Monday 8 October 2012

Take Three: Recent updates by the 'Big 3'

I've been away for a few days, during which time a few collections have been added to the three major family history databases. Here they are:

Find My Past UK has finally joined its sister sites in Australia/NZ, Ireland and the US in introducing a World subscription package. You can see the list of Irish records available through the UK site here.

An introductory subscription rate is currently available. This brings the normal price of a 12-month package down by £20 to £139.95, while the 6-month subscription has a £10 discount, reducing the fee to £89.95.

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Ancestry has added an index to Find A Grave Ireland. Within this index are details of 45,201 grave records covering deaths from 1750 to 2011.

A search on the main Ancestry search interface returns a Results page of likely candidates ie a search for Bridget Tierney born c1850 returns a list of just one. By choosing that option, you are advised that the Bridget Tierney to which this record relates is buried in Drumcliff Cemetery in Ennis, co Clare, and that the details can be found on FindAGrave. You can then click to see the details on that site.

Details provided by FindAGrave vary enormously.

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FamilySearch has added some more English and Welsh records that may be of use to your Irish genealogy research.

Montgomeryshire Parish Registers
1538-1912: For some unknown reason these 416,043 records were excluded from the big upload of 2.3million indexed Welsh records at the tail end of last month. These have now been added, and complete the Welsh parish register line-up (see updated list here).

Northumberland, Cumberland and Durham, Miscellaneous Records 1570-2005: This collection, published as browsable images only, includes parish registers, electoral registers, Non-conformist records and Parish Chest records for some 80-odd parishes.