The Armagh Guardian, 1844-1852

A fully indexed compilation of Birth, Marriage, and Death notices from The Armagh Guardian newspaper, 1844-1852 (second edition).

:: :: ::

John Thompson (1815-1880), proprietor and editor of The Armagh Guardian, got his start in the newspaper business under the tutelage of William Trimble (1802-1886), publisher of the Impartial Reporter and Farmers' Journal at Enniskillen, in the county Fermanagh. Embarking on his own newsprint venture, Thompson printed the inaugural edition of The Armagh Guardian on December 3, 1844. He continued to publish from 63, English-street, Armagh, until his death on February 5, 1880, when his son, William Copeland Bracken Thompson (1849-1892) succeeded him.

This book presents transcriptions of birth, marriage, and death notices from historic editions of The Armagh Guardian, published between December 3, 1844 and December 25, 1852. This period corresponds with that dark epoch in Irish history known as the Great Famine, or in the Gaeilge language, an Gorta Mór-from the earliest reports of disease found in the potato crops in late 1844, to the dénouement of this national tragedy in the early 1850s-in an Ireland permanently altered by the consequences of mass hunger, disease, death, and emigration.

Between 1844-1852, Mr. Thompson published 6,453 birth, marriage, and death notices. These notices contain 14,534 surname references-all indexed in this volume. This SECOND EDITION includes 25,982 indexed references-seventy pages in all-to place names: 22,353 within Ireland, and 3,629 places around the world, ranging from England (1,963), Scotland (402), the USA (391), and the Canadian provinces (169), to the East Indies (115), France (71), Australia (47), and other farflung locations around the globe.

Whether employed in the pursuit of family or local history research, or perused at leisure in an armchair, may this book also serve as a tribute to the memory of the people who were born in the county of Armagh, in neighbouring counties, or in Ireland generally, and-perhaps, especially-to the multitudes who suffered during the famine years, and whose names were not immortalized in the pages of The Armagh Guardian or other Irish provincial journals.

:: :: ::

Alison Kilpatrick is an amateur genealogist with a keen interest in historic newspapers. Alison is well known in the online community, as much for her family history research interests in Ireland and England, as for the volume and reliability of her transcriptions from 18th and 19th century Irish newspapers, covering several counties in the province of Ulster.

Alison developed an interest in The Armagh Guardian whilst researching her Flavell and Gilmore ancestors from the parish of Drumcree, and the Huggins, Kennedy, Marshall, O'Brien, Stevenson, and Thompson families of Caledon, Glenarb, Glenkeen, Carland, Dungannon, Pomeroy, Stewartstown, and Strabane, in the county Tyrone.