Belfast Family History

Introduction

Individuals and families are naturally curious about their own locality and their own kinfolk a few generations back. In some instances the same families continue to live in the same street. There is enjoyment in exploring these links, from familiar names to family occupations.

Heritage

However the cultural heritage of Belfast is more complex than some imagine. Through the window of the website, it is possible to see, for instance, the great similarities between Protestant and Catholic working class families, and indeed the extent to which their residence patterns intermingled (in a way barely imaginable nowadays: Protestants living on streets off the Falls Road, Catholics living close to the Shankill Road, each sharing the Grosvenor area).

Census Forms

The details of every household in Belfast early this century are available in the National Archives in Dublin. The original census forms, filled in by Belfast households in 1901 and 1911, contain the names, addresses, occupations (spinners, weavers, shipyard workers, shopkeepers etc), religion, age, education, years of marriage, numbers of children born, and the place where born.

Wider Issues

These census forms are a unique source for individuals exploring family history but are also among the richest resources available to those seeking a deeper understanding of everyday life in the past. Among the wider issues illuminated by these records are people's occupations, age at marriage, family size, migration into Belfast from the countryside, levels of education, and the extent to which different religious groups lived side by side in the past. This resource can, in turn, be joined to other more readily accessible records like street directories and local newspapers to yield a fuller picture of life in Belfast before the Great War and Partition.

Examples

So you could, for instance, compare the occupational profile of your street or neighbourhood with that of another neighbourhood, or compare family size across different religious denominations or different social classes in your part of Belfast. These enquiries in turn could give rise to further questions: any signs of early family limitation? how severe was child mortality? was child mortality related to the age at which the mother married or perhaps her occupation? Or you might be more interested in male and female occupations, and how these varied by religion, education or place of birth. Or .... The range of possibilities is almost endless.

For those wishing to explore the social past in greater depth - community groups, women's groups, ethnic minorities, and students engaged in projects - the resources are readily available, via BelFam, for detailed explorations of occupational structure (women, men, children working), marriage patterns, family size, migration, housing conditions and religious denomination BelFam is also happy to make neighbourhood-level data available to community groups, educational institutions, women's education classes, and local history groups, and also to offer advice on the kinds of projects that might be undertaken. For further information, contact N Khaoury