Friday, 8 March 2024

Four new record-sets join Ancestry's Ireland collection

Ancestry has uploaded four new Irish collections to its database:

Ireland, Guinness Employee Records, 1799-1939
Of the four, this is the collection that has the potential to unlock genealogical information about your ancestor if he or she was employed by Guinness.

The 204,605 records can include the following information for each individual: name, age and gender, marital status, date and place of birth, marriage date, employment and death dates, street address, occupation and place of work, spouse's name, age and birthdate, and the names, ages and relationships of up to four relatives.

The collection contains many different types of records: wages, authorization logs, next of kin records, and how and when a person worked for the company.

Ireland, Guinness Trade Ledgers, 1860-1960
This record set contains images of trade ledgers produced by Guinness Brewery employees in Dublin and England between 1860 and 1960. The ledgers record sales to trade customers, typically pubs and general grocers.

These entries sometimes show details of individual orders and their value, but may also record the deaths of publicans, and the names of their successors (see image).

In total, there are 1,452,426 records in this collection.

Ireland, Dublin Coopers Society and Brewers' Guild Records, 1702-1945
This small index of just 276 names can be used to confirm whether your ancestor was a member of the Coopers and Brewers Guild in Dublin at a specific point in time. It can also provide details of your ancestor's residence while a Guild member and, sometimes, a date of death or even exclusion.

Ireland, 2nd and 3rd Edition Map, 1899-1905
This collection contains images of second- and third-edition Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland produced between 1899 and 1905.

The maps use a scale in which one inch equals a mile, and they were based on previous maps that used a larger scale. They show details of cities and villages, roads, railroads, and topographical information and can be useful in family history when borders might have shifted over time or the names of places have changed. Comparing maps of a similar scale allows you to accurately place your ancestors.

UPDATE, 9 March: Ancestry has announced that the Guiness collections will be free to search and view until 22 March 2024.