Introductions to significant privately deposited archives

Some of the archives held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) are extensive and/or of major value to a range of researchers.

An example would be the papers of the Abercorn family.  This one collection comprises 40 PRONI boxes of documents, plus 88 bundles, 759 volumes and just under 30,000 individually numbered documents dating from 1219 to 1963.  It contains everything from estate rentals and leases to photographs and plans.  There are documents and manuscripts giving first hand accounts of such historic events as the Plantation of Ulster, the Land Wars, the Great Irish Famine and the Partition of Ireland.  If fact, this one archive is a mine of information for students of geography, politics, history and demography as well as the genealogist and local historian.

Treading through the wealth of information in some of PRONI's archives requires a competent guide.  This is why the detailed introductions written by the experts who catalogued and classified these papers are so important to the researcher.

Many of the following introductions have been written or compiled by Dr A P W Malcomson, former Deputy Keeper of the Records at PRONI.

The list which follows represents only a very small proportion of privately deposited archives held by PRONI.  It is constantly being expanded.  Introductions to government departmental and non-departmental records are currently being composed.

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z