Atlas of the Great Irish Famine wins Irish book award

Click to visit publisher's website

The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine last night won the Best Irish Published Book of the Year Award.

This outstanding work is edited by John Crowley, William J. Smyth and Mike Murphy from the Geography Department, University College Cork.

Despite its geographical signposting and marvellous maps, it isn't really an atlas at all. It's a serious academic study of a historical event – arguably THE most pivotal historical event in Ireland's history – beautifully put together and engagingly presented.

With its 728 pages, 200 maps and 400 illustrations (not to mention 60 contributors), it's a mighty tome, both literally and figuratively, and has been picking up excellent reviews. Here's just one:

This Atlas offers a powerful, unflinching and coherent understanding of the Irish Famine as the defining event in Irish history. It balances sweeping survey with minute details, while always attending to the surprising diversity of this small island in the mid nineteenth century. Its unparalleled assemblage of new maps, old images and extensive documentation offers a brilliant teaching aid for the history of Ireland and of the Irish diaspora. Firmly rooted in recent research, saturated in meticulous scholarship, and interdisciplinary in the best sense, it is unafraid to draw the necessary trenchant conclusions. Its broad synthesis offers the best overview we have ever had of this traumatic and defining episode. Professor Kevin Whelan, Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre, Dublin.

The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards celebrate Irish writing. The full name of the award won by The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine was International Education Services Best Irish Published Book of the Year. Full list of winners.

Published by Cork University Press, The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine costs €59.00. Click image above to visit Cork University Press online shop.

Thanksgiving offer from Origins.net

To mark Thanksgiving in the USA, Origins.net is making available two of its Middlesex & City of London Indexes free of charge until Saturday.

The indexes include:

• Some 140,000 baptism records from 1538-1882. In addition to the father’s name and date of baptism, other useful information was sometimes recorded in the register. This can include mother’s forename and surname, parish, actual address and date of birth.
  
• More than 169,100 burial records from 1560-1909. The indexes contains surname and forename, age where given in the register, year of burial, parish and additional info, which may include addresses, parents names and other personal details.

To take advantage of this offer you'll need to register or log in here.

Closed records at NAI in next few weeks

A major upgrade of the National Archives of Ireland's storage facility in the Four Courts continues. The works are designed to bring the facility up to modern repository standards, and they have now reached the centre sections of the basements. This necessitates a period when access to the records held in this area will be unavailable.

From Friday 23 November to Friday 7 December inclusive, the following series of archives will be closed:

• Probate Office, Schedule of Assets 1924-56
  
• Crown & Peace, pre-1922
  
• Circuit Court
  
• National School Teachers' Salary Books (ED/4)
  
• Business Record Collections
  
• Ordnance Survey Consent and Levelling Registers
  

Check the detailed summary of the records that won't be available during the closure period here.

Winter issue of Irish Roots magazine published

Click image for preview

The Winter 2012 issue of Irish Roots magazine has been published.

This issue's research advice features – as always, written by experts – look at how to trace your ancestors online, how to use military records and gravestone inscriptions, and how to get the best historical and genealogical value from the Petty Sessions Order Books.

There are also articles about preserving old photos and news of a reconstruction of medieval documents that burned in the 1922 fire, plus a look at some of County Tipperary's eccentric attractions.

My own What's New? review of the last three months is also included, as are the regular features about researching Irish roots from North America and Australia.

You can pick up Irish Roots in Eason's or Barnes & Noble outlets, or subscribe (print + digital) here for €23 Ireland or €25 Rest of World, incl postage. A free digital preview of this issue can be found here.

More burial records for Northern Ireland

You'll remember that back in mid-September a new website was launched to hold all the burial/gravestone details of graveyards controlled by Magherafelt District Council in Northern Ireland. (See original report.)

The team who created the website discovereverafter.com have been hard at work since then. REALLY hard at work.

They have added burial details from nine more council areas, making more than 45,000 records available in total. The 'new' graveyards surveyed include burial grounds in:

• Moyle District Council
  
• Ballymena Borough Council
  
• Larne Borough Council
  
• Coleraine Borough Council
  
• Omagh District Council
  
• Limavady Borough Council
  
• Fermanagh District Council
  
• Craigavon District Council
  
• Derry City Council
  

You can view the full list of graveyards now included here.

Another 20,000 records will shortly be added from graveyards where surveying work is in progress. (See news item 3 December for update.)

This site is certainly starting to fulfil its promise!

Video: How DNA can aid Irish genealogy research

Among the lectures delivered at last month's Back To Our Past show in Dublin (was it really only last month?), was a very well-received presentation by Maurice Gleeson on how DNA can help Irish genealogy research.

Maurice has created a slightly extended video version of his lecture and it's now available to view via his Spearin Surname Project website. He explains how, after considerable traditional research, he had hit a brick wall with 14 of his 32 great great great grandparents, and turned to DNA to see if he could make any more progress. His quest was successful.

Using his own experiences of DNA testing, as well as the stories of historical characters, he explains how the various types of DNA test (Y-DNA, MT-DNA, and Autosomal DNA) can be useful for family research.

Broken into four 15-minute segments, the video presents the DNA argument very clearly using specific real-life examples rather than just theory. I recommend it to anyone who is still rather baffled by DNA technology and it's place in the genealogy arsenal.


3 November 2023: Video removed.

Belfast Morning News 1880 added to BNA

The British Newspaper Archive has added the Belfast Morning News for 1880 to the line up of publications available on its subscription database. This joins editions for the same newspaper for 1879, which were added in September.

If you're not sure about paying for a full subscription, you might like to register with the website anyway and receive 15 free credits. This allows you to view up to three pages from your chosen newspaper.

Ancestry's Merchant Seamen collection grows

Ancestry UK has updated its collection of Masters and Mates Certificates, 1850-1927. This record set, released on the subscription database in September, contains certificates issued to merchant seamen by the British Board of Trade. A sizeable proportion of these seamen are Irish.

Now with nearly 282,000 records, today's update has grown the collection by some 30-odd thousand entries.

The certificates were issued to those seamen who qualified as masters or mates aboard merchant ships. The documents include certificates of competency, certificates of service, examination applications, and other miscellaneous forms. Collectively, they may include some or all of the following details:

• name
  
• certificate number
  
• birth date
  
• birthplace
  
• issue port
  
• issue date
  
• address
  
• examination date
  
• history of service (dates, vessels, occupations, years in service)
  

Ancestry gives this advice for examining this record set: 'Some of the information is included on the back of the certificates, and some documents in a seaman’s folder have not been indexed, so when you find a record, use the arrows to browse surrounding documents to make sure you see all the records available. You may want to browse through an entire roll since the original folders were sometimes filed in random order.'

PRONI: Reduced services and Xmas closures

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has advised of disruptions to services from Monday 10 December to Tuessday 1 January inclusive as follows:

READING ROOM SERVICE UNAVAILABLE
To facilitate the media preview of the Annual Release of files from 1982, the Reading Room service will be unavailable from 10-14 December inclusive.

Other services in the Public Search Room, self-service microfilm, exhibition etc will remain open to visitors.

NO LATE NIGHT SERVICE
The usual Thursday late-night opening will not operate on 20 and 27 December. On these dates, service will cease at 4:45pm.

CHRISTMAS CLOSURES
PRONI will be closed on Monday 24 December, Tuesday 25 December, Wednesday 26 December and Tuesday 1 January 2013.

Synopses of the summer 20x20 lectures now available

Regular readers of Irish Genealogy News will recall the 20x20 series of lunchtime family history talks held during August at the National Library of Ireland (NLI). Organised by Eneclann and Ancestor Network, who together provided the Genealogy Advisory Service at the NLI throughout the summer (and continue to provide the service at the National Archives of Ireland), the series consisted of twenty 20-minute lectures, held Monday to Friday throughout the month.

When the series was first announced, I admit to having been rather sceptical about the value of such a short lecture, even though the line-up included an impressive roll-call of experts. But having attended a few of the talks, I was quickly won over by the format. (You can read my report on two of the talks here.)

Each speaker presented their talk for the agreed 20-minutes, putting over all the relevant facts and figures and their relevance for genealogy research. This focus meant a huge amount of information could be presented as the minutes ticked away. But it was the Q&A sessions after each talk that added the unexpected bonus because it gave everyone in the audience an opportunity to quiz the speaker, seek additional detail or clarify a point. For me, this element of the format was as informative as the formal presentation. And it lasted longer! I'd estimate that each 20-minute talk was followed by nearly 30 minutes of questions.