My apologies, everybody! I was actually work-working a couple of weeks ago and as I opened my computer there was an almighty CRACK. This was a hinge breaking. With difficulty finding a replacement part and the discovery of a cracked screen as well it has taken this long to get my wee friend back. Obviously…

I spent a few hours yesterday at PRONI reading original documents from the time of the 1798 rebellion in County Down. As one speaker at the conference I attended recently noted, the rebellion and its aftermath provide a wealth of material about ordinary people and particularly the voices of women. Thus, I found myself reading…

I have two giant family templates (10 generations each) from My Family Tree on the go at the moment. One is working downward, using Professor James Y McKee’s book, A History of the Descendants of David McKee of Anahilt. Obviously I want to verify wherever possible what he claimed, given te negative comments of Rev…

Last week I was privileged to attend a two day conference about the 1798 Rebellion in County Down, featuring new perspectives and information from a range of speakers. One speaker focussed on how the vast majority of Presbyterians did not take part and the majority of Presbyterian clergy were not agitating for rebellion. This was…

I am excited about the two day conference about the 1798 Rebellion in County Down to be held next Thursday and Friday. Day One is at Bangor Castle and Day Two is at Downpatrick Museum (I think- I’d better check!). I’m particularly excited about the second day because there will be a session about the…

I have begun to add maps to the McKee page to show farms and houses occupied by McKees in 1864. This is a work in progress, not least because my computer has decided not to let me add typed text to the images.

Well, I made my first visit to PRONI since July today. For once I wasn’t focussed on a specific branch or even a specific tree. The other morning I found myself looking at the PRONI online catalogue and found reference to a letter from Mrs Mary Ann Brown of Gilnahirk in 1930. I thought it…

I paid a visit to the lovely Linenhall Library in Belfast yesterday. It is a lovely old building which evokes the distant past but I learned only a few weeks ago that it is not actually from the end of the 18th century as I had supposed. In fact, te building was a warehouse and…

I have been learning about the murder of Hugh McKee and his family at Poagsburn near Boardmills on 9th June 1798, just before the Battle of Saintfield. Much of this has been from newspapers (thank you, Find My Past), some from a publication, or a copy of it, at the Ulster Historical Foundation and some…

Very exciting visit to PRONI today. PRONI hold the “original” Griffith’s Valuation maps for Northern Ireland and a kind member of staff helped me locate the two I needed for Barnamaghery. I was delighted to see that these rather dusty very large maps with very small detail do indeed have boundaries marked in red and…