Ancestry adds Church of Ireland baptism, marriage and burial records for Co. Clare, 1744 to 1991

A page from the Drumcliffe Parish marriage
register, 1842. Click for larger image.

Ancestry has uploaded a collection of Church of Ireland baptism, marriage and burial register entries for County Clare. They date from 1744 to 1991. See Update below.

In addition to the searchable index to the collection, which holds 13,764 entries,  images of the original register pages can be browsed, as follows:

Corofin
Baptisms 1877-1907
Burials 1877-1990
Burials 1878-1989

Drumcliffe
Baptisms 1846-1891
Baptisms 1891-1916
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1740-1747
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1785-1825
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1827-1871
Burials 1871-1990
Marriages 1845-1879

Ennis (Drumcliffe)
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1740-1920

Kilfarboy
Burials 1911-1974

Kilfenora
Burials 1878-1965

Kilfinaughty
Baptisms 1878-1913

Kilkee
Baptisms 1879-1907

Kilmanaheem
Burials 1886-1981

Kilnasoolagh
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1843-1991

Kilrush
Baptisms 1862-1911
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1842-1990
Marriages 1845-1861
Marriages 1862-1918

Kilrush/Kilkee (indexes)
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1842-1920

UPDATE, 10 April 2018: This collection has been withdrawn from public access. As I understand it, copyright approval had not been requested from the Representative Church Body Library, the appropriate authority. See blogpost 10 April.

North of Ireland FHS: Spring 2018 classes programme

The North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS) has announced its programme of classes for Spring 2018. Brief details are below; see the NIFHS website for more information about each class.

Each class is open to non-members and is held at the NIFHS Library and Research Centre, which is easy to find and there's plenty of free parking. It's in Newtownabbey, just outside Belfast. All classes need to be booked in advance.

• Tuesday 6 February: Family Finder 1 – 3 Tuesday evenings
  
• Tuesday 20 February: JSTOR, a free online resource for NIFHS members – 1 Tuesday at noon
  
• Tuesday 27 February: The Plantation of Ulster, Names and Places – 1 Tuesday morning
  
• Saturday 3 March: Family Finder 2 – 3 Saturday afternoons
  
• Tuesday 13 March: Using GEDmatch – 1 Tuesday evening
  
• Tuesday 20 March: Family Tree Maker, Basics and Benefits – 1 Tuesday morning
  
• Saturday 24 March: Using My Heritage DNA – 1 Saturday morning
  
• Saturday 14 April: Making the Most of Your Autosomal DNA Results – 2 Saturday afternoons
  
• Tuesday 8 May: Scottish Records – 1 Tuesday afternoon

The JSTOR class is free. NIFHS members also get free at-home access to JSTOR (a fantastic membership benefit). Only £18/year for Associate membership and this is a good time of year to join as membership lasts right through to December.

The My Heritage DNA class is new and fits in nicely with their popular package of DNA classes, including one about GEDmatch, which helps people who have tested with different companies compare their results.

The Scottish records class is new and will help people researching family links between Scotland and Ulster – they are only 12 miles apart.

Heather, Peat and Stone republished as an e-book

An e-book edition of ‘Heather, Peat and Stone: The Parishes and Townlands of County Tyrone has been published by Irish World in conjunction with Ontario-based Ulster Heritage.

Originally published in 1992, Heather, Peat and Stone has 165 pages and contains clear maps of every civil parish and Catholic parish in the county, with the town-lands numbered and named on each one. It was the first time that both types of maps had been available in the same format, and the book proved very popular with people of Tyrone origin worldwide. The original print-run soon sold out and in response to repeated requests, it was felt the time was right for re-publication – this time as an e-book.

The e-book is an exact facsimile of the original A4 edition and is easily navigated with a built-in word-search facility. Editor Willie O’Kane said that people from across the world had found the book a great starting point for their ancestral research and had fired their enthusiasm for finding out more about Tyrone and Ulster in general.

Heather, Peat and Stone also seeks to convey a sense of the wider culture of Tyrone, so there are sections on folklore, history and topography, together with extracts from writings about the county. Tyrone has been well served by its fine writers and poets, and the publishers have sought to bring their voices into the mix so that the reader will encounter a range of the flavours associated with this historic county. The foreword, by the renowned Tyrone poet John Montague who died in early 2017, adds a note of richness and poignancy to the book.

Heather, Peat and Stone is priced at $12.95 (Canadian) and can be obtained direct from Ontario-based Ulster Heritage as a downloadable, fully searchable PDF file. Click the image above to purchase and download a copy. ISBN 0951078232 / 9780951078235.

(With thanks to RootsIreland.ie)

RootsIreland adds more RC records for Co Wexford

RootsIreland has added more than 11,000 Roman Catholic records to its County Wexford database, as follows:

Monageer RC Baptisms: 1838–1910
Piercestown RC Baptisms: 1811–1900
Piercestown RC Marriages: 1854–1900
Piercestown RC Deaths: From 1785

Transcriptions of records dating up to 1880/1 link to the National Library of Ireland's images of the register entries (which end at that date). From 1881/2, the RootsIreland records are transcription-only.

To search the new records, go to http://wexford.rootsireland.ie and select Piercestown or Monageer from the ‘Parish / District’ drop down list. Login and Subscribe if required.

See a full list of the Co. Wexford records on RootsIreland

Irish genealogy and history events, 5-18 February

Monday 5 February: NLI Reading Room and Manuscript Room closed. Venue: National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. On-going Monday closures are to facilitate extensive redevelopment of the premises. All other services/exhibitons/cafe, including Genealogy Advisory Service, operating as normal. Details.

Monday 5 February: Newspapers, Journalism, and Special Collections, with Dr Mark O'Brien. A free lunchtime lecture hosted by the Library Association of Ireland's Rare Books Group. Venue: Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2. 1pm. All welcome. No booking required. 

Tuesday 6 February: Who got the vote in 1918? with Joanne Rothwell. Host: Waterford Council. Venue: Central Library, Lady Lane, Waterford. 11:30am. Free. All welcome. No need to book.

Tuesday 6 February: Archaeological excavations at South Main Street, with Rose Cleary. Part of the 'Cork: Origins of a City' public talks series. Host and venue: St Peter's Cork, North Main Street, Cork City. 5pm. All welcome.

Tuesday 6 February: Suffrage and Society: Then and Now – Reflections on the Representation of the People Act, 1918, a full-day conference. Hosts: Queens University Belfast, the Ulster Society of Irish Historical Studies, and PRONI. Venue: PRONI, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast. 10am to 4pm. Free, but booking required.

Tuesday 6 February: Irish Women at Work in 1918: the impact of WWI on life outside the home, with Maeve Casserly, marking the centenary of the Representation of the People Act on 6th February 1918 and the start of women’s suffrage in Ireland and Great Britain. Host and venue: Venue: National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Free. All welcome. 6:30pm.

Wednesday 7 February: Celebrating the life of Constance Markievicz - the Rebel Countess, with Elizabeth Gillis. Hosted by Connolly Association. Venue: McNamara Suite, London Irish Centre, 50-52 Camden Square, NW1 9XB London, UK. 7pm. Free. No need to register. All welcome.

Wednesday 7 February: Dublin since 1922, with Tim Carey. Host: Rathmichael Historical Society. Venue: Rathmichael National School, Stonebridge Road, Shankill, Co Dublin. 8pm. All welcome. €4 at the door.

Thursday 8 February: Waterford’s Quaker heritage , with Joan Johnson. Host: Dunhill History Lectures, Series XII, 2018. Venue: Dunhill Multi-Education Centre (opposite GAA grounds), Dunhill, Co Waterford. 8pm. Admission €5, includes light refreshments. All welcome.

Thursday 8 February: Review the Revisionist: a reconsideration of the Shot At Dawn controversy, with Mike Jackson. Host: Western Front Association, Antrim and Down branch. Venue: PRONI, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast BT3 9HQ. 6:30pm. All welcome. Free.

Thursday 8 February: Lost medals and old photographs: Relatives in the British Army during WW1, with Neil Richardson. Host: Glasnevin Trust and Trinity College Dublin Winter Lecture Series 2018. Venue: Glasnevin Musum's Milestone Gallery, Finglas Road, Glasnevin, Dublin 11. 7pm. All welcome. €10. Booking required.

Thursday 8 February: Stacking the coffins: the 1918-19 influenza pan-epidemic in Ireland, with Dr Ida Milne. Host and venue: Maynooth University, An Foras Feasa Seminar Room (First Floor, Iontas), Maynooth, Co Kildare. 6pm. Free. Open to all.

Friday 9 February: Training Kitchener’s New Army 1914-18: Perspectives on the Irish Experience, with Heather Montgomery. Part of the National Monuments and Buildings Record NI lecture series. Host and venue: PRONI, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast. 1pm–2pm. Free. No booking required.

Saturday 10 February: Finding an Immigrant's Place of Origin, with Tom Rice. Host: Irish Genealogical Society International. Venue: Minnesota Genealogical Society Center, 1385 Mendota Heights Rd, Mendota Heights, Minnesota, USA. 10:30am. $15 for members, $20 for non-members. Walk in on day of class, or register online.

Saturday 10 February: Irish Study Group. Monthly gathering. Host: New England Historical Genealogical Society. Venue: NEHGS, 99-101 Newbury Street, Boston, MA,USA. 9:30am to Noon. Free. All welcome. Participants are invited to stay and use the library resources afterwards. No registration necessary.

Saturday 10 February: Family Research on the Internet, with Vincent Brogan. Host: NIFHS Tyrone Branch. Venue: Seminar Room, First Floor, Omagh Library, Dublin Road, Omagh, BT78 1HL. 10am to noon. All welcome.

Sunday 11 February: Follow your family through their chain migration, with Kevin Cassidy. Host: Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society. Venue: Walt Branch Library, 6701 S 14th St, Lincoln, NE, USA. 2pm–4pm. Free. All welcome. Details.

Monday 12 February: NLI Reading Room and Manuscript Room closed. Venue: National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. On-going Monday closures are to facilitate extensive redevelopment of the premises. All other services/exhibitons/cafe, including Genealogy Advisory Service operating as normal. Details.

Monday 12 February: Dr George Cumming: a United Irishman, with Eddy Lowe. Host: Carryduff Historical Society. Venue: Committee Room, Lough Moss Leisure Centre, Hillsborough Road, Carryduff, Co Down. 8pm. All welcome. Members free. Non-members £2.

Monday 12 February: Clifton House and Mary Ann McCracken, with Louise Cavanan. Host: North of Ireland Family History Society, Newtownabbey Branch. Venue: Drama Theatre, Glengormley High School, 134 Ballyclare Road, Newtownabbey, BT36 5HP. 7pm. Free. All welcome.

Monday 12 February: Research Workshop: Using the National Library. Host & Venue: National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. 5:30pm. Free. To reserve a place, contact: learning@nli.ie or 01 6030 259/346. Details.

Tuesday 13 February: Pottery and trade connections in medieval Cork. Part of the 'Cork: Origins of a City' public talks series. Host and venue: St Peter's Cork, North Main Street, Cork City. 5pm. All welcome.

Tuesday 13 February: The photograph as a historical source, with John Lynch. North of Ireland Family History Society, Lisburn Branch. Venue: The Bridge Community Centre, 50 Railway Street, Lisburn, BT28 1XP. 7:30pm. Free. All welcome.

Tuesday 13 February: An update on the Irish DNA Atlas, with Ed Gilbert. Host: Genealogical Society of Ireland. Venue: Dun Laoghaire Further Education Institute, Cumberland St, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin. 8pm. All welcome. €3.

Tuesday 13 February: The Brewer's Tale, with Christina Wade. Host: More Tales of Medieval Dublin lecture series. Venue: Wood Quay Venue, Dublin City Council, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8. 1:05–1:55pm. Free. All welcome.

Wednesday 14 February: A life of crime: Stealing books in 18th- and 19th-century Ireland, with Dr James McElliott. Host: Old Dublin Society. Venue: Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street, Dublin 1. Free admission. All welcome. 6pm.

Thursday 15 February: The impact of having Sighle Humphreys as a grandmother and The O'Rahilly as great grand uncle, with Manchan Magan. Host: Glasnevin Trust and Trinity College Dublin Winter Lecture Series 2018. Venue: Glasnevin Musum's Milestone Gallery, Finglas Road, Glasnevin, Dublin 11. 7pm. All welcome. €10. Booking required.

Thursday 15 February: Ballyvorheen House: A History from Cromwell to Cosgrave, with John Hassett. Host: Murroe-Boher Historical Society. Venue: Muintir na Tíre Hall, Murroe, Co Limerick. Starts 8:30pm. All welcome. Members free. Admission €5 to non-members (including refreshments).

Friday 16 February: Dublin as a global city, 1600-2017, with Professor Kevin Whelan. Host: Princess Grace Irish Library. Venue: Princess Grace Irish Library, 9 rue Princesse Marie-de-Lorraine, Monaco. Reservations are essential due to the limited number of seats. Admission €10 payable on the door. Details.

Friday 16 February and Saturday 17 February Back To Our Past and Genetic Genealogy Ireland. Exhibition and fair, and two conferences: traditional genealogy and genetic genealogy. Venue: Titanic Suite, Titanic Belfast. Belfast. 10am – 5pm each day, admission £10. See lecture schedules and further details on organiser's website.

Saturday 17 February: Not all Irish were Catholic, with Audrey Leonard. Host: Irish Genealogical Society International. Venue: Celtic Junction Arts Center, 836 Prior Avenue North, St Paul, Minnesota, USA. All welcome. 10:30am. $15 for IGSI members/$20 for non-members. Register or simply turn up on the day.

Saturday 17 February: Griffith’s Valuation and other Irish land and property records, a Level II, Intermediate seminar with Miles Davenport. Host: Irish Cultural Centre & McClelland Irish Library. Venue: McClelland Library's Norton Room, 1106 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. 10:30am to 1:00pm. Members $15/non-members $20. (The seminar will be held again on 14 April - registration is not yet open.) Details.

Sunday 18 February: Irish Historical Walking Tour of central London. Host: Wolfe Tone Society London. Meeting venue: German Gymnasium, 1 King's Blvd, N1C 4BU London. Noon – 2:30pm. Free. All welcome. No booking. Just turn up.

Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives: Latest updates

The volunteers at Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives have uploaded another useful batch of records, most of them photos of headstones with transcribed inscriptions. Notably, the recording and imaging of Sligo Town Cemetery has just been completed by volunteer Kev Murray, while a new volunteer, AGI Affiliate Des Murtagh, has stepped up to record and photograph headstones in St Peter's section of Deansgrange Cemetery in County Dublin.

The first records from Deansgrange Cemetery's
St Peter's section has been added to IGP archives.
Photo courtesy IGPArchives and Des Murtagh.

CAVAN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Cootehill Presbyterian Graveyard
Coronea Old Burial Ground, Arvagh
Denn Parish Church (CoI) Graveyard
Ballyjamesduff Old Graveyard (Lurgan)

DUBLIN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Deansgrange, St. Peter's Section, Part 1
Deansgrange, St. Brigids Section, Pt. 11

DUBLIN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Golden Bridge, Inchicore, Pt. 4 (M-O)

MEATH Genealogy Archives - Headstones
St. Mary's (Left Side) Navan, A-B

MONAGHAN & FERMANAGH Genealogy Archives - Church Records
Clones Par. Reg., Marriages 1821-1823 (NW & SW or Town Div.)

ROSCOMMON Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Killummod Old Cemetery, (additional)

SLIGO Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Court Abbey - Section C (Updated)
Sligo Town Cemetery (Completed)

County Louth title among latest additions to PERSI

Click image to search PERSI's holding from the
County Louth Archaelogical Society Journal

Among FindMyPast's latest additions to its database is new content on PERSI: the PERiodical Source Index.

In total, the Index has been topped up with more than 73,000 new images and more than 10,000 new articles from six journals. For Irish genealogy reserachers the most interesting of these journals is likely to be the County Louth Archaeological Society Journal. (Just for the record, the other top-ups are for these titles: California Historical Society Quarterly, American Monthly Magazine, Catholic Record Society Publications, Herts Genealogist and Antiquary, and The Index Library.)

PERSI contains about 2.5million entries from thousands of historical, genealogical and ethnic publications, making it an invaluable family history resource. It is updated quarterly, as far as I'm aware, and helps family historians and other researchers to discover articles, photos, and other material not readily found using traditional search methods.

Articles fall under twenty-two different subject headings, or record types. These include biography, cemeteries, census records, church records, court records, deeds, institutions, land records, maps, military records, naturalization records, obituaries, passenger lists, probate records, school records, tax records, vital records, voter records, and wills. Articles about three or fewer specific families are arranged by surname.

There is advice on the FindMyPast site (here) for locating or obtaining copies of the journals or specific articles.

Contacting Matches is free to all MyHeritageDNA users

In response to requests from its customers, MyHeritage has made contacting DNA matches free for all MyHeritage DNA users.

This was already free to researchers who have taken the company's DNA test kits, but the no-charge arrangement will now be extended to uploaders of DNA data from other companies. MyHeritage DNA believes this will benefit the community and foster greater collaboration between newfound relatives.

MyHeritage DNA recently hosted a free webinar on Legacy about the latest improvements to its DNA Matching service. It can be viewed here.

Free at FindMyPast: all Irish/UK census and bmd records, and the new Suffragette Collection

To mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act (the act giving property-owning women and female graduates over the age of 30 the right to vote for the first time in history) FindMyPast has created a new collection called The Suffragette Collection.

It contains more than 3,000 Metropolitan and Home Office records, many appearing online for the first time. The records, digitised from originals held at The National Archives in Kew, tell the stories of individuals from all classes who actively fought for women’s suffrage, and reveal the struggles endured by the movement’s most ardent supporters.

Researchers can expect to find photographs, cabinet office papers, calendars of prisoners and Home Office papers on suffragette disturbances and prosecutions. The collection also includes an index of women arrested between 1906 and 1914, the official police watch list recording the details of over 1,300 militant suffragettes, reports of prison conditions, force-feeding, police surveillance and much more.

This new collection will be completely free to search and explore until International Women’s Day on Thursday 8 March, allowing family historians to explore their connection to this pivotal period of British and Irish history.

In addition, all UK and Irish census records and civil BMDs will be free via FindMyPast.ie and FindMyPast.co.uk until 11:59pm on Thursday 8 February, allowing researchers to learn more about the lives of their female ancestors.

If you don't already have one, you'll need to register with one of the sites. This is free and does not require you to provide your financial details. 

RCB Library releases online finding aid for Irish Huguenot Archive

February’s Archive of the Month at the RCB Library showcases the Irish Huguenot Archive, and makes available online for the first time a detailed finding aid to its content.

In 1993, the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland entered into an agreement with the Representative Church Body to allow the RCB Library to host what was to be called the Irish Huguenot Archive. It was hoped that this new entity would develop as a centre for Huguenot studies in Ireland and so serve a similar purpose to the Huguenot Library in London.

The title page from a genealogy of the
La Touche family, RCB Library Ms 128.

The initiative was overseen by the former Librarian and Archivist of the RCB Library, Dr Raymond Refaussé, who became the Archive’s first curator, and although now retired, has written the introductory text that accompanies this latest online exhibition which is illustrated with examples from the collection.

Many of the Huguenot refugees to Ireland had, eventually, conformed to the discipline of the Church of Ireland. In time, they ceased to hold their services in French and they were absorbed into the mainstream of the Church of Ireland, being distinguished only by their names and their history. Thus even before the creation of an official archive, the RCB Library had already been a place of resort for those interested in Huguenot families, where its unrivalled collection of registers of baptisms, marriages and burials (click link for list) contained many entries with Huguenot names, while its considerable collection of parish histories, many with limited circulations, included references to Huguenot families who had settled in various parts of Ireland.

The Library also had some existing Huguenot material in its manuscripts collection. This included the papers of JJ Digges La Touche, who had been Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Ireland, and, himself, a descendent of one of the more considerable French families to settle in Ireland, had copied the minute book from the French Church of St Mary in Dublin, for the years 1706-17, together with his notes on the Dublin banking firm of David La Touche, and a copy of a La Touche genealogy. With such materials already in its custody, it made sense for the Church’s record repository and reference library to become the permanent home of the materials pertaining to the Huguenot community.

With the inauguration of the Irish Huguenot Archive in 1993, material began to flow into the RCB Library on a regular basis, and has continued to do so. Many of the accessions have been random, in the sense that people have decided, for reasons of their own rather than having been targeted, to present material, but the collection also includes the work of genealogists and historians into the lineages of some Huguenot families.

The collection also includes a large number of printed books, periodicals and off-prints, all of which have been added to the RCB Library’s online catalogue of printed books.

Most valuable are the Huguenot Society’s publications – the many short articles which have been published in the Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland (now titled The Huguenot Society Journal) and the more substantial publications which have appeared as parts of the Quarto Series.

Scholars and researchers have furthermore been generous in presenting off-prints of articles, some published privately or in local journals, such as the many contributions to the history of the Huguenots in Portarlington by John Stocks Powell. The recent decision of the Irish Section to give an annual purchase grant has ensured that new books can be regularly added to the collection.

All of the original archive materials have been catalogued as a stand-alone collection consisting currently of 101 manuscripts – although this number is increasing incrementally with new donations. Whilst details of the printed materials have been available online through the Library’s online catalogue for some time, access to the content of the archive part of the collection was only possible in-house through index cards. Thanks to the work of Julia McCarthy, an undergraduate student at Trinity College Dublin, who worked in the Library as an intern during the summer of 2017, the rich detail from these cards has now been transferred to a searchable database at http://bit.ly/2DMpfTb and through the online exhibition.

The Irish Huguenot Archive has grown largely due to the generosity of those who have been involved in or who have been interested in the history of the Huguenot refuge in Ireland, and as it has grown, so too has its usefulness. The current Curator of the Irish Huguenot Archive, Dr Susan Hood, will always be glad hear of prospective donations.