Milltown Burial Records

If you are researching relatives who lived in Belfast and were Roman Catholic, then chances are you will come across Milltown Cemetery – Belfast’s largest burial ground, located deep in the West of the city.

Tom Hartley's excellent book about Milltown

Milltown is in close proximity to Belfast City Cemetery, which is owned by the Council and therefore included in this invaluable online database of interred individuals.

Milltown, however, is not owned by the Council and therefore is not included in the database. So, if you wish to do some research on the present locations of some ancestors’ burial spots, you might have to do a bit more leg-work.

Thankfully, Milltown houses an office right at its entrance where you can direct such enquiries (either in person or via telephone on +44 28 9061 3972), but they are only able to help locate graves for which you have the exact names of the persons in question, as well as the dates on which they died.

For deaths that took place more than 50 years ago, the best / free method of identifying dates of death is through the online GRONI search facility, but if you happen to be in Belfast, then you might prefer using the microfiche copies of Milltown’s burial records, which are held at PRONI under reference MIC1D/91. These records contain:

• The name of the deceased.
• The age of the deceased.
• The last address of the deceased.
• The longitude/latitude of the grave’s location.

Additional records held under MIC1D/91/4 can be cross-referenced to tell you who purchased the grave plots in the first place.

If you make the trip to Milltown, you will  find the staff quite helpful. However, even if they are able to give you the section number and approximate row in which to find the grave, faded inscriptions and overgrown grass can make this a tricky exercise. Milltown is notoriously crowded and difficult to manoeuvre around, so this process requires a bit of a patience.

My great-uncle's plaque was hidden for years at Milltown due to overgrown bushes.

So, what I would advise is that once you find the right section, look along the sides of the headstones and try to find ones with readable grave numbers. Each section is organised by lettered rows; within each row, the graves are numbered in order from left-to right, so if you are given a grave location such as WD-24, go to one of the latter rows and try to spot some Ws. This will give you a rough indicator of where to focus your search.

Copyright: Tom Hartley

If all of this sounds like tedious, time-consuming guesswork, then you are absolutely correct. Some people get lucky and have living relatives who know the location of every single grave in the family. Others, like myself, spend an hour trampling over resting places overflowing with soil, searching for the right spot, only to find an empty space where the headstone should be.

So, just be advised that if you intend to undertake some grave-searching, bring some thick boots, a notebook, and steely determination.

Workhouse Records

A major focus of my genealogical research has been on Workhouses, the 19^th century institutions that took in thousands of people in various stages of despair and destitution.

Copyright: National Archives

Often, the Workhouse rears its head when you are trying to obtain information on where an ancestor was born or died. If either event occurred in the Workhouse, then the Workhouse will be recorded on the certificate, but not much other information will be given. You might want to know:

• How long were they in the Workhouse?
• On what date did they enter?
• Did they go in alone?
• What was the reason for entering?

Depending on the period of time you are looking at, there can be different answers for each of the above questions, so what I want to focus on is how you can best navigate the multitude of records that survive for the Workhouse, and making sure that you use all that is available to you.

In the case of the Belfast Workhouse, I started my quest at PRONI on the eCatalogue Search. A simple search for ‘Workhouse’ brings up over 1100 results, so you can save yourself some time that I didn’t by browsing instead for the Belfast Board of Guardians index (if you are searching for another Workhouse in Northern Ireland, then refer to this index page instead.)

From here, you will get an overview of every type of record that is held on that Workhouse, including:

• Indoor Registers.
• Minute Books.
• Record of Operations.
• Return of Births.
• Return of Deaths.

This is where it falls to you to connect the dots.

To use myself as an example again, I tend to start with the Returns of Births/Deaths if I have a specific event in mind to research. These are ordered by the months that they cover and are easy to order up (assuming the event occurred more than 100 years ago – otherwise you are looking at a Freedom of Information request.)

Once you have located the event in the register book, you should see a reference number in the far-left column and/or in an ‘Observation’ column further along. The number on the left is typically to reflect a person’s chronological entry in the current book, while the other number is typically to reflect a person’s entry in another book – likely the Indoor Register.

In this case, order up the Indoor Registers (same procedure) and browse chronologically until you come to the person’s number and it could tell you:

• Age and date when he/she first entered the Workhouse.
• If he/she came with family.
• Where he/she had been living.
• His/her occupation.
• When he/she left the Workhouse (or died there.)

My 2x-great-grandmther's Indoor Register entry.

Even if this gives you all of the information that you sought, it is still worth your time looking through the Minute Books in case any reference is made to your ancestor. Honestly, this can be a long shot, but if you do find a reference then it can give some depth to his/her situation.

As I mentioned earlier, reasons for entering the Workhouse varied as time went on. Where illegitimate pregnancy might have been the cause of a 6-month stay in the 1890's, a short-term medical emergency could have been the reason in the 1930's (as was the case with two separate ancestors of mine.)

So, if you hear/see 'Workhouse' and feel alarm bells going off, just seek out your local public record office and start putting together the pieces of the puzzle.

If you have any problems in that regard or have questions about anything I have discussed here, then please get in touch. Always happy to help.

1939 Register

Today (November 2nd) saw the long-awaited release of the 1939 Register by Find My Past.

This register served as an emergency census at the outbreak of World War II and was used in part to handle applications for ration books. It is free to carry out a search, but it will cost you £6.95 to view a full page from the original Record.

This register is a fantastic resource because, after the 1911 census, it is the most up-to-date record of the population that is accessible for all to see. This Register will give you, among other things:

• Names of all people living in a household.
• Dates of birth.
• Occupations.
• Marital Status.

While the release at Find My Past covers only England and Wales, the Northern Irish edition is held by PRONI and is available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. If you send off a quick message using PRONI's online enquiry form with the names and addresses of the people you would like to find in the 1939 Register, then PRONI should have no problem in releasing their entries to you.

However, both PRONI and Find My Past only release information covering those born over 100 years ago, so you will have to supply the death certificates at your own cost if you wish to obtain the entries for anyone who is deceased but was born less than 100 years ago.

Personally, I am thrilled by this release. My great-great grandmother moved to Liverpool in the early 1900s and I never knew her date of birth. Now, thanks to the 1939 Register, I can check off one more item on my Family History Bucket List.

As with any database that involves transcribing old handwriting, there are some errors to be found in the names, but thankfully the Advanced Search facility allows the public to search by Street Name and other options to help locate the people you wish to find.

The folks over at Find My Past really deserve more thanks than I can give them. This was a huge project to undertake, and no doubt required a great deal of funding and hard work to see through. The contribution this will make to twentieth-century genealogical research cannot be overstated.