If you research Scots-Irish ancestors, you'll be interested in reading the latest Genealogy Gems: News from the Allen County Public Library at Fort Wayne, which includes an informative review of William J. Roulston's new book. Thanks to ACPL, here it is:

Researching Ulster Ancestors, 1800-1914: The Essential Genealogical Guide
(Reviewed by John D. Beatty, CG, FASG)
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The Scots-Irish are an ethnic group that touches the ancestry of many Americans. The group emerged in the northern Irish province of Ulster after large English landowners transplanted Protestant Scottish settlers there in the seventeenth century to help subdue Ireland from a cycle of Gaelic-led rebellion. Beginning in the eighteenth century, these ethnic Scots immigrated in large numbers to colonial America and became one of its most consequential ethnic groups at the time of the American Revolution.

Finding Scots Irish ancestors is a major challenge for genealogists. The records are fragmentary, and the settlers themselves, once they settled in America, left few clues about their exact place of origin in Ulster. By far the most authoritative guide to Scots-Irish or Ulster Scot records is William J. Roulston’s "Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors: The Essential Genealogical Guide to Early Modern Ulster, 1600-1800," published in its second edition in 2018 (GC 941.6 R759ra). Dr. Roulston, who is Research Director of the Ulster Historical Foundation in Belfast, presents a nearly comprehensive account of genealogical records and lists of Ulster towns, together with available church records, secondary works, family papers, and other archival records.

Roulston has come out with a new volume, a sequel to his earlier guide, titled "Researching Ulster Ancestors, 1800-1914: The Essential Genealogical Guide" (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2026) (GC 941.6 R759re). Like the previous book, it presents Roulston’s encyclopedic knowledge of resources, record groups, and research methodologies for accessing Ulster records in the nineteenth century.

The book is organized into twenty chapters: Introduction; Printed sources; Church records; Civil registration; Census records; Gravestone inscriptions; Valuation records; Records of land organization and management (including estate records); Education records; Medical and hospital records; Wills and testamentary papers; Governmental and civil administrative records; Law and order; Election and political records; Businesses, occupations, and trades; Fraternal organizations; Records of Charity and relief; Records of the armed forces; Diaries, journals and memoirs; and Records of emigrants and emigration. Each chapter had many subdivisions, in which Roulston discusses specific record groups, many of which can be found at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). His detailed descriptions will help the reader decide whether a collection would benefit one’s genealogical research. He concludes the book with detailed parish maps for Ulster’s nine counties (Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Derry-Londonderry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Monaghan, and Tyrone); a list of archives and libraries; and a list of locations in Ulster, including the civil parish and county.

Americans with Scots-Irish ancestors immigrating in the eighteenth century may not find this sequel book as useful as the first, but they should not ignore it. Those immigrants may have left family behind in Ulster that will turn up in later records, and they may be keys to finding earlier information. Also missing from the sequel is Roulston’s alphabetized list of Ulster towns, which included references to associated church records, secondary sources, and other archival records. Perhaps he reasoned that the list from the earlier book would still benefit those with a later focus.

“Researching Ulster Ancestors” remains a tour de force – a work that deserves the careful study of every American genealogist wishing to do research in Ulster. Not every collection will be relevant, but it contains many references that will be invaluable to research.

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