Records update

Nearing completion of the first stage of the Ulster Covenant page with the addition of the 78 Richardsons who signed the Covenant in the Belfast South area. Just Belfast East and those in Scotland to come as far as I am aware before the first stage is complete.

Records update

Back updating the Ulster Covenant page, I've added 51 new records, this time covering the Belfast East and Belfast North divisions as well as a Belfast Richardson signing in Sussex, England. Belfast South and Belfast West divisions to follow.

Early Census'

Census' where held every ten years in Ireland, starting in 1821. Unfortunately the census' for 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891 where turned into pulp by government order during World War One. The reasons for this is unknown and at best speculation. One theory is that it was to hide the impact of the Great Famine in Ireland between 1845-52, yet population statistics remain collated from those census'.

A further disaster for family tree enthusiasts struck during the Irish Civil War in 1922-23 when the IRA purposely set about soaking records in petrol and setting them on fire in the Public Records Office in Dublin. The result was the mass destruction of historical documents going back to the 12th century. As a result many important documents where forever lost including a lot of church records and the census' for 1821, 1831, 1841, and 1851. The 1901 and 1911 census' survived intact.

Whilst these early census' where not very in-depth, the information to be found can be useful in tracing certain people to specific areas. The information recorded in each census varied.

A minor consolation is that small fragments of these burnt census' do survive for parts of Ireland such as a specific parish or in the case for 1831, the entire county of Londonderry. The following Excel file lists the forty-one Richardsons to be found in Ulster in these surviving fragments:

• Early Census'.xlsx

Records update

The next update to the Ulster Covenant page is the 75 records from the Tyrone East constituency, taking the grand total number of names in the file to 401 at present. Next on the list will be the capital of Northern Ireland and Ulster, the city of Belfast.

Records update

Once again I've added updated the Ulster Covenant page with 23 new records giving a total so far of 326. This update adds all the Richardsons from the Tyrone South constituency. Many more still to come.

What I've seen throughout the compilation of these Covenant records is just how many of these Richardsons live in certain locales, prevalent in neighbouring townlands and settlements. A more in-depth map showing the density per townland of all these Richardsons would really show just how common they are to quite specific areas.