Monday 14 March 2016

IGRS adds free index to Wilson's Dublin Directory 1803

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5-KQnqDiArgOHJBNlE4VXNXWVk/view?usp=sharing
Click image to view a sample 'Merchants' page
To mark St. Patrick's Day 2016, the Irish Genealogical Research Society is pleased to announce the launch of another free resource on its website.

It's a database index to Wilson’s Dublin Directory, forming part of the 1803 edition of The Treble Almanac, published during the years 1787 to 1837.

As its name of the Almanac suggests, it comprised three separate directories:
  • The first was John Watson Stewart’s Almanac, which noted a wide variety of information relating to Ireland, encompassing details about mail and stage coach timetables, establishment lists for the army and navy, schools etc.
  • The second was the English Court Registry, listing royalty, nobility, parliamentarians, military and naval lists, the civil establishment and judiciary lists and etc;
  • The third, and by far the most useful to genealogists, is Wilson’s Dublin Directory.
Wilson's Dublin Directory includes a very comprehensive list of Dublin’s barristers, attorneys, medical practitioners, merchants, pawnbrokers, grocers, shoemakers, tanners, upholsters, auctioneers, brewers, painters, ironmongers, drapers, butchers, bakers, tailors etc. It also includes a list of the capital city’s streets, lanes and alleyways.

The database notes for each entry the name of the person, their occupation, street address and provides a link to a map taken from the Statistical Survey of the County Dublin, (Dublin, 1802).

It currently comprises just over 4,000 entries. This will increase to 7,500 as transcription continues.

In launching the new resource, Steven Smyrl, the Society's chairman, said: "This is another valuable resource being added to the IGRS website. Trade directories can allow the researcher to quickly identify where in a large town their merchant or tradesman ancestor lived and worked, opening up further access to guild records, parish registers and freeman rolls.

"I would like to thank Nick Reddan, the Society's webmaster, and Jan Vagg, for their hard work in compiling this valuable database. Both Nick and Jan are based in Australia, proving that distance is no barrier to assisting the Society through volunteer indexing and transcribing."

The database is a free resource: search here.