You can search the Verner estates records using the PRONI e-catalogue. That
will give you an indication of the type of records they have. Typically estate
records are leases, rental payments, details of legal cases, family papers,
estate maps, bills, reports from the local estate manager and that sort of
thing.
It's quite important to know whether your ancestors were farmers or not. If
they were farmers, then there may be leases and mention of them in the estate
papers. But if they were agricultural labourers (as much of the population
were) then they usually rented from a farmer, not from the estate. So the
farmer rents from the Verners, and then he sublets 4 or 5 labourers cottages on
his farm. Those labourers contract is with the farmer not with the Verners and
so they won't appear in Verners records. Hopefully that makes sense.
PRONI will do a simple search for you. So, for example, if you are looking for
a baptism at a known church at a roughly known date, they'll search and copy it
for you. What they won't do are trawling searches eg looking for all mention of
McGarvey and McClusker in the Verners records. (It might just take too long).
You need a researcher for that type of search. There are quite a few in the
PRONI area. (Google genealogy researchers Belfast).
If the families were farmers, it's also worth checking the Registry of Deeds
records for leases etc. Search under townland name. They are on Familysearch,
or a researcher will look them up for you in PRONI.
8 million people left Ireland between 1801 and 1921. Whole PhDs have been
written on the background but very briefly there had been a huge population
explosion (up from 3 million in 1741 to 8 million in 1841). There weren't jobs
for them in Ireland. Added to that Ireland has also most no natural resources
(no coal, oil, valuable minerals etc) so the Industrial Revolution largely
passed it by. However there were new jobs and land in Canada and the USA. There
was no spare land in Ireland. Landlords wouldn't sell in Ireland either. There
wasn't security of tenure, or at least not adequate security. But there were
land grants in North America. So that was a big pull factor. Tithes annoyed the
Roman Catholics and Presbyterians but they were just a factor. Not the main
reason for going though. There was also some discrimination against much of
the population in various ways over the years (though most of the worst laws
had been repealed by the time your ancestors left). And so on and so on. Most
left for economic betterment, just as modern migrants do.
Elwyn
On Thursday, 25 July 2019, 00:07:00 BST, Lori Herman via CoTyroneList
<[email protected]> wrote:
For almost 20 years, I have been looking for records for my Roman Catholic John
McGarvey/Catherine McCluskey family who emigrated to Kingston, Ontario Canada
sometime between 1823 (2nd to last son born in Ireland) and 1935 (last son born
in Canada) from county Tyrone. Father was John McGarvey, wife was Bridget
McCluskey, and children were at least, Mary (1810 – Ireland), Michael (1812 –
Ireland), Terence (1814 – Ireland), John (my ancestor – 1818), Patrick (1823 –
Ireland) and Joseph (1835 – Kingston, Ontario, Canada). There may be more.
John (Sr.) McGarvey died in Canada in 1871. The timing is tricky because of the
time of immigration – few Canadian immigration records exist for that time
period, and this is before Griffith’s. Even parish baptisms are not available
(for the area where I think they lived) for when my family left Ireland.
But, thanks to the wonderful volunteers for the CoTyroneIreland.com website, I
believe that I might have found my townland. I think it is Lurganboy. I
needed to see a list for the tithe applotment books, (the Republic of Ireland
generously tossed those over the border without indexing them for free
searches) and your indexed transcriptions have been so very helpful!
Based on the tithe records in Lurganboy, I have found McGarveys other than John
(where the Christian names are the same as those for his children), so I’m
thinking that this is a family unit in this townland), I was able to find
through Griffith’s Valuation that the land was owned by a Sir William Verner.
And looking him up, and the name of the townland (that I think might be where
my family lived), I found that PRONI has estate files that might include
information on the inhabitants of this townland during the time period of
interest!
I’m trying not to get too excited by this (but I AM too excited by this). I am
thinking that my next logical step would be to find out from PRONI how their
estate file is organized and how easy it is to access records for the time
period I’m interested in (the file stretches from 1641 to 1907) – which would
be 1835 and earlier. I really don’t want to pay for a general file search for
250+ years. Has anyone asked for searches from PRONI before? I am really
hoping that these records will confirm that my family lived in Lurganboy
township.
Comments? Ideas? Other sources?
And of course would be very happy to find any McGarveys or McCluskeys out there
who are connected to my line. I have an ancestry DNA profile, but given that
my nearest Tyrone ancestor for this line was 4-5 generations back ….)
Also, given that this family immigrated before the great famine, what do you
think might have made them want to leave? Was it the tithes? Were there any
other local problems I might want to learn about?
Thanks so much!
Lori Herman
North Vancouver, Canada
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