Ancestry adds London's 'Clandestine' records

Ancestry has added a new collection of records from London's Clandestine Marriage and Baptism Registers, 1667-1754. It's a sizeable oollection, holding 894,892 entries, and it's both searchable and browseable.

If you follow the link above, you'll find an explanation on of the term 'clandestine' in this context, and you can be sure there's a good number of Irish within the collection.

Moving swiftly forward a century or two, don't forget that Ancestry is currently offering free access to the 1911 Census for England and Wales.

You have to register with name and email, but there's no requirement to provide credit card details.

Familar faces return to NAI Genealogy Service

The Consortium of Accredited Genealogists, Ireland (CAGI) will be taking over the reins of the National Archives of Ireland's Genealogy Service (GS) today.

The GS provides free genealogy advice to researchers on a first-come, first-served basis. Since it was set up in 2003, it has guided thousands of family historians from Ireland and all around the world. Although primarily aimed at beginners, the service is also available to those who have hit a brickwall or need direction towards more advanced resources. The genealogists offer time-saving tips and provide researchers with a strategy to fit their own particular family.

Researchers will find the GS located in a dedicated room off the National Archives of Ireland's Reading Room in Bishop Street, Dublin 8. It operates from 10:00am to 1:30pm.

For CAGI members, today will be a return to familiar ground as each of them worked in the Genealogy Service during the nine years that it was operated directly by the Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland (APGI). Each of the Consortium's members is a member of APGI, so researchers can be confident they are receiving advice from professional genealogists. Admission to APGI membership follows the recommendation of an independent board of assessors, and recognises a high level of in-depth knowledge as well as the vital ingredient of practical experience.

On hearing that CAGI had won the contract for the GS for the next year, Pamela Bradley MAPGI, a member of the new consortium, said: "I'm delighted to be returning to the National Archives. We hope to live up to APGI's past record of sterling service – one that has contributed in no small way to raising Ireland's reputation in the world of genealogy."

Please note: Original version of this news story advised that the GS hours had changed to 10:30–2pm. They haven't. I was mis-informed. I have edited the post to reflect the correct, unchanged hours. Apologies.

What's on for genealogists & history lovers this week

Until Sunday 11 August: Exhibition: Charles Dickens – Irish Friends and Family Ties. Features records from PRONI's archives, material from the Charles Dickens Museum and elsewhere. Part of the West Belfast Festival. Conway Mill Preservation Trust, Belfast. Free entry.  Email for details.

Tuesday 6 August: Gathering Church of Ireland records, with Susan Hood, RCBL. Venue: Seminar Room, National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. 1pm.  Free. No booking necessary.

Tuesday 6 August: Abbey Leix – Spanning four centuries. Part of the A Celebration of Architecture: the Big Houses of Laois series of lectures. Venue: Portlaoise Library. Time: 8pm. Cost: Free. Details: 00 353 (0)57 8622333.

Tuesday 6 August: The Gothic Cathedral of Cashel: the untold story, with Prof Roger Stalley. Cashel Library, Co Tipperary. 7:15pm. Free.

Wednesday 7 August: Religion in the Asylum: lunatic asylum chapels and religious provision in nineteenth century Ireland, with Katherine Fennelly. Irish World Heritage Centre, Manchester UK. 7:30pm. £3. Details.

Thursday 8 August: The Roscommon Famine Diaspora, with Ciaran Reilly, NUI Maynooth. Venue: Seminar Room, National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. 1pm.  Free. No booking necessary.

Friday 9 August: The Auxilliaries: Tudor's Toughs, a study of the Auxiliary Division Royal Irish Constabulary 1920–1922, with Ernest McCall. Venue: Performance Area, Linen Hall Library, Belfast. Free. 1pm. Coincides with a Linen Hall Library exhibition of materials charting the history of policing and fire fighting in Northern Ireland (part of the World Police & Fire Games 2013 programme). Exhibition runs until 10 August.

Friday 9 August: Family History Open Day at Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street, Dublin 2. Advice from genealogy societies, consultations with APGI-accredited professional genealogists, online searches on major databases, plus a chance to explore DCL&A's rich family history collection. 10am–4:30pm. All free. More info: www.dublincitypubliclibraries.ie. Tel: 00 353 (0)1-6744870 or (0)1-6744800.

Saturday 10 August: Mayo Genealogy Group AGM Venue: National Museum of Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co Mayo. 11am. Reports of the past year's activities will be presented and the programme for the coming season will be launched. All interested in local genealogy are invited to attend. Details.

Temporary closure of NAI's court records

The National Archives of Ireland is to close access to some of its collections while building works continues at its Four Courts storage area.

The temporary closure will run from 12 August to 31 October 2013.

The collections effected are the Crown and Peace, pre-1922, and Circuit Court records. The specific series are listed below:

Carlow Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Cavan Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Cavan Circuit Court, 1924-61
Central Criminal Court, 1925-66
Circuit Criminal Court, 1969
Cork Circuit Court, 1960-62
Donegal Crown and Peace and Circuit Court, pre-1922 records
Donegal Circuit Court, 1934-68
Dublin Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Dublin Circuit Court, 1924-63
Galway Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
GalwayCircuit Court, 1925-69
High Court of Justice, Kings Bench, 1909-1915
Kerry Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Kerry Circuit Court, 1924-1962
Kildare Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Kildare Circuit Court, 1924-69
Kilkenny Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Kilkenny Circuit Court, 1951-63
Laois Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Leitrim Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Leitrim Circuit Court, 1955-62
Limerick Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Longford Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Longford Circuit Court, 1936-69
Louth Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Louth Circuit Court, 1925-69
Mayo Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Mayo Circuit Court, 1925-65
Meath Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Meath Circuit Court, 1925-61
Monaghan Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Monaghan Circuit Court, 1925-69
Offaly Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Roscommon Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Roscommon Circuit Court, 1927-1964
Sligo Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Tipperary Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Tipperary Circuit Court, 1925-57
Waterford Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Waterford Circuit Court, 1929-57
Westmeath Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Wexford Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Wicklow Crown and Peace, pre-1922 records
Wicklow Circuit Court, 1925-46

The Roscommon Genealogy Gathering: booking open

The Roscommon Genealogy Gathering is a three-day interactive seminar in which delegates will learn about the county's social history and get a flavour of how to conduct genealogy in the area. It's suitable for beginners and for those who would like to learn more. An organised outing to Strokestown Park House and Famine Museum is part of the programme.

The Gathering will be held at Roscommon County Library, Abbey Street, Roscommon Town on Wednesday 18 September to Friday 20 September.

The panel of speakers include Mike Feerick, from Ireland Reaching Out Project; local historian and genealogist Mike Lennon, Ger Delaney and Mary Skelly from the South Mayo and Roscommon Family History Research Centres, local historian Jim Ganly, Irish scholar Sean Ó’Dúill, and Lorraine Keane-Conlon from Roscommon Library Services.

The cost for attending on all three days is €75. Attendance on a daily basis is €30. These rates include tea/coffee for morning and afternoon breaks as well as entrance/transport costs for the outing.


Places are limited so don't delay booking on +353 (0)71 963 3380 or by email.

Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives: end July update

Below are the updates added to IGP Archives in the last two weeks of July:

GENERAL IRELAND Genealogy Archives - Emigration
"American" 9 Apr 1803 - to New York
"Mohawk" 23 Apr 1803 - Going to Philadelphia
"Ardent" 23 Apr 1803

DUBLIN Genealogy Archives
Memorial Cards – Kelly & Kennedy
Cemetery – Christ Church Memorials V. VII, pg 298-310

FERMANAGH Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Tempo Church of Ireland Cemetery (Armstrong, Forde, McCollum)
Rossory Parish Church Cemetery (Armstrong et al)

GALWAY Genealogy Archives – Headstones
Tuam, St Mary's (CoI) Cathedral - 2 (Baron Oranmore & Browne)

MEATH Genealogy Archives – Headstones
Navan; Ardmulchan Church Cemetery

ROSCOMMON Genealogy Archives – Land
Canceled Books, Kilteevan E.D. ca. 1911-1920's
(Cloonlarge, Cloonmore & Cloonmurly townlands)

TIPPERARY Genealogy Archives – Headstones
Clonmel; St. Patrick's Cemetery - (DROHAN)

WICKLOW Genealogy Archives – Headstone Index
Blessington; St. Mary's, Part 2
Curtlestown; St. Patricks Church Cemetery (more to come)

FindMyPast adds Irish WW1 dead

FindMyPast Ireland has added Ireland's National Roll of Honour 1914-1921 to its database.

These records give details of Irishmen who died while serving in the British Army during the First World War, and in the three years after peace was declared.

Transcripts has been taken from all known available resources for Irish casualties published before 1922, including Soldiers Died in the Great War and Ireland's Memorial Records, and the records of The Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Newspaper articles, periodicals and other books were also used to collate the information.

The material has been cross-referenced with the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses to provide a more precise list of Irish war victims for the period than has been previously available to family historians.

This collection is now also available as part of a World Subscription via FindMyPast USA and FindMyPast Australia/NZ. It will be added to FindMyPast UK's World Subscription in due course.

August discount offer from British Newspaper Archive

The British Newspaper Archive (BNA) is offering UK-based readers of Irish Genealogy News a healthy discount on its 12-month subscription package if they sign up during August.

The £10.95 discount (c €12.50) brings the annual cost down to £69 (c €79) for which you receive:

• Unlimited credits/page views
• Access to digitised newspapers dating back to 1710, and
• Access to 'My Research', a personal area to keep track of articles, add notes and bookmark viewed items

To take advantage of the discount, click the image above right, select the annual subscription option and, at checkout, enter this promotional code:

BnA82013.

BNA's collection already consists of nearly seven million newspaper pages. The majority are from England, Wales and Scotland, but there's a growing number of pages available from titles published in Ireland. Here's a recap of the 52,849 Irish editions already available:

Dublin Evening Mail: A total of 4,138 editions are now available. The years included are 1849–1852, 1854–1855, 1861-70, and the second half of 1871.

Belfast Newsletter: A total of 16,657 editions now available, for the following years: 1857*, 1859–1871, and January 1879 to April 1882.

Freeman's Journal: A total of 21,236 editions now available. Coverage is in three tranches: 1820–1821, 1830–1833, and 1837–1900.

Belfast Morning News: A total of 4,089 editions now available. The years included are 1857*, 1859-1871, 1879-1881 and the first four months of 1882.

Sligo Champion: A total of 276 editions of the weekly paper now available. Coverage is from June 1836 to December 1838, 1852*, 1923 and 1926.

Cork Examiner: A total of 6453 editions are now available. They start in August 1841 and run through to August 1871. There's also July to December 1896.

*incomplete year

New York Irish ancestors? Mark this for a good read

Now here's an irresistible headline: Marked men: The tattoos of New York Irishmen 1863.

You'll find the curious story revealed, together with the names and tattoo details of a few hundred Irish men, on the Irish in the American Civil War blog, a high quality and informative blog written by conflict archaeologist and historian Damien Shiels. Damien is also author of a 256-page book, published earlier this year, with the same name as his blog.

Both publications tell the often forgotten role of the 200,000 Irish men and women who were involved in various ways in the US Civil War. I recommend both, and not only to those whose Irish ancestors may have some connection to the War.

All 52 issues of 1913 Church of Ireland Gazette online

The Representative Church Body Library has released in a searchable online format all 52 issues of the Church of Ireland Gazette published in 1913. The collection makes up August's Archive of the Month and full details can be found here.

You'll then be directed to the Informa website where you can view the pages, which have been digitised to a very high quality. You can also save and print pages quickly and easily.

The Church of Ireland Gazette covered a vast range of topics and for anyone with ancestors who were connected with the Church, it is essential reading. But don't think it holds no interest beyond that group. As well as providing comment about national events, the Gazette published details of funerals, obituaries, school, church and community activities and received loads of advertising from service and goods providers.