Marriage settlement of Wm. Stevenson & Eliz. Fleming (1716)

William Hogarth. Marriage A-la-Mode: 1, The Marriage Settlement; about 1743. Oil on canvas, 69.9 x 90.8 cm Bought, 1824 NG113. Digital image online at The National Art Gallery.Creative Commons Licence: Attribution/Non-Commerical/No-Derivatives CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Just over three hundred years ago, Capt. James Stevenson of Stewartstown and William Fleming of Portadown executed a marriage settlement on…

Irish Deeds – Updates re: Indexing & Transcription Projects

King’s Inns, Dublin, in which building is also housed The Registry of Deeds. Image credit. The purpose of this blog article is to inform our readers of updates in the Irish Deeds section on Arborealis. At the time of writing, the sub-sections include: Irish deeds: indexes and selected transcripts, 1708–1943 — an introduction to the…

… “for the considerations therein mentioned” …

or, What a Memorial of an Indented Deed is, and what it isn't. "A Local Court." (London, 1832) — Image credit. During the past few months, while transcribing and indexing memorials of Irish deeds, I've noticed certain legal terms and turns of phrase. Historic newspapers are the same way: after a time, you begin to…

Duties of the Irish tenant farmer :: one fatt Unshorne Mutton

one fatt Unshorne Mutton One Bole of Barley Twelve Fatt Henns Six days work of Man & horse The 21st century reader would be forgiven for thinking that these might have been lines from an ancient verse or folk song. As it happens, these words defined the duties of the Irish tenant farmer to his landlord, over and…