The reason for the long delay in posting is that I have been in Dublin on a research trip with some far-flung cousins that proved to be very exciting. I spent quite a bit of time in the Registry of Deeds at Kings' Inn, Henrietta St., Dublin which proved to be a fascinating rummage around in 200+ year old ledgers, deciphering flowery legal prose. Make sure you have had your porridge before spending a day here as some of the volumes are huge and very very heavy! You have to pick your way through either the family name or townlands index books to get the reference numbers for the deeds and then you're off, lugging ledgers off the shelves yourselves and leafing through time.
There are several different types of deeds that might have been registered (John Grenham describes them clearly here.) The most useful documents genealogically are probably marriage settlements - hence the title of this post. Essentially, these were the pre-nups of their day, making provisions for the future couple and others. Within some of these, I got some major breakthroughs with my Jones and Smith ancestors (I kid you not!) as family relationships were detailed in relation to lands.
Often reference is made to earlier deeds so it can become quite addictive hunting down the paper trail and because you can look at the transcripts yourself, you are not having to wait or pay for documents to be fetched for you only to find out they don't apply to your family. There is no guarantee that you will find anything for your family - the Registry dates from 1708 but it is generally limited in scope to a minority of the Protestant land-holding families (Again, see John Grenham's excellent "Tracing Your Irish Ancestors" for a better explanantion.)
Some deeds are short enough to transcribe (you may not take photographs) but it is worth ordering longer ones albeit at 20 Euro each. What you get is an actual A3 copy of the "Memorial" which will probably have your ancestors actual signatures!
There are several different types of deeds that might have been registered (John Grenham describes them clearly here.) The most useful documents genealogically are probably marriage settlements - hence the title of this post. Essentially, these were the pre-nups of their day, making provisions for the future couple and others. Within some of these, I got some major breakthroughs with my Jones and Smith ancestors (I kid you not!) as family relationships were detailed in relation to lands.
Often reference is made to earlier deeds so it can become quite addictive hunting down the paper trail and because you can look at the transcripts yourself, you are not having to wait or pay for documents to be fetched for you only to find out they don't apply to your family. There is no guarantee that you will find anything for your family - the Registry dates from 1708 but it is generally limited in scope to a minority of the Protestant land-holding families (Again, see John Grenham's excellent "Tracing Your Irish Ancestors" for a better explanantion.)
Some deeds are short enough to transcribe (you may not take photographs) but it is worth ordering longer ones albeit at 20 Euro each. What you get is an actual A3 copy of the "Memorial" which will probably have your ancestors actual signatures!