Thursday 2 July 2015

Tracing Irish Ancestors with Family Tree magazine

www.shopfamilytree.com/family-tree-magazine-july-august-2015
Click for the July/August issue's contents
The July/August issue of US-based Family Tree Magazine has just been published and carries my guide to the 12 top websites for tracing Irish ancestors.

It was a pleasure to work with the editor, Diane Haddad, and I'm delighted with the attractive presentation of the seven-page spread and the strap banner on the cover.

Choosing the 12 websites was harder than I'd expected, not least because I had to keep in mind the US perspective, but also because I really had only 11 spots available. One website had a guaranteed place in the line up, even though it doesn't yet exist: the National Library of Ireland's RC parish registers site, to be launched next Wednesday!

Researching the feature was also a very useful exercise for me, personally, because I had to revisit some of the sites whose records I've mined over and over in my own research and thought I'd exhausted.

Revisiting proved beyond doubt that websites are being continually updated, whether with new collections or partial record sets or with improved search mechanisms; nothing seems to stand still. I was surprised and delighted to find quite a few records for my family among collections I know I've searched before.