census subs	Several categories of sources contsaining useful and, in some cases, extensive lists of names from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been grouped together here as ‘census substitutes’.
Societies, etc	This category includes records of fraternal organisations, such as the Freemasons and Orange Order, as wel as social and recreational organisations.
Publications	Included here are books and published articles relevant to the parish.
Other sources	Miscellaneous items will be listed here.
Notes	This category covers such things as an alternative name for the parish, and the date it came into being if created after 1600.