Monday 16 March 2015

St Patrick's Day offers and bargains

There are usually a few special discounts flying around for St Patrick's Day and this year is no exception. Here are a few that have come my way. If I hear of anymore in the next 24 hours, I'll post them here.

  • UHF's births, deaths, marriage, deaths & headstone records

    The Ulster Historical Foundation (UHF) has a special 50% off St Patrick's Day sale that will continue for the duration of its North American Lecture Tour. The UHF database at AncestryIreland holds two million records from across Counties Antrim and Down and Belfast. The records include RC, Church of Ireland and Presbyterian baptism, marriages and burials parish register entries, as well as civil marriages for Counties Antrim and Down, and civil birth records for Belfast.

    The half price sale will end on 30 March.

  • IrishTimes Training Course: Tracing your Irish ancestors

    Designed by the well-known genealogist John Grenham, this online course is hugely practical and provides 12-months access so that you can choose your own pace of study. It is structured around a mixture of presentations and tutorials so that it is engaging and interactive, and is delivered over 11 modules covering records, resources and research techniques. It combines detailed analysis of the relevant sources.

    I don't have a note of the current standard price of the course (it cost €99 two years ago) but the special offer for St Patrick's is just €29.99. I'm not sure how long that price will hold, so don't delay if you want to take ITT up on the offer.

    See the full course description and sign up.

    UPDATE, 18 March: Due to 'phenomenol demand', the special offer has been extended to the end of March.

  • E-book British and Irish Newspapers

    A 50% discount is available until the end of the month on the e-book version of British and Irish Newspapers by Chris Paton of BritishGenes fame. The book was published last May, a little before the British Newspaper Archive cranked up its green button and increased its coverage of Irish titles, but it's still a very useful booklet for learning the most likely places to access newspapers online and offline, as well as pointing you in the direction of some lesser known titles that have great potential for your research.

    The ebook is available through Gen-ebooks.com, part of the Australian publisher Gould Genealogy, and is normally sold for AU$7.95. The discounted price of AU$3.95 converts (at today's rates) to around €2.86/£2.04/US$3.02. You can order the book or view a free sample here.

  • FindMyPast's World collection of 2billion records

    FindMyPast is offering a first month's access to its World collection for just €1, £1, $1. The standard month's price for this package is €14.95, £12.95, $19.95, so significant savings are available for access to FindMyPast's collection of two billion records, including millions of worldwide Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, the largest online collection of Irish Family History records, and more than 10 million British and Irish newspaper pages dating back to 1710, plus much more.

    For full details, see my blogpost from last week and act quickly, as this offer expires on St Patrick's Day at midnight.

  • Legacy Family Tree Webinars

    Three 'archived' webinars have been made available for viewing free of charge until Wednesday 18 March. All three are webinars presented by Judith Eccles Wight, owner of Wight House Research, an Irish genealogy specialist. The subjects of the three webinars are:

    – The Three Cs of Irish Research: Civil registration, church records, & census. Details.
    – Breaking down your Irish brick wall: Irish estate records. Details.
    – Some lesser-known Irish resources. Details.

    If you're quick you could also register for Irish Genealogical Records in the 17th-19th Centuries which Judith will be presenting on Wednesday (2pm Eastern, 6pm GMT). It's aimed at intermediate to advanced researchers.

  • E-booklet listing all new Irish genealogy records released during 2014

    This one comes from Yours Truly and it's a St Patrick's Day gift, rather than an offer or bargain.

    It's an unfussy 20-page listing, arranged by resource type ie census, wills, church records, of all the new and upgraded Irish family history records released from January to December 2014.

    Published last week, it's been merrily sailing around the Internet and seems to have been well-received by researchers.

    In pdf format, it can be downloaded (4.3Mb) from my website.