Help searching the William Smith O'Brien Petition (once logged in)
| Search by |
You can search on Last name and First name, and Irish county or "England" via a "drop down" list.
The records show the following information:
- surname
- forename
- county (in Ireland, or "England")
- petition - Name of petition, usually the place where the petition was created
- address information for signatory - Where this was given in the original; may include street no and other address details
- signed at - The location where the petition was signed
- date - Date of signing. If not shown, the date must have been between October 1848 and May 1849
- misc. - This field may contain the signatory's occupation and other details.
- signature no - The sequential position of the signature within the petition.
- NAI Ref.
- The National Archives of Ireland reference for the original petition
- sheet no - The number of the sheet within the petition which contains the signature. (Some petitions, eg for Dublin and Liverpool contain thousands of signatures on hundreds of sheets.)
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| Viewing the images |
You can select to display an image of the petition itself (not including all the signatures).
Access to the images is provided directly from the index pages. Click the Image button to retrieve and display the digitised image of the petition.
Click here for help viewing images
Click here for example images
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| Display of adjacent signatures |
Click the Signatories button to display all the records for signatories on the same sheet as the one containing the signature of the selected signatory.
Browse back and forward between sheets using the Next/Previous Sheet buttons. This allows you to seek potentially related signatories.
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| Note concerning signature transcriptions |
Given that the names in the database were transcribed from signatures, you must expect that some of these signatures were difficult to transcribe, so do not be surprised if you find some "unusual" names present. Great care was taken by the transcriber, Ruth Lawler, to capture the names correctly, but in a small percentage of cases it was impossible to be sure what the name actually was.
Forenames in the signatures were often abbreviated (eg Edwd = Edward, Richd = Richard, Thos = Thomas, etc) , and such abbreviations have been retained in the database records. Most of these abbreviations have been expanded in the index, so you can search on full forenames. But many signatures just have an initial, so bear this in mind when searching.
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| NameX |
NameX is a proprietary name-matching tool which allows you to find family records for names which have common variations in spelling or which may have been spelled incorrectly on some records.
Click here for more help.
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