As you may know, the Leslie Global Diaspora Foundation has been researching the families of Leslie in Ireland. We have done research in the Public Records office of Northern Ireland in Belfast and the National Library in Dublin. Both locations have a substantial amount of information, and it is likely to take several more weeks of time to view all the Leslie records at PRONI.
During our last research trip, we visited with Dr. Roulston at the Ulster Historical Foundation office in Newtownards near Belfast. He was very excited to have a copy of the newly printed Townland Atlas of Ulster to show us and without hesitation we purchased the copy to bring home for the LGDF’s research library. in our suitcase to save shipping costs. It is a remarkable resource. Each barony of Ulster is subdivided into counties and each county sub-region is further divided into townlands, which are small parcels of land occupied by a few families. Ireland contains 62,205 townlands.
In doing research on another family from Ireland, we soon discovered that townland information frequently had owner and tenant names listed and organized by townlands. What is interesting in this newly published book is the colorized indications of families residing in the townlands. In Antrim, nearly every page had a code for Leslie, as shown in the photo. The townland maps and information are extremely useful when finding information in Griffith’s Valuation databases.
The Ulster Historical Foundation recently held an event to introduce the atlas to the public. The link to the online presentation of the event is posted on YouTube at: