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 centres 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.

Your Irish Ancestors provides an entertaining insight into everyday life in Ireland during the past four centuries. Aimed primarily at the family and social historian, Ian Maxwell's highly readable guide introduces researchers to the wealth of material available in archives throughout Ireland. Many records, like the early twentieth century census returns and school registers will be familiar to researchers, but others have been traditionally overlooked by all but the most experienced genealogists. Each chapter takes the form of a detailed social history showing how the lives of our ancestors changed over the centuries and how this is reflected in the records that have survived, and it is in this broad historical approach that Ian Maxwell's work stands out from other guides to Irish genealogy. Your Irish Ancestors is more than just a technical 'how-to-do it' book, for it will help family historians put their ancestral research in historical perspective, giving them a better understanding of the world in which their ancestors lived.