Your project is a daunting one, so I wish you well. I hope you run into some luck, like what I experienced when I discovered that the Genealogical Office in Dublin (now part of the National Library) had compiled a pedigree back into the 1500s for my Donnellan family, showing exactly who left Galway for Clare, all done before destruction of records in 1922. I needed only to pay a few dollars for a copy of the pedigree. However, the pedigree stops one generation short in my family's East Clare parish before the earliest church records for my specific family, and I have spent over 10 years trying to span that small gap. In the process of doing that, I have read a great many original documents and reliable transcriptions, so perhaps my experience can be useful for you. My comments can at least start a discussion here.
The fastest way to acquire the knowledge you want is to find whether someone else has already done the research. It appears that you are focusing on a family relocation in the mid-1600s. I assume any description of your target surname in either Clare or Mayo for that time period has some value for you, and you realize that family in Mayo could have moved back to Clare at any time. To learn of resources for that purpose and time period you can consult James G. Ryan's Irish Records: Sources for Family and Local History Research, a 1997 book that should be on the shelf of any major library and can be purchased second-hand from many booksellers.
To learn immediately if anything has been published on your target surname or a place or building of significant connection to your family, you can consult the online version of PERSI (just Google it), an index of publications compiled by a public library at Fort Wayne, Indiana, which can send you (for the cost of photocopying) a copy of any article in its collection. Since the old G.O. manuscripts are now at the National Library of Ireland, which has a full catalog online, you can consult that and obtain a copy of any for a small charge. The British Archives at Kew Gardens has its catalog online, for a collection of material useful for Irish genealogy back farther in time than you need. I am showing below a reference to possibly useful material held at one time at the British Museum. A publication or database in any of those collections may contain a description of your family with reliable data on their being relocated in your target time frame. Ditto regarding the Blake-Forster book in the other attachment.
Another attachment, below, describes some modern publications that you could consult, for following a family via property transactions. An online database (searchable by surname) holds an ever-growing number of abstracts for the Registry of Deeds in Dublin, a collection of documents not actually limited to transfers of land, filed and preserved in excellent condition since about 1712. The link can be found b Googling “Nick Reddan” +Registry of Deeds. I have read the actual documents onsite at the original Four Courts building, so I know that deeds and marriage settlement documents can have extremely useful explanations of family relationships, reasons for a property transfer, and chronicling of who held a specific property going far back in time. If you also want to research a specific location, the Registry is a good source, plus these two other collections which hold similar documents but on a more hit-or-miss basis: National Library of Ireland as part its manuscripts collection, and the National Archives of Ireland (online catalog available). Estate owners of the 1700s and 1800s loved to have map books made of their individual estates, with beautiful illustrations of each section, lists of tenants, and sometimes information of a more historical context for the locale.
I don't know that you are prepared to assemble data decade by decade for each generation of your family and/or for each relevant locality in Clare and Mayo. If you are considering that, remember that some families now considered Catholic were in fact Protestant at an early time after the Brits took control in Ireland. Anglican Church records can go back into the 1600s for families residing in Ireland, despite events of destruction since then. Wills may yet be preserved for people important in your family's history and those can shed light on your family's activities of the time, particularly if your family was employed on an estate. A resource for following the ebb and flow of power and landholding in Ireland in such an early time period is described:
“1521-1603 Fiants The Irish fiants of the Tudor sovereigns during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Philip & Mary, and Elizabeth I (4 vols., Dublin: Edmund Burke, 1994; NLI Ir 94105 i 1). These documents, unique to Ireland, were created to facilitate the issuing of royal grants and were originally published as a series of appendices to the Reports of the Deputy Keeper of Public Records in Ireland in the late nineteenth century. For many of those Irish chieftains who submitted to English authority under the policy of surrender and regrant, they give long lists of extended family and followers.”
That last is the type of resource used by Luke McInerney for his research. With several publications on Ireland as it emerged from medieval times into the British era, he may well be your best source for useful resources, as listed in the bibliographies attached to his articles.
Sharon Carberry
USA
- Clare land surveys 1700s, Brit Mus.jpg (92.41 KiB) Viewed 29363 times
- Hardiman and Nugent books on ancient Clare.jpg (25.62 KiB) Viewed 29363 times
- The Irish Chieftains title page.jpg (20.09 KiB) Viewed 29363 times