Visit in August

Sheila,

Are you looking for suggestions for things related to genealogy in Belfast, or just for general tourist ideas?

Just genealogy Elwyn.

The Linenhall Library has a genealogical section on its top floor. It’s on Donegall Square, in the city centre. It’s free to use though they don’t refuse a small donation for their services.

Other than that, PRONI has most of the records that are not on-line.  Late opening there is Thurdays till 9pm. On your first visit, take your passport to get your readers ticket.

Thanks Elwyn.  I have already filled in my form for PRONI and will have my passport with me.  I didn't realise the Linenhall Library had a genealogical section, so thank you for that.  I shall investigate!  I am also going address hunting with my camera and have marked most of the ones I want on the map. There is only one I haven't yet identified and that is Lagan Court.  No street name was given and, so far, I haven't found it in a directory - but I have time yet to locate it.

Thanks again for your help.

Sheila

Sheila,

According to Lennon Wylie’s 1868 Street Directory, Lagan Court was 26 small houses off Lagan St. That in turn was off Cromac St.

http://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/Lcomplete1868.htm

Lagan St has disappeared, porbably under redevelopment, though Cromac St still exists. However PRONI have Belfast maps from the 1800s so you can see where it was. It was in the Markets area of the city. If you contact Joe Graham at Rushlight, he knows the area well and might have some old photos of Lagan St and perhaps Lagan Court.

http://themarket.rushlightmagazine.com/two.html

Thanks Elwyn.  I thought it was probably associated in some way with Lagan Street.  What a pity they don't list the inhabitants though!  Thanks for the link for Joe Graham.  I will see if he has any photos.  I have found some vintage photos on line but nothing very close.  Trouble is my family seem to have lived in tiny off shoots of roads that don't figure in photos.  Some of the roads are still there but at least one has been redeveloped. I will check the old maps at PRONI though.

Thanks to your previous help I have now got a much better idea of my Dad's family. It seems his original name, Cairns O'Connor, was a mis-spelling of his great grandfather's name, Kearns (Connor at that stage).  I suspect that was once a surname in the family but I can't find Kearns, except on his children's baptism/marriage records.  He would have been born around the 1820s I guess so records are not good.  The brother and two sisters, Patrick, Rose and Ann who were McPoland in Belfast were actually McPolin or Polin in Co Down where they came from.

Cairns & Kearns are pronounced the same so that change is quite understandable. The Mc & O prefixes in Irish names are completely detachable and were often dispensed with and the variations in Polin etc are par for the course. Expect the spelling to vary. A single "correct" spelling of a surname is a 20th century requirement for officialdom. It's not something our ancestors would have recognised.

Yes, I realised that spelling etc was not standardised.  I guess it depended on who wrote up the records - and the accent/clarity of speech of the one giving notice as to what actually ended up in the records. I also suspect that mistakes were made in busy parishes by priests who either thought they knew the family well enough to fill things in without aksing too many questions - and maybe made errors along the way, or didn't know the family and mis-eard what was said.  One of the baptisms in my line is suspect because the sponsor's name is actually the name of the wife and the mother's name is a new one.  There is a note at the bottom of the transcription to say that the names were transcribed as in the register - sounds as though the transcriber thought there might have been a slip-up.

Yes I could do a complete treatise on the factors that would bore you to death. Different people recording the information is obviously one, illiteracy another. But even when they were literate spelling varies. One reason is that in Irish the spelling of a surname and of nouns varies according to the case used. So for example most surnames in the genitive (ie “of someone”) acquire an extra ‘I”.  The nominative and vocative can be completely different. Seamus is the nominative for James but the vocative is Hamish. And so on. Women’s names varied according to their marital status ie prefixed ni, nic, mhic etc).  Some names have alternative versions, and families switched between the 2. Kilpatrick/Kirkpatrick, Robertson/Robinson, Falconer/Faulkner are some that spring to mind.

It's a minefield, isn't it!  My present quest is to try and find descendants of my direct ancestors - armed with DNA kits!

It occurred to me that if you want to see what the old houses in Belfast were like, you should go to the Cultra Folk park. That’s about 3 miles outside Belfast on the way to Bangor. There is a rail station and you can get a bus to it.

What they have done there is reassemble typical houses from all over Ulster, from around 1900. So they were nearly all taken down brick by brick, and then reassembled in the folk park. There is a row of houses there called Tea Lane which have bene rebuilt in the park and which are kitted out to show you how labourers lived in Belfast at that time.

That sound great Elwyn.  I will see if I can fit it in.  I guess it depends how much material I manage to dig up in PRONI, the newspaper library and the Linen Hall library.

Just back from Belfast.  For those of you visiting I would like to share with you my experience at Milltown Cemetery.  I found the grave number that I wanted at PRONI and went off to Milltown armed with that.  The office staff could not have been more helpful.  They gave me a map marked with position of the grave and even counted off how many it was in the from the patch and how many rows down.  I set off to find it and the very helpful gardener who was strimming nearby found the grave for me.  I would never have found it alone because there is no marker. (That may change soon once I find out who owns it)  I went back to the office to thank them before I left and, on a hunch, asked if it was a single grave of whether there was anyone else there.  They looked it up for me and were able to fill in another death for me - that doesn't come up on the GRONI site, despite the fact that is is relatively recent (1944)

Sheila, so happy for you that your visit and discoveries turned out so well!  It's encouraging; I have ancestors from Antrim, but few clues to rely upon.  I'll keep monitoring this site and will hope that you and others keep finding such great resources and tell us all about them!

Amy Patterson O'Keefe

Amy, have you tried the Roots Ireland site?  It might be worth a month's subscription at first to see if they have anything of use to you.  If you find more than you can cope with within the month then either renew for another month or longer.  I have found it very useful.

Sheila

Thanks, Sheila -- that's a very good suggestion!  I appreciate it.

Amy