Tuesday 30 January 2024

Deansgrange and Shanganagh: the missing burial register images

While headstone photos, inscriptions and maps from both Deansgrange and Shanganagh cemeteries in South Dublin are freely online via the EverAfter website, images of the burial register entries for each deceased resident have 'disappeared'. I'm not quite sure when this happened but they've been on the missing list for at least a couple of months.

Fortunately, the reason has nothing to do with the recent 'Glasnevin / FindAGrave hokey-cokey', which saw offline burial records uploaded without the agreement of the Trust responsible for the nation's necropolis, and then removed pronto when they found out. The lack of access to the two South Dublin registers is not a repeat of that particular incident, so let out a sigh of relief.

I've contacted EverAfter, who provide the PlotBox technology that runs the specialist cemetery database, and been told that the Deansgrange and Shanganagh burial register images disappeared from the public view when an update was made to the overall plotbox site. It wasn't intended. They are still held on the site, but not on the publicly viewable parts of the site.

The tech team will correct this is due course, but there's currently no ETA for when that will happen.

While this is frustrating for researchers in the short term, at least it's not a permanent removal of the registers. They'll be back.