Upcoming talks

There is still time to book for my 4th October in-person talk on using DNA for family histoy, which is part of Fingal’s Festival of History. There are a couple of seats left. The brochure is full of interesting other lectures too.

If you’re a member of the Shropshire Family History Society (like me!) then join me for a Zoom talk on Tracing your Irish ancestors on Tuesday 21st October.

The Records Show

Have you been watching the second series of The Records Show on RTÉ? It’s presented by journalist Katie Hannon and each week details stories which come from archival documents held by the National Archives. You can catch it on the RTÉ Player if you haven’t seen it. Two very interesting segments worth highlighting here.

Media reported last year that there was at last plans to transfer the Land Commission records to the National Archives - something that historians and genealogists have been asking about for decades. It was mentioned on The Records Show that this process is getting underway on a phased basis with intentions to make the records public in due course. This is perhaps the holy grail of Irish genealogy so very exciting to know that they are actually acting on it.

Secondly, the second and third episode featured details about the 1926 Census and the immense preparations for its release next 18th April. New to me news was that institutional returns did not anonymise people’s names on that census. This means that we’ll have greater detail on people in hospitals, prisons and other institutions. I’ll be on the look out for my great-great grandmother’s sister, Jane Ure, who I believe I identified from initials on the 1911 census. They also mentioned the records will be live from 00:01 on the 18th, so I guess I won’t be going to bed that night. I’m also planning a special event for that night so watch this space! For now, I’ve just added a countdown clock to my website. And here’s some ideas for planning what you’ll do first.

And talking of the census, I’m finally taking the time to get to grips with the new site that upset everyone so much earlier this year. I’m pleased that a lot of the original issues have been sorted, and that there is now a table view instead of the card view as the main search results output. Just toggle the “view as” section highlighted below.

Watch

During September, I presented a lecture for the International Institute of Genealogical Studies on the identification of the Russian Romanov family via DNA in the 1990s. You can watch it on the school’s YouTube channel.

Review

I found the time to read a genealogical mystery recently. I enjoy MJ Lee’s series featuring genealogist Jayne Sinclair. Read my review of the latest “The Salford Sioux” here.

New Collections

MyHeritage has been a bit behind its competitors for a while now on the Irish resources but they are working to catch up. They finally got most of their long-promised Irish Catholic collections up during September. These are freshly transcribed versions of the National Library’s parish register collection matched with their images. Yes, these records are already transcribed in other locations (some better than others), but I’m happy to see a fresh attempt. You never know what a different algorithm will find you. The collections are in 3 lots and are free to use with a MyHeritage login:

• Irish Catholic Parish Death & Burials 1795-1881 (235,063 records)

• Irish Catholic Parish Marriages 1742-1912 (3,300,194 records)

• Irish Catholic Parish Baptisms not yet uploaded but coming in the next week or so

Parish notes

The Research Room for the Irish General Register Office is moving house. They’ve been on Werburgh St (very handy for Burdock’s afterwards) for the last decade or so. News is just out that they’re closing to the public 3 weeks from 30th September and then re-opening in new premises at The Guild Building, Cork St, Dublin on Tuesday 21st October. As a friend joked, they must be carrying each book individually on foot to the new office! In reality, this only means they’re closed to the public for 3 days since they only open on Tuesdays now. The email service is unaffected by this move. The Guild Building is already a Government office, housing various other services. I’ll plan a visit and report back in due course.

I suspect they are still tweaking it because even though that filter list comes up, you can’t actually easily narrow it down to remove the ones you’re not interested in yet. I’ll do some more testing, but ultimately, I think this is good news for inexperienced and casual users who are not familiar with the districts. Now if you put in Cork, you’ll get results in up to 18 SRDs and not just from Cork city.

That’s it for this month!