Wednesday, 5 August 2020

AncestryDNA launches Summer Sale (UK & Ireland)

https://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2020/08/ancestrydna-launches-summer-sale-uk.html
Ancestry is running a Summer Sale offering a 25% discount on its DNA test kits.

For researchers based in the UK and Ireland, the offer reduces the price of the AncestryDNA autosomal test from £79 to £59, with shipping costs extra.

The offer will run until 11:59pm on Sunday 9 August.

Click the image to find out more.

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€25m extra funding to stabilise Arts & Culture sector

The Republic of Ireland's Government announced an extra €25 million of funding yesterday to help stabilise the Arts and Culture sector following the Covid19 Emergency.

It follows a separate €31 million investment made through last week's Jobs Stimulus package (see blogpost), part of which – a €6 chunk – was directed towards Ireland's National Cultural Institutions, and especially to the National Library and National Archives of Ireland.

Pan Am's Yankee Clipper flew from New York to Foynes
in Co Limerick, starting the Transatlantic mail service.
See captions below.
Within the new package of funding, the following specific allocations have been made:

A further €1 million in grant aid will be available to smaller cultural organisations already supported by annual funding from the Department for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht. It includes Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the Hunt Museum, Archbishop Marsh’s Library, the National Print Museum and the Foynes Flying Boat & Maritime Museum, plus organisations caring for collections of moveable cultural heritage of national importance, or collections that are unique in the country and relate to matters of national interest.

A new €2 million Audience Re-engagement Fund will be reserved for not-for-profit small, regional and specialised museums that are not in receipt of operational funding from the Department or bodies under its aegis. The intention is to support those museums in regional and rural areas or with a specific focus of both local and national interest that were particularly impacted by the Covid-19 Emergency.

Other areas to be supported include cross-border projects organised under the Cooperation with Northern Ireland Scheme 2020 (€134,095); 15 projects under the Regional Museum Exhibitions Scheme 2020 including an exhibition on the life and work of artist Nano Reid at the Highlanes Gallery, Louth and the restoration of an RA105 vintage double decker bus exhibition with back stairs at the national Transport Museum in Howth, Co. Dublin (€137,581); the Business to Arts (€58,000) group, which helps cultural and artistic projects raise funds; and the Music Capital Scheme administered by Music Network, Ireland's national music touring and development (€270,000).

The €25 million allocation will be made available through the Arts Council (€20million) and the Department for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht (€5 million)



Captions for photos:
Top - Pan Am's Boeing 314 Yankee Clipper started the Transatlantic Mail Service. Photo, c1939.
Bottom - A full-size replica can be explored at Foynes Flying Boat Museum, Co Limerick.
Middle - Luxury Class dining room on board the Yankee Clipper replica.
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Tuesday, 4 August 2020

Family Tree DNA launches its Summer Sale

https://www.familytreedna.com/
Family Tree DNA is holding a Summer Sale. Offers include:

  • a US£20 saving on its autosomal test, Family Finder, discounted from $79 to $59;
  • a US£20 saving on its mitrochondrial, mtDNA test, discounted from $159 to $1399; and
  • a US£10 saving on its paternal, 37-marker Y-DNA test, discounted from $119 to $109.

There are also savings available on the 111-marker Y-DNA test ($249 reduced to $219) and the 700-marker YDA test ($449 reduced to $399). All FTDNA prices are in US dollars.

The sale will run until Monday 31 August.

To take advantage of the discounts, click the image, right.
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PRONI Reading Room to re-open Monday 24 August

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland will reopen to the public from Monday 24 August.

Initially, the Reading Room will operate a limited and appointment-only system for visitors wanting access to PRONI's collection of original and microfilmed documents.

PRONI, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast
The following arrangements will apply:
  • Appointments will be for a full day (max. 10am to 4pm) but with an allocated arrival time of between 10am and 11:20am.
  • Documents will need to be ordered two weeks in advance of the visit.
  • Appointments and the availability of your ordered documents will be confirmed one week in advance.
  • Documents will be 'quarantined' after they being handled by staff and visitors.
  • There will be no access to the self-service microfilm area, computers, and other reference material located in the Public Search Room.
  • Microfilm readers can be used in the Reading Room for microfilm ordered in advance.
Full details, including links to the booking system are now online here.

Before visiting, you are advised to view the video below from PRONI so that you're fully prepared for the new rules and restrictions:

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Monday, 3 August 2020

RCBL Archive of the month: Outreach in a time of conflict


To mark the 100th anniversary of the Belfast Riots, Prof Brian M Walker, Professor Emeritus of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, in collaboration with the RCB Library in Dublin, has produced a timely piece on the bridge-building contribution of one Church of Ireland cleric. |The feature is the Library's online Archive of the Month.

St Patrick's CoI Church, Ballymacarrett, E. Belfast
The Revd John Redmond was a well-known figure in the columns of the Church of Ireland Gazette in the 1920s. He was vicar of the parish of Ballymacarrett in East Belfast, 1920-1929; the parish church, dedicated to St Patrick, was the spiritual home to more members of the Church of Ireland than any other parish in the country.

Born in Co. Armagh in 1876, Redmond served as a chaplain with the 36th Ulster Division. He ministered to the mortally wounded Willie Redmond MP, (the brother of Irish nationalist John Redmond*) in his last hours at Messines in 1917. He became vicar of Ballymacarrett less than three years later.

Sectarian riots broke out in Belfast in the summer of 1920. On 3rd September, the Gazette observed how ‘since the troubles began in Belfast Mr Redmond had been in the thick of the disturbances’. In July and August he went onto the Newtownards Road in East Belfast to stop rioters, and organised bands of unarmed volunteers to prevent rioting and looting.

On 13 May 1921, the Gazette noted that Redmond had ascertained that there were at least 15,000 nominal Church of Ireland people in the parish, but many did not attend church.

To meet this challenge, he engaged new staff and organised Sunday schools and branches of young people’s organisations. In March 1922, Redmond reported that there were many who ‘on account of the condition of their clothes would not come to the parish church’. To reach them, Redmond organised the building of mission halls.

Full page coverage of the work of the parish,
Church of Ireland Gazette, 22 February 1929
Poverty and unemployment were deep concerns for Redmond and his staff. During the coal strike and general strike of 1926, groceries were given out each week to over 300 families, and the soup kitchens in St Patrick’s School distributed 3,000 meals weekly.

In late 1928, the Gazette published a letter from Redmond, appealing for funds and expressing a wish that other church members might ‘adopt’ one of the mission districts. This appeal won an immediate response. He received financial contributions from all over Ireland. In Dublin a committee was formed under the Bishop of Meath to establish the Southern Church Mission to Ballymacarrett. Funds were raised to build a new church.

On 8 April 1933, St Martin’s church, off the Lower Newtownards Road, was consecrated.


LECTURE: Professor Walker is the author of the recently published Irish History Matters: Politics, Identities and Commemoration (The History Press, 2019). He will be including John Redmond in an online recorded lecture for this year’s West Cork History Festival. The lecture will reflect on inter-connected violence in Cork and Ulster in 1920 and will be available from 8 August via the link.

* Revd John Redmond was not related to John and Willie Redmond.
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2-week summary of updated British genealogy records

Below is a summary of new and updated family history record collections for England, Scotland and Wales released by major genealogy databases in the second half of July (see last summary, 17 July).

This regular summary of releases relating to British collections is designed to help family historians whose Irish ancestors migrated, temporarily or permanently, to England, Scotland or Wales. By default, it will also be useful to anyone carrying out research in those three nations, regardless of the origin of their ancestors.

The figures in parenthesis in the New Collections section are the numbers of records/images in the new record set.

Unless otherwise stated, the figures in parenthesis in the Updated Collections section reflect the number of records added to the collection in the recent update. In some instances, the supplier has not made this figure available. I don't usually include updates of fewer than 1,000 records.

NEW COLLECTIONS

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive (All titles shared with FindMyPast's British Newspaper Collection)

FindMyPast


UPDATED COLLECTIONS

Ancestry

FamilySearch

FindMyPast
  • Warwickshire Burials (140,000 additions from three cemeteries - Coventry, London Road; Coventry, St Paul's; Walsgrave on Sowe - total now 2m+ records)


 Some of the above content contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission if you buy via these links. This does not affect the price you pay as a consumer, but it does contribute to keeping Irish Genealogy News online. See Advertising Disclosure tab above.
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MyHeritage redesigns and improves its search engine

MyHeritage has redesigned its search engine for historical records to make it more intuitive.

The company's main goals were to provide faster performance so that researchers can make more searches of the 12.5-billion-records database in less time. The new search facility now displays more results on each page, and you can now edit a search while viewing them, helping you to narrow down the records you want.

The new search form is here, and you can read a detailed blogpost from MyHeritage explaining the redesign by clicking the promo image below.

https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/08/the-myheritage-search-engine-for-historical-records-just-got-better/
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Friday, 31 July 2020

Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives: end of July update

In the last two weeks the volunteers of Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives have uploaded headstone photos + transcriptions of their inscriptions from five burial grounds across the four provinces of Ireland.

The four-year project to collect photos of headstones
at Aughaval Cemetery in County Mayo and transcribe
their inscriptions has been completed. Thanks are due
to volunteers Dympna Beckett Joyce & Bernie McCafferty.
They include the final tranches from the 1000-grave Aughaval Cemetery in County Mayo and are listed below.

The IGPA Headstone Project now holds more than 157,000 images. They, as with all files in the online archive, are provided free to help other researchers.

DUBLIN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Kilbarrack Graveyard, Sutton (additional)

DUBLIN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Mt. Jerome Cem., Parts 259-261

MAYO Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Aughaval Cemetery Part 7
Aughaval Cemetery (New) Part 8

MONAGHAN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Drummully St. Mary's Church (CoI) (additional)

WATERFORD Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Friends Burial Ground, Newtown (additional)
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Thursday, 30 July 2020

New/updated US genealogy records: 2-week summary

Below is a summary of US family history collections that have been either newly released or updated by the major genealogy databases in the last two weeks. (The last summary list was published on 16 July, see blogpost).

My regular summaries are designed to help family historians whose Irish ancestors emigrated, temporarily or permanently, to the United States. By default, they should also be useful to anyone carrying out research in the US, regardless of the origin of their ancestors.

The figures in parenthesis in the New Collections section are the numbers of records/images in each new record set.

Unless otherwise stated, the figures in parenthesis in the Updated Collections section reflect the number of records added to the collection in the recent update, if a number has been clearly noted by the supplier. I do not include updates of fewer than 1,000 records.

NEW COLLECTIONS

Ancestry

FamilySearch

FindMyPast

UPDATED COLLECTIONS

AmericanAncestors
        St Cecelia, Boston; St John The Baptist, East Boston. (1,700 pages/66,000 names)

Ancestry

FamilySearch


Some of the above content contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission if you buy via these links. This does not affect the price you pay as a consumer, but it does contribute to keeping Irish Genealogy News online. See Advertising Disclosure tab above.
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Key 'Troubles' documents from NAI added to CAIN

A batch of some 960 documents, covering events related to Northern Ireland over the period 1986-88, have just been added to the Conflict Archive on the INternet (CAIN) website as part of an ongoing partnership involving Ulster University and the National Archives of Ireland (NAI).

CAIN contains information and source material on 'the Troubles' and politics in Northern Ireland from 1968 to the present. Work on the Irish records from the NAI was initially funded by the Reconciliation & Anti-Sectarianism Funds, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Dublin and later by the Reconciliation Fund, at DFAT.

The newly released material covers a wide range of topics: the workings of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in its initial phase in relation to various political, legal and security matters; how the governments in Dublin and London sought to manage their relationship in the face of challenging issues such as the extradition of those suspected of terrorist offences or the high profile cases of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four; as well as the immediate aftermath of some of the most notorious events during the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland such as the Enniskillen Bomb in November 1987 and the aftermath of the killings in Gibraltar in March 1988.

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