launch of ulster-scots surname map and history book
The Ulster-Scots Agency and the Ulster Historical Foundation
have produced a surname map and pocket history about the Scots
in Ulster. The publication was recently distributed at the
Stone Mountains Scottish Highland Games in Atlanta and will
appeal to the specialist or to those with a general interest
in the 17th century Scottish Plantation and 18th century migration
to America. For further information log on to ancestryireland.com/scotsinulster
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We take the view that it is good for people to stay close to where
their ancestors came from.
We had people stay with at Tory Bush Cottages who discovered that
their mother used a Right of Way across the fields in front of the
Cottages to get from her home on Clonachullion hill to get to Tullaree
School. They were shown stones that she must have placed her feet
and hands on as she climbed a Stile out of a field, back on to the
road and walk past the site of the cottages to the school on the
hill to the West.
It is possible to see from Tory Bush the parallel lines of the 'Lazy
Beds' of potato crops that where abandoned during the famine high
up on Clonachullion Hill either after the family died out or emigrated,
the land has not been tilled since. This Lazy Beds were anything
but lazy as they were extremely hard work and were used on land
that could not be worked by horse drawn implements either because
too steep or too stony. A Lazy bed is created were the seed potatoes
are laid on top of the ground, 'the lazy bit', and then about a
foot wide of turf on either side of the line of seed potatoes was
cut free and folded over the seed potatoes to give the ridges that
can still be seen today. The potatoes would then grow up through
the weed free ridges to form the potato plant and in the autumn
the ridges could be unfolded to reveal a crop of new potatoes.
Obviously the people who created the ridges still visible today
either emigrated or died out (possibly not the case in Co. Down
as the landlords were quite good to their tenants) or just realised
that because of the potato Blight that it was not worth going back
to open the Beds as the potatoes were rotten because of the Blight.
The reason the Beds were so high up the hill and that they are visible
on other hills in the area, such as Ballymagreeghan Hill is possibly
for two reasons. Firstly it must be recalled that the population
of Ireland was 8 million prior to the Famine and consequently every
inch of workable land would have been used to sustain that population.
The population declined to 4 million post famine and a lot less
arable land was required given the higher reliance on imports and
the bigger yields of land with modern tillage methods, fertilisers
and pesticides.
But the main reason undoubtedly was that the farmers at that time
thought that the blight disease of the potato crop was in the soil,
so they thought that if they grew next years crop in new untouched
land it would be disease free, hence the move to more and more inaccessible
bits of workable land. They tried this for three years and each
time the crop failed. Little did the farmers realise or indeed did
anyone realise including the Landlords and the Government, that
the disease was a fungus that was spread in the wind and rain. The
disease could have been contained to an extend by burning the previous
years potato plant stems sometime over the winter so that the fungus
could not survive and produce spores to be spread next season, but
this was many years before the Science of Plant Pathology.
We have created this Genealogy page on our Websites to direct people
to other Websites that will assist them in their search for ancestors
in the County Down area.
Irish Census
As of January 2009 it has been announced that the
Irish Census for 1911 is now available online, it can be viewed
at www.nationalarchives.ie/
and click on 1911 Census under 'What's New' on left of screen.
The good thing about these records is that they include a digital
scan of the actual Census Form completed by the householder on the
2nd of April 1911, I have seen my Great-grandfather’s actual
handwriting and the mistakes he made in completing the form.
Apparently as there is over a kilometre of shelving of these records
they have only got round to scanning 4 Counties so far, Kerry, Dublin,
Antrim and fortunately County Down.
Ireland was still one political unit then, Partition, i.e. the
division of Ireland in to the Northern Ireland State and what was
known as the ‘Free State’ in the South did not happen
until the Government of Ireland Act 1920, hence these records are
still held in Dublin. Some of the questions are interesting, including
asking women total number of children born and then the number of
children still alive ;which would in totality give a good indication
of child and infant mortality. There is also a question asking is
Irish spoken, which at the time, and even now, would permit a study
of where there were still significant areas of Irish Spoken.
There is an area called Clonduff around the village of Hilltown
which, apparently, had the last remaining native Irish Speakers
in Co Down. This area has a very good local website www.boleyfair.com
which has lots of local information about the Mourne Mountains and
this general area, click on ‘Places of Interest’, it
explains what Boley means and why it is still commemorated in an
annual fair.
Create your own family Tree.
The ‘WHICH MAGAZINE’, published by the Consumer Association
in the UK, an independent consumer research and product comparison
organisation, has rated a 12 Genealogy Research Software products
and has come up with 3 ‘Best Buys’.
Top of the list with a score of 84% is Family Historian
v3.1 and costing about 35 pounds.
‘WHICH’ says,
Family Historian is an easy-to-use program that has great features
and produces the best-looking printed results. This is a solid package
for creating and managing your family tree, but it won’t help
with your research – although it does allow some access to
records online.
Check out www.family-historian.co.uk
Second Best Buy with a score of 80% and only costing 10 pounds
is Genes Reunited – Genes Reunited
‘WHICH’ says,
Genes Reunited is a great community-based website but it’ll
cost you more to access official records. Creating your family tree
using a genealogy website is a great starting point for those new
to the subject and Best Buy Genes Reunited is free
to use if you just want to access the basic features.
Visit www.genesreunited.co.uk
The third Best Buy with a score of 78% is RootsMagic v3
and costing about 50 pounds.
‘WHICH’ says,
RootsMagic is an intuitive software package with
a wide range of features that makes getting started in creating
a family tree easy.
When it comes to building and editing a family tree, RootsMagic
is great. It comes with a trial to a genealogy website so you get
access to online records as well as excellent features allowing
you to build your tree and carry out research at the same time.
Check out www.rootsmagic.co.uk
Useful sites include,
www.askaboutireland.ie/show_homepage.do
and www.ulsterancestry.com/
etc. www.proni.gov.uk/
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