Course Enrollment: IR-301 Irish: Court Records, State Papers, Parliamentary Documents

Optional Print Course Material: Irish: Court Records, State Papers, Parliamentary Documents

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

In the advanced level of the Irish Certificate, we examine some of the record collections that the genealogical detail in them is often difficult to locate. These documents are also harder to locate. More often they're not indexed, abstracted, or available to the public. However, information found will be direct and often provide good primary evidence of facts on subjects and events in periods where few other genealogical records survive. Seldom discussed by genealogists because they are so misunderstood and difficult to research, This course will provide you with an understanding of the importance of court, state, and parliamentary records for genealogical research. The one apparent note with this collection is that, unlike, many other genealogical sources, court/state/parliamentary records cover almost the entire period of late Irish history from the 12th century (in general) to the present.

Like, electoral and taxation sources, however, these record collections can supply, particularly for pre-1850 Ireland, some of the best pointers on periods of presence and locality, as well as indications of social strata, details on occupations, residences, physical descriptions, and family relationships or family structures.