Thursday 30 September 2021

And another upload for RootsIreland's County Kerry collection

Here we go for another upload - the fifth since May – to RootsIreland.ie's County Kerry database.

This time, it's a batch of nearly 3,000 Roman Catholic marriage records from two parishes, as follows:

  • Allihies* Parish, 1823-1872 (1594 records)
  • Kilgarvan Parish, 1818-1895 (1304 records)

* Please note that Allihies Parish is located on the Atlantic tip of the Beara Peninsula and is in County Cork. However, like all RC parishes on the Peninsula, it is within the boundaries of the Diocese of Kerry, so these records are correctly, if confusingly, held in the County Kerry database.

With this upload, there are now 346,000 records in the Kerry database.

To view an up-to-date list of Kerry sources, click the logo above right. Or to search the records go to kerry.rootsireland.ie and login or subscribe as required.


Wednesday 29 September 2021

Irish History from Plantation to Partition: Free online lecture series

    Petty's map of Ireland, 1695

Armagh Robinson Library, in collaboration with Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council, has organised a six-week lecture series that will explore Irish history from the Plantation of Ulster to Partition.

The free lectures will be delivered by Zoom on Wednesday evenings (7.30pm-8.30pm) from 13 October to 17 November.

Here's the programme:

  • Wednesday 13 October: The establishment of Ulster's Plantation Towns, with Dr Brendan Scott (Historian-in-Residence, Cavan CoCo)
  • Wednesday 20 October: From the 1641 Rising to the Restoration, with Dr Robert Armstrong (TCD)
  • Wednesday 27 October: The Williamite-Jacobite War, with Professor David Hayton (QUB)
  • Wednesday 3 November: Revolutionary Ulster, 1776-1801, with Dr Andrew Holmes (QUB)
  • Wednesday 10 November: The Great Famine and 19th-century politics pre-1870, with Professor Peter Gray (QUB)
  • Wednesday 17 November: Home Rule and the Road to Partition, with Dr Eamon Phoenix

You can book online here for the full series or for individual lectures. If you prefer, you can reserve your place by email to admin@armgahrobinsonlibrary.co.uk or call 028 3752 3142.

Tuesday 28 September 2021

Irish genealogy and history events, 28 September to 16 October

Continuing to 10 October: Dublin Festival of History 2021 presents some 100 free events, both online and in-person. Host: Dublin City Council. More tickets have already had to be made available, such was the response to some events, so don't delay in booking your tickets. See http://dublinfestivalofhistory.ie

Tuesday 28 September: Tracing your Irish Family online, with Chris Paton. Host: North of Ireland Family History Society, Belfast Branch. An online lecture. All welcome to join the zoom meeting. 7:30pm. Email belfast@nifhs.org by 6pm for details and links.

Wednesday 29 September: From Townhouse to Tenement, with Dr Tim Murtagh and Ciarán Wallace. Part of the 14 Henrietta Street Teatime Talks series. Zoom. Free. Need to register.

Friday 1 October: Aspects of life and death in the Workhouse, with Clare Doyle MAGI. A First Friday Talk from the Irish Workhouse Centre, Portumna. Online at 8pm. Fee €5 via paypal. To book.

Wednesday 6 October: The Path to Partition, 1900–1922, with Dr Eamon Phoenix. Host: Heritage from Home Series / LibrariesNI. A free online lecture starting at 12:30pm. Booking essential.

Thursday 7 October: Rathmines Through Time and Space: From Medieval Rath to Flatland, with Seamas O Maitiu. Hosted by the Irish Historic Towns Atlas/Royal Irish Academy as part of Dublin Festival of History. Zoom lecture. Free. 7pm to 8:30pm. Need to book.

Thursday 7 October to 6 November: The Art Of Negotiation: John Lavery's Anglo Irish Treaty Portraits, an exhibition, with talks and tours throughout the month. Embassy of Ireland, 17 Grosvenor Place, London SW1X 7HR. Free tickets.

Tuesday 12 October: The Significance of the Irish Townland as an Analytical Tool for the genealogist and local historian, with the founder of CavanTownlands.com, Michael McShane. Host: The Genealogical Society of Ireland. 8pm, on zoom. All welcome. For details, email Membership@familyhistory.ie

Tuesday 12 to Saturday 23 October: The Treaty, 1921: Records from the Archives, an in-person exhibition. Hosts: Irish Embassy in London, National Archives of Ireland, British Academy and Royal Irish Academy. Venue: British Academy, Carlton House Terrace, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AH. Free but booking essential. Timed admission slots available throughout the day.

Tuesday 12 October: More than two sides to every border story, with Dr Darach MacDonald. Host: Heritage from Home Series / LibrariesNI. A free online lecture starting at 12:30pm. Booking essential.

Tuesday 12 October: A fight to the finish: The 1920 Hunger Strike of Michael Fitzgerald, an online lecture with Gerard Shannon. Host: Áras Uí Chonghaile | James Connolly Visitor Centre. Zoom. 8pm. YouTube or Facebook. No need to book.

Wednesday 13 October: The Boer War and its Legacy, with Dr Spencer Jones. Host: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. Free. Online. 8pm to 9pm. Need to book.

Thursday 14 October: The 1798 rebellion in Offaly, with Dr Ciaran Reilly. Host: Offaly Libraries History Lecture Series 2021. Online via Offaly Libraries’ Facebook and YOUTUBE channels. Free to view. 7:30pm.

 

Monday 27 September 2021

A small addition to RootsIreland.ie's Kerry database of RC records

RootsIreland.ie, the database created by the Irish Family History Foundation's island-wide network of genealogy centres, has received another update, this time with more records from County Kerry.

This update is small – just 2,300 baptism records for the parish of Knocknagoshel dating from 1867–1907 – but as welcome as any others. It also pushes the number of Kerry records added to the database in the last four months to an impressive 340,300. All have been Catholic records.

To view an up-to-date list of Kerry sources, click the logo right. Or to search the records go to kerry.rootsireland.ie and login or subscribe as required.


Friday 24 September 2021

New and updated British genealogy collections: 10-day summary

Below is a summary of new and updated family history record collections for England, Scotland and Wales released by the major genealogy databases over the last 10 days (see previous summary, 13 September).

My regular summary of releases and updates relating to British collections is designed to help family historians whose Irish ancestors migrated, temporarily or permanently, to England, Scotland or Wales.

By default, it will also be useful to anyone carrying out research in those three nations, regardless of the origin of their ancestors.

The figures in parenthesis in the New Collections section are the numbers of records/images in the new record set.

Unless otherwise stated, the figures in parenthesis in the Updated Collections section reflect the number of records added to the collection in the recent update. In some instances, the supplier has not made this figure available. Where two figures are given, the first is the number of additions, the second is the new total.

Please note that I don't usually include updates of fewer than 1,000 records.


NEW COLLECTIONS


BritishNewspaperArchive (and shared with sister company FindMyPast)
  • New titles in main collection ($£€) – (now more than 45m pages in holding)

FamilySearch

ScottishIndexes

UPDATED COLLECTIONS


Ancestry

FamilySearch

FindMyPast

FreeBMD

Some of the above content contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission if you buy via these links. This does not affect the price you pay as a consumer, but it does contribute to keeping Irish Genealogy News online. See Advertising Disclosure tab above.

Thursday 23 September 2021

Next in the Irish Historic Towns Atlas's Suburb Series is Rathmines

The next publication from the Royal Irish Academy's Irish Historic Towns Atlas desk will be the second in the Dublin Suburb Series and will explore the vibrant neighbourhood of Rathmines.

Click cover image to order your copy

Written by lecturer, writer and editor Séamas Ó Máitiú, the 152-page paperback will be officially published next month. It presents a number of historic maps showing how the topography changed from medieval ráth to early modern castle, and from 19th-century village to wealthy residential suburb, local government administrative centre and 20th-century flatland. A gazetteer of over 1,000 sites and accompanying essay provides the detailed topographical history of Rathmines from earliest times up to c1970.

The Dublin Suburb Series was launched in 2017 with the arrival of Clontarf by Colm Lennon. The series is published by the RIA in association with Dublin City Council, and three more studies of the capital's suburbs are already planned. They will give the in-depth 'historical atlas' treatment to Drumcondra, Kilmainham/Inchicore and Ringsend/Irishtown.

To coincide with the launch of the paperback, Dr Séamas Ó Máitiú will be presenting a free online lecture – Rathmines Through Time and Space: From Medieval Rath to Flatland – on Thursday 7 October as part of the Dublin Festival of History. Find out more and book your ticket here.


Wednesday 22 September 2021

BritishNewspaperArchive races past the 45-million-pages marker

The online BritishNewspaperArchive (BNA), a partnership between the British Library and BrightSolid (the owner of FindMyPast), has been adding historical newspaper titles to its database at an ferocious rate recently.

The online BritishNewspaperArchive, a partnership between the British Library and Brightsolid (the owner of FindMypast), has been adding historical newspaper titles to its database at an ferocious rate recently. To be precise, its total page count as of this morning (45,063,642) has increased by more than a million in seven weeks and, while still uploading additions to its existing titles, has seen 76 titles make their debut in the last 30 days alone.

Sadly, none of the new titles is an Irish paper, but some of the recently updated page count does include additions to the existing holding of 213 newspapers published in Ireland, so it's not as if we've been completely overlooked!

The full collection (British, Irish and colonial), is available to search on both the BNA site and, depending on subscription package, at FindMyPast's.


Some of the above content contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission if you buy via these links. This does not affect the price you pay as a consumer, but it does contribute to keeping Irish Genealogy News online. See Advertising Disclosure tab above.

Tuesday 21 September 2021

FamilySearch's digitisation project completes nearly 30 years early!

FamilySearch has announced the completion of its ambitious project to digitise its entire microfilm library.

The work of digitising the organisation's 2.4million rolls of microfilm – a collection that started to grow some 83 years ago – began in 1998. It was expected to take up to 50 years to complete. To the great benefit of people all over the world, it has taken 'just' 23 years.

The Utah-based organisation has issued a statement today about this impressive achievement, and provides some interesting history and facts and figures about the project. You can read it here.

Monday 20 September 2021

RootsIreland.ie adds 20,000 more records for County Armagh

Armagh Ancestry, the Irish Family History Foundation's Genealogy Centre for County Armagh, has announced the addition of more than 20,000 records to its database on RootsIreland.ie.

The new records include:
  • Kilmore Church of Ireland – additional baptisms
  • Portadown – Church of Ireland baptisms
  • Kilmore – Church of Ireland deaths
  • Gravestone inscriptions
  • Various corrections and additions made to existing Armagh record sets

For a list of collections held by Armagh Ancestry, go to the RootsIreland's Online Sources for Armagh.

To search the records, click the logo above and login or subscribe as necessary.

PRONI reinstates on-demand document ordering for visiting researchers

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has relaxed some of its strictest covid-related regulations for researchers. This move will see the building open to the public between 10am and 4pm Monday to Friday, and appointment-only access to the Research and Search Rooms operating between these hours.

Appointments are allocated with a staggered arrival time between 10am and 11;20am on the day of the visit, and the appointment lasts all day.

One research appointment per week is the maximum any individual researchers can request, and appointments are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Bookings open every Monday at 1pm, and appointment slots are made available three weeks in advance.

From today, PRONI is returning to its on-demand (onsite) document ordering service. Researchers booking an appointment are no longer required to submit references for the material they want to consult;; they will be able to order an unlimited number of records onsite during their visit (up to five items at a time).

PRONI's website has been updated this morning with all the necessary information for visitors, along with a link to the booking system. You can read it here.

National Library of Ireland extends Reading Rooms' opening hours

The National Library of Ireland has extended the regular opening hours of its Reading Rooms.

While this will undoubtedly be good news for those family historians, and others, with a backlog of research, it doesn't see a full return to 'pre-Covid normal'. Most particularly, there is no late-night opening on Thursdays, and, in line with government advice, the maximum number of visitors allowed into the Reading Rooms at any one time will increase, but remain somewhat reduced. Spaces, as always, will be subject to availability.

From today, the new Reading Room hours will be 9:30 to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Researchers will still need to book their place at least one day in advance via the online ordering system. Appointment slots are offered with four weeks's availability on a rolling basis, and new dates are added every day.

The availability of some offsite material from the Published Collections is also being restored from today; these items are clearly indicated in the catalogue and items must be ordered five working days in advance.

Notwithstanding the above, please note that the Main Reading Room will close early (at 4pm) this Thursday, 23 September.

Thursday 16 September 2021

Irish genealogy, history & heritage events, 16 September - 3 October

There are some big event programmes starting over the next few days, so it seemed like a good time to get back into the habit of posting events listings. Trouble is, there are so many at this time of year. As a compromise, I'm going to stick with online events that Irish family and local historians can enjoy no matter where they live, even if they might have to tune in an unholy time of morning or night in some cases. Most of the events below are free.

Thursday 16 September: Ireland Genealogy Projects (IGP): a free and underused online resource, with Aileen Wynne. Host Clare Roots Society. 8pm on zoom. Details.

Friday 17 September: Culture Night: The island's annual culture extravaganza sees hundreds of free events, tours and behind-the-scenes screenings across all 32 counties. These are spread across more than 40 categories of Irish culture. The Culture Night website is easy to search, by location and category and whether on- or off-line. I've listed below a few that caught my eye, but be sure to check out the site itself. You're bound to find something of interest.

Friday 17 September: Registry of Deeds Event: Lending & Borrowing in a World without Banks, with Dr Brendan Twomey. A Culture Night event from the Registry of Deeds Archive Services/Property Registration Authority of Ireland. 6pm to 7pm, IST. Free. Online. Need to book.

Friday 17 September: Dublin in the Archives: Digital Collections Exploring the City and County. This event will show how Dublin's digital collections can be used together to give us a multi-dimensional view of Dublin’s past and present. It will be chaired by Deputy City Librarian at Dublin City Libraries and Archives, Brendan Teeling. Speakers include Emma Clarke, Karen De Lacey, Joe Lee and Dr James Louis Smith. 4pm - 6pm. free. Need to register.

Friday 17 September: Leitrim Local Studies, an online session demonstrating the breadth of material available to those wanting to learn more about the history, archaeology, genealogy, literature, culture and heritage of the county. Host: Leitrim Library Service. 7:30pm to 9pm. Free. Need to book by email or phone 071 964 5582.

Friday 17 September: In Other News: Behind The Newspaper Headlines 1916-1923, an illustrated talk with Pat Lonergan. Host: Kildare County Council Decade of Commemorations programme. Online. No booking required. Details. Go to YouTube at 7:30pm.

Friday 17 September: How to create your family tree, with Tony Hennessy MAGI. Host: National Archives of Ireland. On Zoom, 6pm to 7:30pm. Free, but need to book.

Sunday 19 to Sunday 26 September: BIFHSGO Conference – Irish Lines and Female Finds: Exploring Irish records, female ancestors and genetic genealogy. Host: The British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa. Daily events over eight days. Check out the full programme and register https://bifhsgo2021.ca/.

Monday 20 September to 10 October: Dublin Festival of History 2021 presents a programme of 100+ free events, both online and in-person. Host: Dublin City Council. More tickets have already had to be made available, such was the response to some events, so don't delay in booking your tickets. See http://dublinfestivalofhistory.ie

Tuesday 21 September: The Down Survey of the 1650s and the transformation of Ireland, with Micheál Ó Siochrú. Host: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. Live on Zoom at 7pm – 8:15pm. Free. Details and registration.

Wednesday 22 September:Getting Started Workshop - Using Online Resources, an online workshop. Host: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. Free. 12:30 - 13:30 BST. Need to book.

Wednesday 22 September:Teaching the Nation’s Past: Irish history in Secondary Schools, 1922-69, with Dr. Colm MacGearailt. A Louth County Council Decade of Centenaries lecture, moderated by Historian in Residence, Dr. Thomas Tormey. 8pm on Facebook. Free. Aimed at teachers and students. Need to register.

Thursday 23 September: Bring me into the spotlight of a London conference: Michael Collins from Truce to Treaty, an online lecture with Dr Anne Dolan and Dr William Murphy, moderated by David McCullagh. Joint hosts: National Archives of Ireland and National Library of Ireland. Part of the Dublin History Festival. 8pm. Book your free ticket.

Saturday 25 September: Finding "The Hollow" - The McDonalds and Doyles in St. Marys, Ontario, a webinar with David Trudeau. Host: Irish Genealogical Society International. 10:30am to Noon (CDT). Free. All welcome. Details and link. No need to register.

Saturday 25 September: The Connaught Rangers, Through Time and History, an afternoon conference. 1pm to 5pm. See Galway Bea facebook page.

Wednesday 29 September: From Townhouse to Tenement, with Dr Tim Murtagh and Ciarán Wallace. Part of the 14 Henrietta Street Teatime Talks series. Zoom. Free. Need to register.

Friday 1 October: Aspects of life and death in the Workhouse, with Clare Doyle MAGI. A First Friday Talk from the Irish Workhouse Centre, Portumna. Online at 8pm. Fee €5 via paypal. Need to book.

RCB Library to re-open on appointment-only basis from next week

The RCB Library, which holds the Church of Ireland archive, is to re-open to the public with a new online booking system from next Tuesday, 21 September. Initially, the Library will be open only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but it is expected that additional days and appointment slots will be made available in October.

Click to view short video
Unscheduled or drop-in visitors will not be able to view archives and manuscripts, nor to spend time reading from the printed collections. However, there is no need to make an appointment just to borrow or return books.

Booking for a given week will open at 9am on the Friday of the previous week. So the first appointments, for next Tuesday and Wednesday, will be available to book from tomorrow, Friday 17 September.

Researchers will be a able to reserve either a morning slot (10am to 12:30pm) or an afternoon slot (2pm to 4:30pm). Up to five items may be ordered in advance and will be ready for viewing on arrival.

You can find out more about the re-opening and the new desk reservation system here, or click the image to view a short explanatory video.

Four-week summary of new and updated USA genealogy collections

Below is a summary of US family history collections that have been released or updated by the major genealogy databases in the last four weeks. (The previous summary list was published on 18 August, see blogpost).

My regular summaries are designed to help family historians whose Irish ancestors emigrated, temporarily or permanently, to the United States.

By default, they should also be useful to anyone carrying out research in the US, regardless of the origin of their ancestors.

The figures in parenthesis in the New Collections section are the numbers of records/images in each new record set, if provided by the database.

Unless otherwise stated, the figures in parenthesis in the Updated Collections section reflect the number of records added to the collection in the recent update, if a number has been clearly noted by the supplier. I do not include updates of fewer than 1,000 records.


NEW COLLECTIONS


Ancestry

FamilySearch

Fold3

MyHeritage


UPDATED COLLECTIONS


AmericanAncestors
  • Massachusetts: (Image-Only) RC Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920
    39 parishes: St Ann, Gloucester | Sacred Hearth, Groton | Sacred Hearts, Haverhill | St James, Haverhill | St Joseph, Haverhill | St Michael the Archangel, Haverhill | St Rita, Haverhill | St John the Evangelist, Hopkinton | Sacred Heart, Ipswich | St Andrew, Billerica | Our Lady of Grace, Chelsea | Immaculate Conception, Newburyport | St Louis de Gonzague, Newburyport | St Michael, North Andover | St Catherine of Siena, Norwood | Our Lady of Lourdes, Revere | St. John the Evangelist, Canton | Our Lady of the Assumption, Chelsea | St Rose of Lima, Chelsea | St Stanislaus, Chelsea | St Stephen, Framingham | St John the Evangelist, Winthrop | Immaculate Conception, Everett | St Mary of the Assumption, Dracut | Sacred Hearts, Malden | Our Lady Star of the Sea, Marblehead | St Ann, Marlborough | St Joseph, Medford | St Mary of the Annunciation, Melrose | Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Methuen | St Monica, Methuen | St Louis de France, Lowell | St Margaret of Scotland, Lowell | St Michael, Lowell | St Patrick, Lowell | St Peter, Lowell | St Michael, Lynn | Sacred Heart, Natick | St Patrick, Natick | and St Joseph, Everett.
  • Massachusetts: RC Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 (219,900 names)
    Our Lady of Ostrobrama, Brockton | St Michael the Archangel, Haverhill | St Ann. Gloucester | St Joseph, Haverhill | Immaculate Conception, Salem | Our Lady of Sorrows, Sharon | St. Michael, Lowell | St Michael, North Andover | St Clement, Somerville | and St Joachim, Rockport.

Ancestry

FamilySearch
  • The database has updated 19 collections in the course of the last month, adding around a million records in the process. You can find out more at the Historical Record Collections page here, and then clicking on the blue 'last updated' column header.

Some of the above content contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission if you buy via these links. This does not affect the price you pay as a consumer, but it does contribute to keeping Irish Genealogy News online. See Advertising Disclosure tab above.

Wednesday 15 September 2021

Autumn edition of Irish Roots Magazine published

The Autumn edition of Irish Roots, Ireland's only independent genealogy magazine, has been published.

As always it comes with a wide variety of articles on topics to help, inspire and inform you, and plenty of news and comment and regular column features to keep you on top of all that's important in the world of Irish genealogy.

This issue's contents include the following main articles:

  • Local family history resources in Co. Offaly
  • Helpful tips and tools for tracing your Irish ancestors
  • DNA: Using probability scores to identify the most likely relationships 
  • Grand Juries in Ireland: the politics of power in the counties 
  • Discover a treasure trove of Quaker records
  • In search of the Ultachs (Ulster families) 
  • Sourcing a rare 138-year-old Photo and a historic murder mystery 
  • Australian Irish Connections: 19th-Century Colonial Census Compilations

In addition, there are Letters to the Editor, a Reader's Experience, comment and observations from the front line of professional genealogy, the Editor's Book Selections, readers' genealogy queries answered, and a What's New? review of the latest Irish genealogy record releases.

Click the cover image for details of how to purchase the magazine in paper format or digital format. You can buy one-off copies or be really sensible and take out a subscription. You can also take a look at a free sample of this edition!

Irish Registry of Deeds Index Project continues to grow

The Irish Registry of Deeds Index Project has received several updates since I last reported on its progress in April. During that time, some 31,134 entries have been added to the main index so that it now holds 442,804 entries transribed from 46,487 memorials.

There's been good upward movement in the transcribing of the Townland and Grantor Indexes, too, with the number or additional entries since spring at 22,445 and 2,369 respectively.

The heroes behind these achievements and the steady progress of the project are the volunteers... all of them regular Irish family historians keen to add to the Index so that other researchers can lift the lid on the secrets so long hidden in this huge archive, which dates back to 1708.

With images of microfilmed copies of the manuscript archive now readily available to view via FamilySearch, the indexing of the deed memorials (and the Registry's own indexes) has become much easier than it used to be when volunteers had to spend hours at the Dublin repository working through the heavy volumes. Check out the Project Index site via the link above, and look at some of the memorials and index books at familysearch.org, and if you can spare a bit of time now and again, why not consider becoming a Project volunteer?

Details are on the home page, as are links to how-to guides.

Monday 13 September 2021

10-day summary of new & updated British genealogy collections

Below is a summary of new and updated family history record collections for England, Scotland and Wales released by the major genealogy databases over the last 10 days (see previous summary, 3 September).

My regular summary of releases and updates relating to British collections is designed to help family historians whose Irish ancestors migrated, temporarily or permanently, to England, Scotland or Wales.

By default, it will also be useful to anyone carrying out research in those three nations, regardless of the origin of their ancestors.

The figures in parenthesis in the New Collections section are the numbers of records/images in the new record set.

Unless otherwise stated, the figures in parenthesis in the Updated Collections section reflect the number of records added to the collection in the recent update. In some instances, the supplier has not made this figure available. Where two figures are given, the first is the number of additions, the second is the new total.

Please note that I don't usually include updates of fewer than 1,000 records.


NEW COLLECTIONS


BritishNewspaperArchive (and shared with sister company FindMyPast)
  • New titles in main collection ($£€)

Croydon Times Westminster Times

West London Times East London Advertiser

Kingsland Times & General Advertiser Chelsea Pimlico Advertiser

Colonist & Commercial Weekly Advertiser The Crown

Sunday Morning Herald Weekly Globe

The Union London Railway Newspaper

Francis's Metropolitan News Illustrated London Life

London Chronicle and Country Record West End News

The Palladium Picture Times

The Metropolitan The Sunday Evening Globe

The Vindicator (London) The Morning Gazette

London Journal/General Advertiser for Town & Country The Age

The National Protector The New Globe

Pen and Pencil Liverpool Telegraph

Tower Hamlets Mail Newark Advertiser

Bright's Intelligencer and Arrival List Daily Director and Entr'acte

World and Fashionable Sunday Chronicle

London Daily Guide and Stranger's Companion

FamilySearch
FindMyPast

MyHeritage

National Library of Scotland

UPDATED COLLECTIONS



FindMyPast

Some of the above content contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission if you buy via these links. This does not affect the price you pay as a consumer, but it does contribute to keeping Irish Genealogy News online. See Advertising Disclosure tab above.


Tuesday 7 September 2021

Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives: August updates

Slightly delayed due to a technical issue with the Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives' search engine, please see below the files that were uploaded or updated during August. As always, the records and photos in the IGPArchives' holding are donated by researchers for free use by other family historians.

Mid-18th-centurn gravestone to Casshel family
in Kilbarrack graveyard, Sutton, Co Dublin.
Photo courtesy IGP Archives and Eadaoin Breslin.
Click for larger image and transcription text.

DONEGAL Genealogy Archives - Miscellaneous
Destitution in Gweedore & Cloughaneely, 1858

DOWN Genealogy Archives - Church Records
Banbridge Non Subscribing Presbyterian Baptisms (1,500+), 1756-1794

DUBLIN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Kilbarrack Graveyard, Sutton (Updated)

LONGFORD Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Holy Trinity (CoI), Tagshinny

MONAGHAN Genealogy Archives - Church Records
Newbliss Presbyterian Marriages 1845-1921

TYRONE Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Greenan (CoI), Gortin

WESTMEATH Genealogy Archives - Headstones
St. Mary's Graveyard, Boherquill, Street (T)

(T)=Transcription added.

Monday 6 September 2021

Offaly, Tipperary and Clare Workhouse accounts 1857-1878 online

Offaly Archives has digitised and released online two volumes of workhouse accounts for the Borrisokane, Kildysart, Nenagh, Parsonstown, and Roscrea Poor Law Unions. 

The volumes span 1857-1870 and 1871-1878 and can be downloaded in pdf format free of charge. Click the image, right.

The manuscripts were collected by Henry Trench of Cangort Park, who, by the 1870s, owned 4,707 acres in County Tipperary, 2,113 acres in County Offaly, 704 acres in County Clare, and some 3,500 acres in Counties Limerick and Galway. 

These volumes form part of the Loughton Papers collection held by Offaly Archives, a partnership between Offaly Historical & Archaeological Society and Offaly County Library.


Friday 3 September 2021

Unique 1893 electoral register for Naul, Co Dublin is RCB Library's Archive of the Month

The focus for September’s Archive of the Month from the RCB Library (RCBL) is a unique item that gives a glimpse of the political situation in a rural town in County Dublin in the mid-1890s. Electoral registers from this time give a list of men who owned property over a certain value, and, as such, they entitled to vote in parliamentary elections.

What makes this item unique is its use by the Unionist Registration Association (Dublin) to determine the likely voting intentions of all those registered. Each name either has a tick or an ‘x’ beside a name. The tick presumably denotes that the person in question has confirmed that they will be voting for the Unionist candidate in the forthcoming election.

The history of Ireland in the 20th Century – particularly with regards to The Troubles – might lead to an assumption that individual voting intentions would be based strictly on sectarian lines, but this does not seem to be the case. 

The listing for two names in particular suggests that class was an important factor in political persuasions during this time. Two names with ticks shown in the Register, Anthony Strong Hussey and Henry James Hussey, are shown in the 1901 Census as Roman Catholics and living in a substantial house, comprising of the Hussey family and some nine servants. Mr Hussey is listed as ‘land owner & Justice of Peace’.

The document also shows the difficulty that faced the Unionist position in the mid-1890s in areas like Naul: only 20 of the 511 names listed have ticks beside them. This item also encapsulates the importance that the Library placed on the item. It forms part of the earliest collection of the RCB Library – that of the Ardfeenish Library which was started by Rosamond Stephen, its founding benefactor. Having started as a printed item in the Library’s collections, given the unique annotations on the document, it has now been assigned a manuscript reference, as RCB Library MS 1112, and is integrated in the Library’s extensive archival holdings.

View the full presentation on the RCBL site.

Two-week summary of new/updated British genealogy collections

Below is a summary of new and updated family history record collections for England, Scotland and Wales released by the major genealogy databases over the last 14 days (see previous summary, 20 August).

My regular summary of releases and updates relating to British collections is designed to help family historians whose Irish ancestors migrated, temporarily or permanently, to England, Scotland or Wales.

By default, it will also be useful to anyone carrying out research in those three nations, regardless of the origin of their ancestors.

The figures in parenthesis in the New Collections section are the numbers of records/images in the new record set.

Unless otherwise stated, the figures in parenthesis in the Updated Collections section reflect the number of records added to the collection in the recent update. In some instances, the supplier has not made this figure available. Where two figures are given, the first is the number of additions, the second is the new total.

Please note that I don't usually include updates of fewer than 1,000 records.


NEW COLLECTIONS


Ancestry

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  • IR58 Lloyd George Domesday Survey: Borough of Ealing, West London (previously Middlesex). Covers Acton, Ealing, Greenford, Hanwell, Northolt, Perivale and Southall, plus Hayes, Norwood and part of Hammersmith. (52,429 records)


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Thursday 2 September 2021

25% off annual subscriptions to RootsIreland.ie

RootsIreland is offering a 25% discount on annual subscriptions to its database, which holds 23million records including the largest package of multi-denominational church registers available online.

Unlike those from most other databases, RootsIreland's offer can be taken up by both new customers and currrent subscribers. The way the latter works is that, having signed up and paid for a discounted subscription, the new sub will kick in when the existing one expires.

To take advantage of this offer, and to find out more about RootsIreland's database holding, click the discount image, right.

The offer will be available until 12 midnight Irish time on 17 September.

Wednesday 1 September 2021

Ireland's population at 1851 levels for first time since The Famine

With more than five million people living in the 26 historical counties of the Republic of Ireland, the population of Ireland is at its highest since 1851, acording to the most recent figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The Irish Famine of 1845–1852 saw one million people in Ireland die from starvation and exposure to the elements, and more than one million emigrated in desperation. The population was devastated, and never regained the numbers seen in the first half of the 1800s when, at its peak, there were some 8.5million people living on the island.

Click image to view enlarged infographic
The most recent Censuses in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland put the all-island population at about 6.8million.

The CSO's estimate of the current (Republic) population is 5.1 million people, up from 4.97 million 12 months ago.

The increase is due both to more children being born in Ireland, as well as positive net migration, as 65,200 people moved to Ireland from abroad compared with 54,000 people leaving Ireland to live elsewhere. However, the population increase is the smallest since 2014.

There were 55,500 births and 32,700 deaths in the year to April, giving a natural increase (births less deaths) in the population of 22,800. This is the lowest level of natural increase recorded since the 2000 population estimates.

For more detail on the CSO's findings, delve into the latest results here.

General Register Office Dublin and the easing of Covid restrictions

With all appointment slots already bagged for September by researchers wanting to visit the General Register Office's Public Search Room in Dublin, it was good to hear that almost all Covid-related restrictions are expected to be lifted next month in the Republic of Ireland.

Civil registration indexes at the GRO Search Room

This should see a return at the Werburgh Street GRO site to the pre-pandemic walk-in system that had worked pretty well for some years, bar the occasional 'We're full' notices on doors at the height of the summer season. Mask-wearing may still be a requirement, however, even if social distancing is not mandated.

You can find out more about the expected lifting of restrictions in the Republic on the RTE news pages.

I shall aim to confirm plans at the major repositories used by genealogists as we get nearer to the provisional dates for the 'new normal' to kick in.


Free access to MyHeritage's global census and electoral records

To mark Labor Day, MyHeritage has announced free access to its global census and electoral list records for the first full week of September.

The Census & Voter Lists category on MyHeritage encompasses a vast repository of over 1.3 billion records, including census records from the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Scandinavia, and Canada as well as electoral rolls and other records from around the world.

Free access will end on 8 September.

 In other news from MyHeritage, the company has updated its photo colourisation feature. The new  option is called the July 2021 model.

This model works especially well on higher resolution photos that have been enhanced and upscaled using the MyHeritage Photo Enhancer. It resolves discoloration issues that occurred in some enhanced photos and produces better-looking results for non-enhanced photos as well.

Give it a go. You need only a free account to sample a few of your own photos.

Below is an enhancement of Yours Truly. The photo was taken ... ahem... some years ago, when I was 21. My husband says I don't look a day older and I'm still as grumpy as I obviously was then. Humph. Apart from the obvious clarity of the enhanced photo, the only thing I really notice is that my blue eyes have become brown. Since it's nigh on impossible to tell from the original photo what my eye-shade is, I'll forgive that arguable 'enhancement'. The clarity of the new photo is terrific, though.