Friday 21 December 2018

Fermanagh, Donegal & Leitrim records join FindMyPast

FindMyPast has added five new collections from counties Fermanagh, Donegal and Leitrim. Together they hold a mix of about 45,000 transcriptions of parish registers and headstones, and photos of the latter.

Fermanagh Parish Registers

These records hold indexed transcriptions from the baptism, marriage and death registers for the Church of Ireland parishes of Aghavea, Bellanaleck, Devenish, Inishmacsaint and Mullaghdun.

Baptisms: Many of these records include a note of the father's occupation and some (although sadly, not so many) even provide the mother's maiden name. The end date for all the registers except Devenish (1873) is 1912, but the start date varies widely. Aghavea baptisms start in 1814, Bellanaleek 1886, Devenish 1796, Inishmacsaint 1660 and Mullaghdun 1808. There are around 18,000 records in total recording baptisms in families living in Fermanagh and the townlands of bordering counties of Cavan, Monaghan, Sligo and Donegal.

Marriages: With more than 6,100 marriages dating from 1660 to 1949 (only 30-odd of the records pre-date the 19th century), the bulk of these Church of Ireland records span 1800 to 1905. The amount of information listed varies but most of the transcriptions reveal date and location of the marriage, the full names of both bride and groom and the occupation of the groom or his father.

Burials: This record set contains more than 7,000 records that may reveal when and where your relative was buried, their age, and occasionally even their cause of death.

Donegal Cemetery Records

These 2,200 records include transcriptions of the vital facts inscribed on the original headstones, plus at least one photo of each memorial. Two cemeteries have been surveyed: Ballyshannon in Kilbarron parish and Finner Cemetery in Bundoran. The latter, in the Church of Ireland parish of Lower Inishmacsaint, is a mixed denomination cemetery; its headstones relate to deaths from 1737 to 2011 of individuals who may have lived in the counties of Sligo, Donegal and Leitrim. The Ballyshannon burial ground is at St Anne's Church of Ireland graveyard.

A 'Notes' field in the transcription provides information on the condition of the gravestone and any decoration, age of the deceased, occupation of deceased, names and ages of other family members who are buried in the same grave, details of the inscription on the headstone, and the erector's name.

Leitrim Cemetery Records

All the records in this set are from Old Rossinver Graveyard in Rossinver parish. They span from 1709 to 2015 (about 80 entries are 18th century, while about 450 are 20th/21st century).

A 'Notes' field in the transcription provides information on the condition of the gravestone and any decoration, age of the deceased, occupation of deceased, names and ages of other family members who are buried in the same grave, details of the inscription on the headstone, and the erector's name.