1609 - ulster maps

 ...pouring through these beautiful, artistic maps from 1609.Love stumbling upon gems like this (kudos to Queen's University Belfast for making these available online)Many of my paternal ancestors lived in the Ulster counties. My father knew nothing of where his ancestors were from, so every find...

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the name game continues - Irish prefixes

 I feel like I have read through an endless number of books with names in Irish vs. English, which occasions may favour one over the other, and equally, the name variations.Truly, it is easy to become overwhelmed as a family historian.I did find an article online that provides a succinct explanation...

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and more about names...

The book I am using to share information from is completely free, and full available online:Special report on surnames in Ireland, with notes as to numerical strength, derivation, ethnology, and distribution; based on information extracted from the indexes of the General register officeby Matheson,...

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English and Scottish Names - the 50 most common surnames in the 19th century

 an offshoot from the previous post, from one of the books I have from 1894 documenting the most common Irish surnames...the book then compares the most common surnames in Ireland with those in the British Isl...

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Irish names - the 100 most common surnames at the end of the 19th Century

 Whenever I am looking for Murphy, and O'Brien ancestors in particular, I am reminded that it isn't always easy, given the common-ness of those names. Thought this would be a fun share...

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Ireland Old News - Newspaper extracts

 Patience is a requirement for the family historian....that may be the most understated sentiment of all. The thousands of hours rifling through old documents, obscure resources, going beyond the leaves that Ancestry posts...On my various searches, I do dive into resources that don't make it into...

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Flemings in Down - thoughts

photo from wiki DNA key to my ancestors link to distant cousins with a shared passion to know our ancestors to learn from them to fulfill their promise to breathe life into their lost names, etched in stone, fading in old churchyards My 4th cousin 2x removed gave me a tremendous family...

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The O' and why so many of our ancestors dropped it

The Irish identifiers like O' and Mc were dropped for concerns of employment, learning, living.Irish Central is one of many sources that speaks to this (and a few other fun facts about Irish names).As the English took hold of property and rule over Ireland, dropping the O' was believed to have been...

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