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 twentieth-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 centers 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
nineteenth century and beyond.