living in Belfast in the 1800's

[Bob2399]

Hi forum,
I am trying to write a narritive on my family history and although I have plenty of details about BMD's etc. I am very short on the other stuff such as how much did food cost what as the average wage for a labourer what about schools etc.

Can anyone help me there

Thanks

Bob

[aghadowey]

Any particular time frame? '1800s' is a very broad span and many changes will have occured within that hundred years.

[aghadowey]

Here are a few sites to start with-
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/eire-ireland/v039/39.1miller.html
http://oldbelfastdistricts.rushlightmagazine.com/index.html
http://www.nireland.com/genealogy/the_1800s.html
http://www.localhistories.org/belfast.html
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch1800-1967.htm

[Bob2399]

My first hint of relatives from Belfast is about 1850 but they start to increase from 1875 - present day so that would be my target. Most of my ancestors were illiterate and unskilled so they would have been on hard living in a hard living area

[aghadowey]

Might be easier to break your topic into different aspects, such as-

Location- from the 1901/1911 census records, vital records, etc. you'll probably have found the area(s) they lived. The census pages will tell you the size of the property where they lived, give indications of the neighbours (occupations, etc.)

Education- census forms indicate levels of literacy to some degree, there were various Education Acts which aimed to improve things. Most children attended schools near their homes- finding out about the school(s) attended could make your family history more interesting.

Religion- you could include a bit about what was happening at their church for certain periods such as 'The Parish Church was only 10 years old when John was baptised...'

There are links to lots of directories in ANTRIM RESOURCES- useful for finding about streets, occupants, etc.

And what about pictures- they always break up family narratives nicely.

There are a few timelines mentioned here-
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,569153.0.html

Here's another good topic in USEFUL LINKS- LINKS - Social History: Clothing, Food, Value of Money