Using School Registers in your research
It's back to school in our house - my children have ipads, there is a school app which we can use to make payments and read school news. I imagine that the paper trail that children leave in schools, as everywhere else in life, is rapidly dwindling. I doubt that their names have been entered in a large leather bound register. School registers are always welcome to genealogists and a number of these have survived from the 19th and early 20th century and the majority are held in the National Archives and some have been digitised and indexed by findmypast. They cover many parts of the country and date from 1860 to 1922. You can glean varying amounts of information from each register, here are a few samples:
James Aiken of Drumherrive, the son of a farmer, was born 23rd of July 1894; he was Presbyterian and had previously attended a school in Brownknowe before enrolling in Glenalla school in county Donegal.
Columba Cahill of 19 Ormond quay, the son of a clerk, was born 3rd October 1913; he was Roman Catholic. He attended St. Brigid’s school, Dublin, from 1920 to 1922.
Polly Prudence and her sister Bella Jane of Shandrum, aged 8 and 6 years respectively; they were Established Church [Church of Ireland], the daughters of a rector and attended Shandrum school in county Cork in 1882.
If you want to learn more about the actual schools, the salary books, application for grants and volumes also confusingly ‘Register Books’ but which as the National Archives website: http://www.nationalarchives.ie/research/research-guides-and-articles/guide-to-sources-on-national-education/
describes as ‘primarily minute books of all proceedings taken in connection with each school’, are all held at the National Archives.
By Helen Moss
By Caitlin Bain
Comments
What if my ancestor was born around 1805? Would there be any records I can look at?
Dear Rebecca, At this early time, the main source may be parish registers, either baptismal or marriage You will need to know what religion your ancestors are likely to have been baptised in to The surviving collection of catholic parish registers can be viewed on findmypast.ie If you want to check the date the registers start, you can check the website of the National Library, www.nli.ie, input the name of parish ,,which will indicate when they start If your ancestor was protestant, you will need to know what denomination they may have been Episcopalian? Presbyterian If Presbyterian, contact the Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast, google will get you contact details There is alas no one place to view Episcopalian , other wise referred to as Church of Ireland. You will find some protestant parish records on irish.genealogy.ie or rootsireland.ie The collection of Church of Ireland records are held by the Representative Church Body Library, in Dublin,. Again google will get you contact details Findmypast.ie has a wealth of record sets unique to this website, so suggest this may be a good place for you to start Carmel Gilbride, Research Manager
Carmel, I am interested in finding my grandparents birth documents and I even traveled to Dublin searching without success. They were born in and around Donegal about 1888 to 1890. Is there a central place for me to find the Catholic Churches and schools which might have had records for them? Also I have an additional problem of the Irish language churches which might possibly hold my grandfather’ s records near Killybegs. Any Thoughts or ideas where to look to find the right church which may not even be there still today?
Hi Deirdre, Have you found their birth certificates they can be found on irishgenealogy.ie?
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