Friday 13 March 2015

IGRS upgrades The Irish Genealogist Names Database

The Irish Genealogical Research Society (IGRS) has launched an enhanced version of 'The Irish Genealogist Names Database'.

The Irish Genealogist (TIG) is the journal of the IGRS and is highly regarded by serious genealogists for its learned approach to research and the depth of study presented by its contributors. It has been published since 1937, the year after the Society was founded by a select group of well-known genealogists with the intention of gathering together transcriptions and copies of the records lost in the 1922 fire at the Four Courts.

Over time, this remit was extended so that the journal allowed members to share the results of their work through many thousands of genealogy related articles, family histories and transcriptions of unusual records and sources. Typically, members have submitted information from newspapers, parish registers, family bibles, genealogies, voters lists, pedigrees, membership rolls, deeds, marriage settlements, census substitutes, land and tenure surveys, marriage license bonds, courts records, wills and much more besides.

A searchable TIG Names INDEX has been freely available on the IGRS website, IrishAncestors.ie, for a over a year. It allows researchers to quickly search for their ancestor's name and discover whether it appeared in any article of The Irish Genealogist published between 1937 and 2001.

Successful searches of the TIG Names INDEX return a note of the page and TIG volume numbers where the article was published, allowing the researcher to hunt down a copy of the relevant journal, which is available in most major libraries around the world, and on CD.

The Names INDEX already holds more than a quarter of a million names, and this will be extended further during 2015 when the journals for 2002 to 2014 are indexed. 

The Society's latest development, The Irish Genealogist Names Database, sees an important upgrade to the existing Name INDEX. It not only returns details of how many times an ancestor's name might appear, it also provides a direct link to a downloadable copy of the published article(s).

Phase One of this enhancement to The Irish Genealogist Names Database delivers Volume 10 – the four journals published in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 – in a fully searchable format, with linked articles. This is being made accessible, free of charge, to non-members.

All articles from TIG Volumes 11 to 13, ie all the journals published 2002 to 2014 inclusive, will be linked to The Irish Genealogist Names Database over the next nine months. These will be accessible only to IGRS members.