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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2000-08 > 0967313560


From: <>
Subject: Re: Is there an EIRE in Ireland?
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 11:12:40 -0700


Hi Malinda,

>What is Lewis' Topological Dictionary...is it on-line ?

I don't think so. It's on CD. In Huntington Beach, California,
is one of the world's rarest things -- a genealogy bookstore.
it is the Huntington Beach Library, which also has a huge
genie collection. The owner of the store used to be the librarian
for the New England Genealogical Society. So this lady is both
a librarian and a genealogical librarian. As if this isn't wonderful
enough, Sue also does Irish research. If Sue says "buy this",
I buy it if I can afford it. It doesn't get better than Sue.

One day I was in there (I am addicted and begin craving it after
the last fix wears off) and she showed me this CD. Now....us
Americans, we don't understand why we need gazetteers. Just yesterday
Linda Jonas, at the British Isles Family History Society USA
conference, in her lecture on how to do English or British research
from the USA, said, "The first thing you do is get a gazetteer" and
she explained how. Linda just wrote a book with Paul Milner on
English genealogy. It is GRAND because she shows you how to do the
research step by step.

You need a gazetteer because you don't know the place and the
names may have changed since your ancestor left. So when you go to
an new country to do research, you need a gazetteer. Now these things
are expensive. The "Immigrant Genealogist Society" newsletter arrived
yesterday. These folk have a whole lecture on using a new one
they got. The article says "Meyers' Gazetteer was recently republished
so we now have this three vol set. We've wished we had it for years...
. [It] lists the identifiable places that existed in 1871...It tells
whether each place has its own political, transportation, communications, religious, edicuational and social welfare facilities,
or where it receives these services." This one is condensed, written
in old German script, and uses abreviations. You have to learn how to
use it by attending the lecture.

Not us, lucky dogs that we are. This German one that the German
Society lusted after for years has a British correspondent. It is
Lewis's Gazetteers of England, Ireland, and Scotland.... Lovely and
expensive. So expensive Sue lusted all her life after them and could
not afford them. Lewis wrote his in the 1830's. He identifies the
tiny, obscure churches, the NAMES OF THE ESTATES and major 'seats'
in the area, the history of the community, the church names, and
industries, etc. etc.

Now, Sue, informed me, you can get all three on CD. It's
CD 270, that you can get at www.familytreemaker.com . Needless to
say, sight unseen, I bought one, and have never regretted it.
Even if you are just (just!!ha!) writing a novel you can get a lot
of "local color" from these gazetteers. You use a newer one to get,
in England, the registration district that your locale is in. If
you get insomnia some night, load it up and look up places and
be entertained all night long.

Anything the local genealogist librarian has lusted over for years
is worth buying. If you don't use it a whole lot, donate it, get
a tax deduction. Then you can use it, and they like you better at the
local library <grin>.

Eire is most likely Ireland itself.

In Lewis, I looked up Swatragh, a small village near Castledawson.
It came up a number of times. I clicked on one and found it described
under Maghera, its "market, post town, and parish". Maghera is
16 miles from Coleraine and 102 from Dublin, on the mail road
to Coleraine, and had 14,091 inhabitants in the parish with 1154 in the
town. It is very old, with evidence of an abbey in 597. It was burned
in 1641 by the McDonnell insurgents. It was destroyed again in 1688
by King James' men AND THE PEOPLE SOUGHT REFUGE IN DERRY. It goes
on for pages, including the major seats. Says "On the plantation of
Ulster, the lands of the ancient see of Maghera were confirmed to
the Bishop of Derry, and the other parts of the parish were also
assigned by Jas I to the Mercer,s Vintner's, Salters, and Drapers'
companies of London who still retain possession of their manners".
So....locating which company owned the village will mean searching for
the townland......

The principal seats: "Maghera House, residence of A Clark, Esq,
CLOVER HILL, of R Forrester, Esq., and the glebe-house [manse]
of the Rev J Spencer KNOX." it then goes on to describe how much
money the tithes raise, when the glebe house was built (1725),
describing the church, etc. There were three Sunday schools and
15 private schools in town -- with 550 children. it describes local
raths and celtic swords, etc, found in the area, and who has the
sword -- the Rev Knox. It was, in the early 1800's, a busy, bustling
place, was it not? You read about it and you feel you are there.

This book gives you an incredibly detailed picture of life in this
town and parish, the leading personalities too. Sometimes you have
only a clue to the location of the ancestor. Perhaps they said only
"I was born at Clover Hill, where my parents were servants". Great,
but where the hey is Clover Hill? CLOVER HILL IS INDEXED IN THIS CD.
There were six in Ireland, or 6 in the index. So it's great to use
to find obscure place names that don't appear in the townland index.

Linda Merle


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