DOWN RESOURCES

[aghadowey]

                                                      **NEWS**
This thread now replaces the Down Resources & Offers board. I have included all the information that was there and added a few more resources for County Down but if anyone can supply other links that will help other Rootschatters please let me know (a link as well as an explanation as to contents please). The contents of your topic will then be edited into to the relevant category topic and your original posting will be deleted.  (This may result in you receiving a "deleted" notification e-mail but will keep this thread tidy and easy to use)

Resources and Links in this thread organised by the following categories:
General sources for research
Census Records
Church records
Graveyards & Gravestones
Land Records & Maps
Directories
Places
People & Families
Libraries, Museums & History Groups
Schools, Workhouses, Institutions, Occupations
Books, Newspapers, Magazines
Misc. & General Sources

[aghadowey]

General Sources for research

Irish Genealogical Project- Down- lots of links

Newry & Mourne Ancestry- includes extracts from marriage and deaths notices in Belfast Newsletter, 1738-1800, for Newry (PRONI T/1584).

Ancestry Ireland (formerly Ulster Historical Foundation)

Various Co. Down links includes- misc. Co.Down records, names of Co. Down- information on over 450,000 people, monumental inscriptions, Land Owners 1866 (pdf document), Land Deeds 1876, Official Authorities 1834, misc. births baptisms marriages, research interests of subscribers to rootsweb.com Co. Down newsgroup, Flax Growers 1796, 1836 charity subscribers, NIR-DOWN Genealogy Mailing List at RootsWeb, Co.Down International Genealogical Index (IGI) Batch Numbers, and lots more.

[aghadowey]

Census Records

census returns & substitutes

1841-1851- Old Age Pension Claims: the introduction of old age pension (min. age 70) c1909 meant 1841 and 1851 census returns were checked as claimants were born before civil registration of births started in 1864. Extracts from these census searches are in the pension claim files (PRONI).
It is sometimes worth checking for people slightly younger than pension age (surprising how many people weren't as old as they said!) or older siblings whose details can fill in family details such as names of parents and year of marriage, townland, etc.

Article about Old Age Pension claims gives "A detailed list of the surnames for which there are extracts from the 1841 and 1851 census for the parish of Newry."

1901 and 1911 census- now on National Archives, Dublin website (free) with links to scanned images

[aghadowey]

Church Records

This section for links to Co. Down churches (many of the links taken from scattered threads here and regrouped).

Ardglass & Dunsford Churches

CHURCH OF IRELAND:
Church of Ireland website
Church of Ireland records (microfilms) in PRONI
Church records
Diocese of Dromore
"A Story of Garvaghy Parish, Co. Down" project of Select Vestry of Garvaghy Parish
Hillsborough Parish Church
Drumbeg Parish Church, and here

ROMAN CATHOLIC
www.from-ireland.net/dow/rc/downrcindex.htm

METHODIST:
Portaferry Methodist Church
Dromore Methodism - A Short History 1779 — 1979 by J. Lennox Booth. The Souvenir Booklet to commemorate the Bicententary of Dromore Methodism was published in 1979 by the Chronicle Press, Ltd, Banbridge.
Donaghadee Methodist Church, including baptisms 1826-1849

PRESBYTERIAN:
Ballynahinch Presbyterian Church registers
Clonduff Presbyterian Church
Donaghadee 1st Presbyterian Church

[aghadowey]

Graveyards & Gravestones

The gravestones are near the Church of Ireland at the Ulster Folk Museum. It's some time since I've been there so I'm not sure if the church came from Dromore, Co. Down or Dromore, Co. Tyrone. I checked some of the townland names on the stones by using thecore.com/seanruad They are not shown there. There was a discussion when
I posted this site on Belfast Forum. A couple of stones are from Co. Meath but there's one from Dromore, Down.

Ireland's Gravestone Index- pay site but search is free and can be quite useful (although there are some errors with people being listed twice in wrong parishes)

Those who go down to the sea in ships: seafaring connections and Ulster gravestones

NEW View maps for location of County Down graveyards- you can filter by denomination and other N.I. counties are also available. http://historyfromheadstones.com/index.php?down

[aghadowey]

Land Records & Maps

Townlands, Parishes, etc.
Counties are made up of parishes and parishes are made up of a group of townlands. If you are doing any research in Ireland these divisions become extremely important.
For further information:
http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/records/land/townland.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townland
http://www.ancestryireland.com/database.php?filename=townlands

To find townlands and parishes in Ireland: www.thecore.com/seanruad
Be sure to change default setting from 'exact match' to search for part of a word.
Also: www.logainm.ie/?menuItem=about&uiLang=en

Map of civil parishes
Map of Baronies
Map of Church of Ireland Diocese
Some maps linked to Griffith's Valuation
Northern Ireland Place-Names project- maps and various search options. NEW 25/4/11

Administrative Division of Ireland- this site can be hard to use at first and not complete for everywhere in Down but well worth persisting to see if the area you are interested in is included.

Dual Maps display two maps side-by-side for single location (Google Maps + Microsoft Virtual Earth Maps). Also includes new Google Street View option to view ground level imagery of Belfast.
Multimap
Google Maps

"The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland."

Weather maps

Map of County Down parishes with links to list of townlands

The Northern Ireland Valuation and Lands Agency gives the names of the District Councils throughout the Province, the names of the Wards in each Council and the names of roads and streets within those Wards. 

There are several different systems of land measurement in place in Ireland at various times
Statute acre (or English acre) = 4840 square yards
Cunningham acre = 6250 square yards (a Scottish measurement. Cunningham acres need to be multiplied by 1.29 to convert them to English, statute acres). See here
Irish acre = 7840 square yards. See here and here
conversion table: www.convertcenter.com/convertunit.aspx/area/irish_acre/all/56/0/1
This may explain the differences in the acreage of a farm which seems to have changed in size.

Possibly also worth mentioning is what “A.R.P.” means.
It stands for acres, roods & perch.  There are 40 perch to a rood, and 4 roods to an acre.
These subdivisions apply to both Statute (a.k.a. Imperial) and Irish systems of measurements.

[aghadowey]

Directories

1820 General Directory
1824 Pigot's directory
1843 directory
1846 Slater's directory- Ulster
1852 directory
1856 Slater's Directory- Kilkeel
1861 directory
1877 directory
1880 directory
1884 Ulster Towns Directory- Killyleagh
1886 Bassett's Co. Down Guide and Directory
1901 directory
1907 directory
1910 Ulster Towns
1913 telephone directory
1915 Kelly's directory of the leather trade

For Belfast listings see here: www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,369534.0.html

Some Directories added to PRONI site- see here for contents:
www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives/street_directories.htm

Resource guide to Belfast & Ulster directories- NEW 3/8/11
http://www.liscni.co.uk/docs/Belfast_and_Ulster_Street_Directories.pdf

[aghadowey]

Places

Raymond's County Down Website with links to information on Aghaderg, Banbridge, Dromore, Dromara, Kilkeel, Newry, Loughbrickland, Mourne, Kilcoo & Maghera, Rathfriland, Seapatrick

Came across this site on the history of Banbridge and district.  Some interesting articles on local history can be found on this site.  The Site is now up for sale 2014, only an archive copy remains
http://web.archive.org/web/20090401013721/http://www.bvph-museum.com/index.html

The Newry, Donaghmore, Loughbrickland and Banbridge Genealogy site covers the
area in Western Mourne and along the Newry Canal in both Co. Armagh and Co. Down.

Patrick Clarke's History of Drumaroad website contains interesting local historical information about the parish of Drumaroad & Clanvaraghan, sometimes called Drumaroad. It also records some of the interesting historical features of the parish, the families and personalities who lived and passed through it in the course of the centuries. The site contains articles about the Forde Estates and Drumaroad, the Franciscans of Drumnaquoile, Charles de Gaulle, the McCartans of Kinelarty and the Savages of Drumaroad.

The Portavogie History site contains several articles which should be of interest to people who have ancestors from that area of Co. Down including the Portavogie School Roll (transcribed by James Mahood) which covers the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century as well as a list of people in the village who signed the 1912 Ulster Covenant

Newry Mourne & Gullion Visitor's Guide includes history of the area

Members with ancestors from Warrenpoint may find some useful information on www.oldwarrenpointforum.com.

There's an article about the Linen Houses of the Bann on the Banbridge District online website. It mentions properties owned by the Christy, Cowdy, Crozier, Dickson, Ferguson, Green, Hayes, Richardson, Sinton, Smyth, Uprichard, Watson and Weir families. 

1919-1921 Ballykinlar Internment Camp

Dundonald village NEW

[aghadowey]

People & Families

Search Dictionary of Ulster Biography for people born in Co. Down- just put 'Down' as Location in search box.

Chapter Six of the Brennan Family Chronicles © Christopher Earls Brennen tells the story of The Palmer Family of Portavogie. The story mentions James Palmer who died on 13th May 1857 at the aged eighty two. In 1913 James purchased a Manx Nobby which had been built in1904 by Neakle & Watterson of Peel, Isle of Man.

Gray families came from the following areas of Co. Down ... Ards, Dufferin, Lower Castlereagh, Kinelarty, Lecale, Lower Iveagh, Mourne, Newry, Upper Castlereavh and Upper Iveagh

Prisoners - Australia This database includes information on over 1300 convicts who were originally from
County Down and were transported to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. Some of them were
held here in Downpatrick Gaol before transportation.

Crossle Abstracts carry an unusual detail of the families of Newry and surrounding area in the 1800's- includes addresses, family members and occupation information.  Coverage does include some families beyond the area of Newry Town.

WORLD WAR I list of those killed and injured from Lisburn area