Monday 7 January 2013

Early January news round-up

Since I still haven't kicked this wretched lurgy into touch, I'm going to be brief and simply do a quick round-up of some news items that I picked up over the last week. It may still be some days before I'm back to normal (all sympathy gratefully received) but I'll do my best to keep you up to date with any major news.

Ancestry added some important emigration records dating from 1890 to 1960. The collection is called UK Outward Passenger Lists (Ireland still being part of the UK until 1922) and, in addition to departures from the big English ports of Liverpool and Southampton, it includes details of passengers embarking from Belfast, Cobh/Queenstown, Dublin, Galway and Londonderry.

The collection, from The National Archives in Kew, London, is searchable and browseable.

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Got any World War One memorabilia? If so, make a note of the date Thursday 21 March, when the National Library of Ireland in Kildare Street, Dublin 2 will be holding another WW1 Family History Roadshow. You can bring along your memorabilia to be digitised andd added to the Europeana online archive, along with your stories.

Places at the Roadshow are limited (previous events have been over-subscribed), so you need to act now to book your place. Email.

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Starting tonight at 8pm on UTV, Ulster Unearthed is a new six-part archaeology and heritage series which will reveal stories of Northern Ireland’s past and its Ulster-Scots links.

Using laser technology and state-of-the-art computer imaging, a team of experts explores a variety of local sites and digs across Ulster and reveals exciting new finds. Among the sites are a 400-year-old Gaelic fort at Dunnalong on the banks of the River Foyle, Carrickfergus Castle, with its nearly 1,000 years of military history, and an Ulster-Scots settlement in Bangor.

UTV/Ulster Television broadcasts on Freeview 3 (Northern Ireland only), Freesat 103, Sky 103, UPC Ireland 110, and Virgin Media 103.

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To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Ireland's Jewish community are to be the subject of an afternoon conference at PRONI at the end of the month. While times have yet to be confirmed, the event is shaping up very nicely. Four speakers will be presenting lectures – Leon Litvack, Stuart Rosenblatt, Pamela Linden and Bethany Sinclair – and a light lunch will be offered. I'll bring you further details as soon as they're available, but for the moment, keep Thursday 31 January free. Update and confirmed details here.

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FlyLeaf Press is to publish a new book in its highly-regarded Tracing your Ancestors series next month. This 160-page book, written by Brian Smith and Gerry Kennedy, will be dedicated to County Clare.

Priced at €13.00, Tracing your Clare Ancestors can be ordered online from the publisher ahead of publication.

Four more books are planned for the series during 2013. They are for counties Tipperary, Cavan, Wexford and Kildare.

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Find My Past TV returns after its Christmas break. The second series resumes on Tuesday 8 January at 9pm (on the Yesterday channel: Freeview channel 19, Sky 537, Virgin Media 203) with episode six – The Great Escape. The weekly schedule will then continue with Dickens's double life, Battle of Trafalgar, Scott of the Antarctic and the Abdication Crisis, so there's a chance of some Irish connections. But, regardless, it's an interesting show.

If you miss an episode, or can't view it where you are, you might like to try out the alternative: to watch it on Find My Past UK. The link to each episode will be uploaded to the site during the week after the broadcast (and will remain there for 30 days for non-subscribers, who have to register).

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The Genealogy Roadshow, which is scheduled to start filming its new series, is still looking for likely candidates with family mysteries that need to be solved or with ancestral connections to historical events. See more about the show on my earlier blog post, and contact the producers at genealogy@bigmountainproductions.com or call 048 308 34046 (or 028 308 34046 from Northern Ireland).