Chefs - Irish Genies
Irish genealogy has attracted all sorts of interesting people to the cause over the last 200 years or so. Indeed their names have become synonymous with certain types of records or advice and often form part of what can be a bewildering "lingua celtica" when you first start out - "Have you consulted Griffith's?" or "Is there anything in the Betham or Crossle abstracts?" Where collections just use these nominal labels it can often be difficult to understand how they can help your research and you might not think to consult them. But I encourage you to take a look as they can be a gold-mine.
So, here is my gallery of genies whom I have consulted and benefited from their labours. Many of them were Victorians with keen interests in records that perhaps only covered a relatively small proportion of the population e.g. heraldic visitations, deposited family genealogies, marriage licences, wills, deeds, exchequer & chancery bills etc. However, crucially, they were often studying documents that sadly no longer exist and the indexes and transcripts that they created are our only clues today.
What is also interesting when you create a gallery like this, is that it reveals how many of them overlapped and some were known to have collaborated or built upon the work of previous scholars. Prerogative wills for example seems to have been a popular stomping ground with successive scholars.
So, here is my gallery of genies whom I have consulted and benefited from their labours. Many of them were Victorians with keen interests in records that perhaps only covered a relatively small proportion of the population e.g. heraldic visitations, deposited family genealogies, marriage licences, wills, deeds, exchequer & chancery bills etc. However, crucially, they were often studying documents that sadly no longer exist and the indexes and transcripts that they created are our only clues today.
What is also interesting when you create a gallery like this, is that it reveals how many of them overlapped and some were known to have collaborated or built upon the work of previous scholars. Prerogative wills for example seems to have been a popular stomping ground with successive scholars.
(c) irishmasonichistory.com
Sir William Betham [1749-1853]
An Englishman by birth, William came to Ireland in 1805, was knighted in 1812 and became Ulster King of Arms, responsible for ensuring heraldic order prevailed in Ireland. Sir William was a dedicated genealogist who filled notebooks with some invaluable abstracts. In particular he devoted 18 years to the task of abstracting key genealogical details and sketching pedigrees from wills proved at the Prerogative Court up to about 1800. He also applied himself to abstracting prerogative marriage licences issued up to about 1810.
Apparently most of Betham's original notebooks were acquired by the Public Record Office of Ireland (later the National Archives of Ireland.) Microfilm copies of them were later digitised by FamilySearch. FindMyPast combined these images with their own indexing efforts on the original notebooks to create Betham Genealogical Abstracts (FMP=£). There is also a separate collection entitled Betham Prerogative Marriage Licences Abstracts, 1629-1810 (FMP=£), which you would imagine should be a subset of the larger collection, but FindMyPast don't make that distinction. You can search for marriage licences in both collections in my experience. Ancestry also have the same records, but they are bundled up with the Crossle and Thrift abstracts (see below) into Ireland, Abstracts of Wills and Marriages, 1620-1923 (Anc=£).
An Englishman by birth, William came to Ireland in 1805, was knighted in 1812 and became Ulster King of Arms, responsible for ensuring heraldic order prevailed in Ireland. Sir William was a dedicated genealogist who filled notebooks with some invaluable abstracts. In particular he devoted 18 years to the task of abstracting key genealogical details and sketching pedigrees from wills proved at the Prerogative Court up to about 1800. He also applied himself to abstracting prerogative marriage licences issued up to about 1810.
Apparently most of Betham's original notebooks were acquired by the Public Record Office of Ireland (later the National Archives of Ireland.) Microfilm copies of them were later digitised by FamilySearch. FindMyPast combined these images with their own indexing efforts on the original notebooks to create Betham Genealogical Abstracts (FMP=£). There is also a separate collection entitled Betham Prerogative Marriage Licences Abstracts, 1629-1810 (FMP=£), which you would imagine should be a subset of the larger collection, but FindMyPast don't make that distinction. You can search for marriage licences in both collections in my experience. Ancestry also have the same records, but they are bundled up with the Crossle and Thrift abstracts (see below) into Ireland, Abstracts of Wills and Marriages, 1620-1923 (Anc=£).
Samuel Lewis [c.1782-1865]
Famous for his topographical dictionaries, Samuel Lewis was an English publisher who had first tackled England and Wales in the early 1830's. Turning his attention to the more difficult task of describing Ireland, he apparently drew upon earlier works such as Taylor and Skinner's road maps of Ireland (1778)
and Pigot's directories from the 1820's (see Historical Directories). According to the preface, he also drew upon various government surveys including the 1831 census and education returns that were taken to help inform the birth of the Irish National School system.
Lewis's work also predates the publication of the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland in 1846 so it may well contain forms of place names that were later standardised with different spellings. What is crucial, and poignant to note, is that Lewis was describing Ireland before the ravages of the Great Hunger that was to blight the coming decades.
His Topographical Dictionary of Ireland was published in 1837 and can be downloaded for free. Do take some time to read the short preface as it will help you understand how he arrived at place names and statistics. There is also a real hidden gem in the form of the subscribers list - hundreds of the great and good of Irish society and beyond who made it possible for Samuel Lewis to publish this expensive work. You might, like me, find relatives mentioned in here with some crucial contemporary address details. There is also the facility to search a transcript of this resource via the LibraryIreland site, but there are no images.
Famous for his topographical dictionaries, Samuel Lewis was an English publisher who had first tackled England and Wales in the early 1830's. Turning his attention to the more difficult task of describing Ireland, he apparently drew upon earlier works such as Taylor and Skinner's road maps of Ireland (1778)
and Pigot's directories from the 1820's (see Historical Directories). According to the preface, he also drew upon various government surveys including the 1831 census and education returns that were taken to help inform the birth of the Irish National School system.
Lewis's work also predates the publication of the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland in 1846 so it may well contain forms of place names that were later standardised with different spellings. What is crucial, and poignant to note, is that Lewis was describing Ireland before the ravages of the Great Hunger that was to blight the coming decades.
His Topographical Dictionary of Ireland was published in 1837 and can be downloaded for free. Do take some time to read the short preface as it will help you understand how he arrived at place names and statistics. There is also a real hidden gem in the form of the subscribers list - hundreds of the great and good of Irish society and beyond who made it possible for Samuel Lewis to publish this expensive work. You might, like me, find relatives mentioned in here with some crucial contemporary address details. There is also the facility to search a transcript of this resource via the LibraryIreland site, but there are no images.
Richard Griffith [1784-1878]
Sir Richard Griffith was engaged to survey all of Ireland with respect to boundaries and land values in the 1820's as Ireland attempted to reform local taxation and in particular implement the Poor Law rate. He was in fact a geologist and was keenly interested in the quality of the agricultural land in order to arrive at his valuations. He strictly managed a team of valuers who scoured the country gathering the requisite information and published it on a county by county basis to form what is more correctly known as the Primary Valuation of Ireland, but has become labelled more colloquially with his moniker as Griffith's Valuation.
He wasn't to know it at the time, but with the destruction of the Victorian censuses, whether by deliberate act or calamity, meant that this island wide survey became an important 19th century census substitute.
You can find the records and maps published in a number of places, all of which are discussed in more detail on my Griffith's Valuation page.
Sir Richard Griffith was engaged to survey all of Ireland with respect to boundaries and land values in the 1820's as Ireland attempted to reform local taxation and in particular implement the Poor Law rate. He was in fact a geologist and was keenly interested in the quality of the agricultural land in order to arrive at his valuations. He strictly managed a team of valuers who scoured the country gathering the requisite information and published it on a county by county basis to form what is more correctly known as the Primary Valuation of Ireland, but has become labelled more colloquially with his moniker as Griffith's Valuation.
He wasn't to know it at the time, but with the destruction of the Victorian censuses, whether by deliberate act or calamity, meant that this island wide survey became an important 19th century census substitute.
You can find the records and maps published in a number of places, all of which are discussed in more detail on my Griffith's Valuation page.
Dr. Francis Crossle
St Patrick's ML No.77 © Copyright 2011
Dr. Francis Clements Crossle [1847-1910] & Philip Crossle
This father and son worked in the late 19th century to create what are generally referred to as the Crossle Genealogical Abstracts (FMP=£), available online via FindMyPast. They filled notebooks with their sometimes challenging handwriting on several subjects including;
I have also found other references such as notes on Exchequer Bills, again long since burnt to a crisp. It also is said that Crossle is an excellent resource for researching Ulster ancestors and a good friend of mine has certainly found treasure for her Northern Irish ancestors therein. Dr. Crossle was also apparently a distinguished freemason (click on his photo above to learn more) and an authority on the town of Newry in particular.
This is undoubtedly a rich resource but I have to say that it probably does not benefit from being spilt up into lots of individual indexed pages. I think you lose a lot of valuable context. You can page backwards and forwards from the image and I would recommend that you do this to try to get more of a feel for what the notebook was covering e.g. all family names beginning with a certain letter. It can also sometimes be very difficult to spot your name of interest in the midst of the dense handwriting. Remember, FindMyPast just blitzes through and indexes all the names, so your person of interest might not be the principal subject - they might be a witness to a will or deed for someone else perhaps.
The source citation on FindMyPast appears to indicate that the National Archives of Ireland are the original source for the notebooks, but once again the NAI catalogue defeats me when I try to find out more about what they actually hold. FindMyPast include several, sometimes confusing levels, in their source citation so perhaps best to note them all for completeness. It's funny, it's either feast or famine when it comes to source citations with this company, so I shouldn't complain.
Ancestry also have the same records, but they are bundled up with the Betham (see above) and Thrift abstracts (see below) into Ireland, Abstracts of Wills and Marriages, 1620-1923 (Anc=£).
This father and son worked in the late 19th century to create what are generally referred to as the Crossle Genealogical Abstracts (FMP=£), available online via FindMyPast. They filled notebooks with their sometimes challenging handwriting on several subjects including;
- Abstracts of wills from the Prerogative Court of Ireland that date from the middle of the 17th century right up to the opening decade of the 19th century. These can be incredibly detailed and rich with names and relationships.
- Abstracts of registered deeds, probably included in the bundles of family papers that they studied. Look out for the familiar nomenclature that identifies the book, page and memorial number at the top of any entry. Along with the year of registration, this will allow you to seek out the deed for yourself. See my Registry of Deeds - Finding Deeds page for more advice.
- Abstracts of marriage licences and marriage settlements. On the latter, hopefully you may have the same shorthand reference to any registered marriage settlement deed and again be able to go and look it up yourself. Betham also covered the former so it could be a good idea to cross-reference the two collections if you can, as one may have noted something that the other did not I suppose.
- Annual army returns dating from the mid 18th century and spanning the next 150 years or so. I can't say that I have come across any of these entries in my own research, so I'm afraid I can't comment as to how to get the most from this data.
I have also found other references such as notes on Exchequer Bills, again long since burnt to a crisp. It also is said that Crossle is an excellent resource for researching Ulster ancestors and a good friend of mine has certainly found treasure for her Northern Irish ancestors therein. Dr. Crossle was also apparently a distinguished freemason (click on his photo above to learn more) and an authority on the town of Newry in particular.
This is undoubtedly a rich resource but I have to say that it probably does not benefit from being spilt up into lots of individual indexed pages. I think you lose a lot of valuable context. You can page backwards and forwards from the image and I would recommend that you do this to try to get more of a feel for what the notebook was covering e.g. all family names beginning with a certain letter. It can also sometimes be very difficult to spot your name of interest in the midst of the dense handwriting. Remember, FindMyPast just blitzes through and indexes all the names, so your person of interest might not be the principal subject - they might be a witness to a will or deed for someone else perhaps.
The source citation on FindMyPast appears to indicate that the National Archives of Ireland are the original source for the notebooks, but once again the NAI catalogue defeats me when I try to find out more about what they actually hold. FindMyPast include several, sometimes confusing levels, in their source citation so perhaps best to note them all for completeness. It's funny, it's either feast or famine when it comes to source citations with this company, so I shouldn't complain.
Ancestry also have the same records, but they are bundled up with the Betham (see above) and Thrift abstracts (see below) into Ireland, Abstracts of Wills and Marriages, 1620-1923 (Anc=£).
Sir Arthur Vicars
Wikimedia Commons
Sir Arthur Vicars [1862-1921]
Sir Arthur's life certainly qualifies as "eventful" - tragically so. He was a distinguished genealogist and heraldic expert (clock the outfit he is sporting to the left as the Ulster King of Arms!) Unfortunately, he also had responsibility for the insignia of the Order of St. Patrick aka the "Irish Crown Jewels", which were pilfered on his watch in 1907.
He was duly accused of complicity, with the Daily Mail apparently inventing a mysterious mistress with a duplicate key - an entirely fictitious and characteristically salacious story that cost them £5000 in rightly deserved libel damages. However the scandal stripped him of his heraldic position and he left Dublin for Co. Kerry, where he was duly caught up in the later Anglo-Irish war. He was dramatically executed by rebels in 1921, and continued to protest his innocence to the fabled heist from beyond the grave via the medium of his own will apparently.
Sir Arthur's life certainly qualifies as "eventful" - tragically so. He was a distinguished genealogist and heraldic expert (clock the outfit he is sporting to the left as the Ulster King of Arms!) Unfortunately, he also had responsibility for the insignia of the Order of St. Patrick aka the "Irish Crown Jewels", which were pilfered on his watch in 1907.
He was duly accused of complicity, with the Daily Mail apparently inventing a mysterious mistress with a duplicate key - an entirely fictitious and characteristically salacious story that cost them £5000 in rightly deserved libel damages. However the scandal stripped him of his heraldic position and he left Dublin for Co. Kerry, where he was duly caught up in the later Anglo-Irish war. He was dramatically executed by rebels in 1921, and continued to protest his innocence to the fabled heist from beyond the grave via the medium of his own will apparently.
Speaking of wills, and luckily for us, he found time in 1897 to publish one of the most authoritative works on Irish wills in the form of Sir Arthur Vicars' Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland, 1536-1810.
It is available as a free e-book to browse and download and I would encourage you to do this. Read the preface for a really clear description of how the various courts came into play when wills were proved. This is also where I first learned, not unsurprisingly, that Vicars took Betham's original indexes and, in his words, "largely recast the index whilst cross-referencing to the original wills." Vicars also took his index a decade beyond Betham's so bear that in mind when cross-referencing.
You will also find an indexed version of this resource on both Ancestry (Anc=£) and FindMyPast (FMP=£) where the latter claims the addition of a previously unpublished supplement of 1914 as well as the main index.
It is available as a free e-book to browse and download and I would encourage you to do this. Read the preface for a really clear description of how the various courts came into play when wills were proved. This is also where I first learned, not unsurprisingly, that Vicars took Betham's original indexes and, in his words, "largely recast the index whilst cross-referencing to the original wills." Vicars also took his index a decade beyond Betham's so bear that in mind when cross-referencing.
You will also find an indexed version of this resource on both Ancestry (Anc=£) and FindMyPast (FMP=£) where the latter claims the addition of a previously unpublished supplement of 1914 as well as the main index.
Gertrude Thrift [1872-1951]
She is perhaps best known for her collaborative work on wills with W.P.W. Phillimore, published in 5 volumes between 1909-1920. Less than 2 years later, their primary resources were destroyed and the project was brought to a shuddering halt, so we are eternally thankful for their timely toil.
FindMyPast has 2 collections attributed to Thrift;
The same Abstracts appear to be available to browse on FamilySearch - be sure to use the card indexes that are the first films listed as this will be your key to finding the names you seek in the later "bundles". I think that the range of names may be limited as Gertrude was researching specific families that interested her, but if one of those families is yours, then I'm sure you will be rewarded. The Indexes to Irish Wills also appears in the FamilySearch catalogue but the link redirects you to the FindMyPast source above.
Ancestry also have the same records, but they are bundled up with the Betham and Crossle abstracts (see above) into Ireland, Abstracts of Wills and Marriages, 1620-1923 (Anc=£).
She is perhaps best known for her collaborative work on wills with W.P.W. Phillimore, published in 5 volumes between 1909-1920. Less than 2 years later, their primary resources were destroyed and the project was brought to a shuddering halt, so we are eternally thankful for their timely toil.
FindMyPast has 2 collections attributed to Thrift;
- Thrift's Genealogical Abstracts (FMP=£) appears to be a broad collection of material from a range of sources, so check the transcript for details
- W.P.W Phillimore and Gertrude Thrift, Indexes to Irish Wills 1536-1858, 5 vols (Publ. 1909-1920) (FMP=£)
The same Abstracts appear to be available to browse on FamilySearch - be sure to use the card indexes that are the first films listed as this will be your key to finding the names you seek in the later "bundles". I think that the range of names may be limited as Gertrude was researching specific families that interested her, but if one of those families is yours, then I'm sure you will be rewarded. The Indexes to Irish Wills also appears in the FamilySearch catalogue but the link redirects you to the FindMyPast source above.
Ancestry also have the same records, but they are bundled up with the Betham and Crossle abstracts (see above) into Ireland, Abstracts of Wills and Marriages, 1620-1923 (Anc=£).
P. Beryl Eustace
Beryl produced many useful genealogical documents, often in collaboration with other authors. Her 3 volumes of abstracts of wills registered in the Registry of Deeds are described in more detail near the bottom of my Church of Ireland Dioceses & Diocesan Records page.
Beryl produced many useful genealogical documents, often in collaboration with other authors. Her 3 volumes of abstracts of wills registered in the Registry of Deeds are described in more detail near the bottom of my Church of Ireland Dioceses & Diocesan Records page.
Dr. Albert E. Casey
Dr. Casey was an Alabama pathologist who had traced his ancestry back to an area on the Cork and Kerry border which he sadly found to be bereft of records. He made it his life's work to collect whatever he could find for the area, eventually transcribing 3m names from vast swathes of records as the project far outgrew the original geography. The result was a whopping 16 volumes of transcripts published under the rather odd title of "O’Kief, Coshe Mang, Slieve Lougher and the Upper Blackwater in Ireland." The collection has been indexed on Ancestry as Ireland, Casey Collection Indexes, 1545-1960 (Anc=£). You can also browse the volumes on Ancestry - see the right hand side of the source search screen. You are going to have to patiently trawl through images to find your indexed entry though.
If you don't have access to Ancestry, then the Index is available to browse on FamilySearch, where the standard reference appears to be a volume number in Roman numerals followed by the page number(s). However, from what I can see in the catalogue, only Volume 1 and Volume 7 are available to browse on the same site?
It is well worth having a dig around in this collection as you never know what you might find and where it might lead you to next. You will of course get side-tracked in all the wonderful ephemera like maps (ancient and modern), lists of statistics and diversions off into pre-history.
Dr. Casey was an Alabama pathologist who had traced his ancestry back to an area on the Cork and Kerry border which he sadly found to be bereft of records. He made it his life's work to collect whatever he could find for the area, eventually transcribing 3m names from vast swathes of records as the project far outgrew the original geography. The result was a whopping 16 volumes of transcripts published under the rather odd title of "O’Kief, Coshe Mang, Slieve Lougher and the Upper Blackwater in Ireland." The collection has been indexed on Ancestry as Ireland, Casey Collection Indexes, 1545-1960 (Anc=£). You can also browse the volumes on Ancestry - see the right hand side of the source search screen. You are going to have to patiently trawl through images to find your indexed entry though.
If you don't have access to Ancestry, then the Index is available to browse on FamilySearch, where the standard reference appears to be a volume number in Roman numerals followed by the page number(s). However, from what I can see in the catalogue, only Volume 1 and Volume 7 are available to browse on the same site?
It is well worth having a dig around in this collection as you never know what you might find and where it might lead you to next. You will of course get side-tracked in all the wonderful ephemera like maps (ancient and modern), lists of statistics and diversions off into pre-history.
(c) Irish Geneaography - 2023
