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Ireland Antrim  Belfast

Ireland Belfast

Guide to Belfast history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
The name Belfast is derived from the Irish Béal Feirsde, which was later spelt Béal Feirste. The word béal means "mouth" or "rivermouth" while feirsde/feirste is the genitive singular of fearsaid and refers to a sandbar or tidal ford across a river's mouth.

The site of Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age. The Giant's Ring, a 5,000-year-old henge, is located near the city, and the remains of Iron Age hill forts can still be seen in the surrounding hills.

Belfast became a substantial settlement in the 17th century which was initially settled by Protestant English and Scottish migrants at the time of the Plantation of Ulster.

Belfast blossomed as a commercial and industrial centre in the 18th and 19th centuries and became Ireland's pre-eminent industrial city. Industries thrived, including linen, rope-making, tobacco, heavy engineering and shipbuilding, and at the end of the 19th century, Belfast briefly overtook Dublin as the largest city in Ireland. The Harland and Wolff shipyards became one of the largest shipbuilders in the world, employing up to 35,000 workers.

In 1920–22, Belfast became the capital of the new entity of Northern Ireland as the island of Ireland was partitioned. The accompanying conflict (the Irish War of Independence) cost up to 500 lives in Belfast, the bloodiest sectarian strife in the city until the Troubles of the late 1960s onward. Belfast saw some of the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, particularly in the 1970s, with rival paramilitary groups formed on both sides. Bombing, assassination and street violence formed a backdrop to life throughout the Troubles. The Provisional IRA detonated 22 bombs within the confines of Belfast city center in 1972, on what is known as "Bloody Friday", killing eleven people. In all, over 1,600 people were killed in political violence in the city between 1969 and 2001.

Cemeteries (Civil)
Belfast has 3 active cemeteries, plus manages 5 graveyards that are not now in use. The following website from the Belfast City Council provides basic information on all these units.


 * Belfast City Council Cemetery link

Additionally there is one other cemetery that is not used today. It is the Milltown cemetery. The following links can help for this cemetery:


 * Ancestry.com: Milltown Cemetery


 * findagrave.com: Milltown Cemetery

Parishes
Because of the way Belfast was originally settled, there is a large Anglican community. The Diocese website has much information:


 * Connor Anglican Diocese

Specific parishes follow:

St. Thomas' Church


 * 1A Eglantine Avenue
 * Belfast BT9 6DW

St. George's Church


 * 105 High Street
 * Belfast BT1 2AG

Non Conformists
Belfast's other major Christian Fellowship is the Roman Catholic Church.

St. Peter's Cathedral


 * 8 St. Peters Square South
 * Belfast BT12 4BU

St. Patrick's Church


 * 199 Donegall Street
 * Belfast BT1 2FL

St. Mary's


 * Chapel Lane
 * Belfast

Other Christian Groups represented in Belfast follow:


 * Antioch Orthodox Church
 * Baptist
 * Church of Christ
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * First Church of Christ Scientist
 * Methodist
 * Seventh Day Adventist

Non Christian Groups include:


 * Belfast has an Islamic Center
 * Hare Krishna
 * Hindu
 * Sikh

Civil Registration
Civil registration is the recording of births, marriages, and deaths, in England, and began in 1837. Civil registration records were recorded at the local registration office and the National registration offices. If you cannot find the civil registration in one index, search the other index as they are different indexes.
 * Belfast City BMD records office


 * Irish Statutory BMD records


 * Family Ulster BMD records

Local Histories

 * The History of Leicester by James Thompson
 * A Peoples History of Leicester
 * Leicestershire History

Maps and Gazetteers

 * Map of Leicester
 * oldmapsonline: Leicester
 * Ancestry.com; Old maps of Leicestershire
 * visionofbritain; Leicester Gazetteer
 * genuki.com Leicester Gazetteer

Newspapers
Newspapers for Leicester:
 * Leicester Mercury
 * The Guardian; Leicester

Occupations
Leicester has the largest economy in the East Midlands. A recent study by emda/Experian estimated the GVA to be £15.3 billion. Companies that have their principal offices or significant sites in Leicester and the surrounding area include; Brantano Footwear, Dunelm Mill, Next, Shoe Zone, Everards brewing and associated, KPMG, Mazars, Cambridge & Counties Bank, HSBC & Santander banking, Hastings Insurance, British Gas, British Telecom, Caterpillar (Inc.), Topps Tiles and DHL.

Engineering is an important part of the economy of Leicester. Companies include Jones & Shipman (machine tools and control systems), Richards Engineering (foundry equipment), Transmon Engineering (materials handling equipment) and Trelleborg (suspension components for rail, marine, and industrial applications). Local commitment to nurturing British engineers includes apprenticeship schemes with local companies, and academic-industrial connections with the engineering departments at Leicester University, De Montfort University, and nearby Loughborough University. Leicester was also home to the famous Gents' of Leicester clock manufacturers.

Foodstuffs manufacturing and the food industry are also important segments of the Leicester occupations scene. Henry Walker was a successful pork butcher who moved from Mansfield to Leicester in the 1880s to take over an established business in High Street. His first Walker's crisp production line was in the empty upper story of Walker's Oxford Street factory in Leicester. In the early days the potatoes were sliced up by hand and cooked in an ordinary fish and chip fryer. In 1971 the Walker's crisps business was sold to Standard Brands, an American firm, who sold on the company to Frito-Lay. Walker's crisps currently makes 10 million bags of crisps per day at two factories in Beaumont Leys, and is the UK's largest grocery brand. The Beaumont Leys manufacturing plant is the largest crisp factory in the world.

In the area of meat products production, the sausage and pie business was bought out by Samworth Brothers in 1986. Production outgrew the Cobden Street site and pork pies are now manufactured at a meat processing factory and bakery in Beaumont Leys, coincidentally situated near the separately owned crisp factories. Sold under the Walker's name and under UK retailers own brands such as Tesco, over three million hot and cold pies are made each week.

Societies

 * Leicester City Family History Society
 * Leicestershire and Rutland Family History Society
 * Leicestershire History SOciety

Archives

 * British Newspaper Archives: Leicester Chronicle
 * University of Leicester Archives
 * The National Archives; Leicestershire and Rutland

Web Sites

 * wikipedia; Leicester
 * Leicester City Council
 * Leicestershire County Council