Tracing Your Northern Irish Ancestors

Ian Maxwell • £14.99
Pen & Sword

The second edition of Tracing Your Northern Irish Ancestors is an expert introduction for the family historian to the wealth of material available to researchers in archives throughout Northern Ireland. Many records, like the early 20th century census returns and school registers, will be familiar to researchers, but others are often overlooked by all but the most experienced of genealogists.

An easy-to-use, informative guide to the comprehensive collections available at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is a key feature of Ian Maxwell’s handbook. He also takes the reader through the records held in many libraries, museums and heritage centres across the province, and he provides detailed coverage of records that are available online.

Unlike the rest of the British Isles, which has very extensive civil and census records, Irish ancestral research is hampered by the destruction of many of the major collections. Yet Ian Maxwell shows how family historians can make good use of church records, school registers and land and valuation records to trace their roots to the beginning of the 19th century and beyond.

The Railway Builders

Anthony Burton • £19.99
Pen & Sword

There are many books on railway history, but few publications on how railways were constructed. Railway Builders tells the remarkable story of how the promoters, engineers and contractors worked together to build the national network. It is also the story of the extraordinary army of men who did the hard, physical work – the railway navvies. These itinerant workers lived rough and were capable of immense feats of physical strength as they dug their way from one end of the country to the other.

There are many familiar names here, such as George and Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, but the book also looks at many lesser-known engineers and the great contractors, such as Thomas Brassey, who employed an army of navvies as large as the regular armies of some countries. This is a tale of how such great works of engineering, like the Forth Bridge, were constructed but also of disasters, such as the collapse of the Tay Bridge. It all makes for an epic tale of how, with very little help from machinery, the Victorians created a great rail network. The book was first published in the early 1990s and has been out of print for some years.

The Famine Irish

Ciaran Reilly • £20
The History Press

From a range of leading academics and historians, this collection of essays examines Irish emigration during the Great Famine of the 1840s. From the mechanics of how this was arranged to the fate of the men, women and children who landed on the shores of the nations of the world, this work provides a remarkable insight into one of the most traumatic and transformative periods of Ireland’s history. More importantly, this collection of essays demonstrates how the Famine Irish influenced and shaped the worlds in which they settled, while also examining some of the difficulties they faced in doing so.

Researching Adoption

Karen Bali • £4.95
thefamilyhistorypartnership.com

This is a guide for anyone who wants to research an adoption the family. If you were adopted, adoption rules to someone in your family or an ancestor was adopted, this guide can help. It examines methods resources for for researching family mysteries deep in the past plus ideas, advice and guidance for linking up with birth relatives. Packed with useful information, Researching Adoption is a must for anyone who wants to discover where they came from and more about their genetic heritage.