With genealogical research, once you have gathered the basic information about your family, the next step is often to develop that by finding out what life was like at the time your ancestors left. Letters home are one fantastic source of social information, not only about life in Ireland but also what new immigrants to the US, Canada and elsewhere thought of their new country.
The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast has a huge collection of emigrants letters, mostly donated by folk who have recognised letters historical value.
Some are really only of interest to the immediate family (how’s Aunt Jane’s health, what’s the price of potatoes and is the old brown dog still alive?). They just get catalogued under the relevant names and townlands/addresses, and filed away. To access them you need to go to PRONI, order them up and copy them.
Some letters comment much more widely and where that happens PRONI often put them on their website so they can be read on-line by a much wider audience. An example is from 1855 by John Mitchel where the writer describes life in Tennessee (a “barbarious” place in his opinion) in considerable detail and then moves to Irish politics, the chances of Home Rule, possible war between Britain and America and of civil war in England.
The letters in PRONI’s archives are not exclusively about what is now Northern Ireland. Many were sent to folk living there but often refer to places and events across Ireland and the rest of the world. PRONI has an e-catalogue which you can search. If searching for a specific family, you can enter their surname and townland.
For more general searches enter words that focus on the topic or location that interests you. For an example of a letter, “emigrants letters” & “emigrant letters” will produce hundreds, but if it was your family a search on “Mitchel” & “Tennessee” should likewise find it.
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/information-and-services/search-archives-online/ecatalogue
Anyone wanting to view an original letter can do so by going to PRONI and ordering it up from their repository (free and takes about 20 minutes), or if you can’t go in person they will copy it for a fee. Just send them an e-mail and they’ll give you the cost.
Elwyn Soutter IXO Volunteer
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guide to searching for Northern Ireland Ancestors
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