Thursday 13 February 2014

Free Genealogy Day in Limerick: 15 March

Christ Church Limerick, 15 March. FREE.
Following on from last year's success, Limerick's Genealogy Day 2014 is gearing up to be a must-visit family history event. It's to be held on Saturday 15 March – St Patrick's weekend – in Ireland's City Of Culture, and it's completely free to attend, so it already has a lot to recommend it!

As last year, the organisers are bringing together the historical church registers from several denominations in and around the City: Church of Ireland, Methodist, Presbyterian and Quaker. This in a rare opportunity to view the original baptism and marriage records, and is being made possible under the guidance of Limerick Council Archivist Jacqui Hayes who is setting up the systems and protocols for handling and accessibility.

Limerick Genealogy, Clare Roots Society, and members of the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland (APGI) will be providing free genealogical help and advice to visitors, whether they are completely new to family history or have already started their research.

And regional historical groups and societies will be ready to answer queries about local history issues.

This year's Genealogy Day will also have a special emphasis on the 100th-year anniversary of the start of the First World War, so the Royal Munster Fusiliers Association will be in attendance and may be presenting a talk in the afternoon. Also marking Ireland's Decade of Centenaries, will be a team from Trinity College Dublin's 'Letters of 1916' project.

This is the first public humanities project in Ireland. Its goal is to create a crowd-sourced digital collection of letters written around the time of the Easter Rising (1 November 1915 – 31 October 1916). The project will include letters held at institutions (in Ireland and abroad), alongside those in private collections and will feature letters by private individuals, soldiers, and officials, with comment about the world around them: the Easter Rising, literature and art, the Great War, politics, business, or ordinary life.

Visitors to Genealogy Day will be able to bring along suitable letters held at home and add them to this virtual collection or they can help in transcribing previously uploaded letters.

Plans are still coming together, but it's already looking very focussed and worth attending. You can download the Limerick City Of Culture programme by clicking the logo below (Genealogy Day is on page 29), or follow the Facebook page here.


http://www.limerickcityofculture.ie/sites/default/files/JAN-MAR WEB.pdf