Crawley family members

Hi,

Thank you for your message.

Unfortunately, it may be difficult to find information on the Crawleys in Ireland without a more specific place of origin. Most Irish record sources- church records, land records, census records- are based on specific locations. Until you know a specific location within Ireland, preferably a parish or placename, it may be difficult to do anything more with these records.

Have you tried searching through all documentation relating to the family for mention of any place name-a townland/parish/village/town or county? This can include, wills, census records, birth, marriage, death records. Or unofficial documents like diaries, letters, old photographs.

You could try searching online for some record of Matthew or Mary.

www.familysearch.org Has a huge genealogical databse which includes some birth and marriage records from Ireland.

www.rootsireland.ie has a vast collection of Irish Church records, however you have to pay to use this site.

You could try searching for them in the Tithe Applotment Books. These were land records  compiled between 1823 and 1837 in order to determine the amount which occupiers of agricultural holdings should pay in tithes to the Church of Ireland (the main Protestant church, and the church established by the state until its dis-establishment in 1871). There is a manuscript book for almost every parish, giving the names of occupiers, the amount of land held, and the sums to be paid in tithes. However they give no genealogical information so it is difficult to know whether the results are relevant or not. I did a search for Matthew and found one result for a Mat Crawley in CO. Louth.

http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/results.jsp?surname=crawley&firstname=mat&county=&parish=&townland=&search=Search

You could try using http://www.irishnewsarchive.com/ This is an online newpaper archive. You can search the articles for free, however you have to pay a small fee to view them content of the articles. If you do a search for any member of the family in Ulster?s newspapers you could be lucky and find some article relating to them.

You could also try narrowing down the search by looking for the counties that have the highest number of Crawleys living in them during the 19th century. The Irish TImes websites has a good surname search engine showing how many households had a specific name during the mid 19th century:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?fuseaction=Go.&UserID=

Some other websites that you may find useful are:

The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/

The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx

The National Archives UK ? genealogy search: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/

The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history.htm

Remember to post any new information that you may find. The more information you post, the more likely it is that one of our volunteers will be able to advise or assist you. Also include information concerning which sources you may have already used so others may further your search.

Best of luck with your research!

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support