Church records to go online for free

KildareFan · 19-03-2015 11:34am

Maybe familysearch.org will coordinate the transcription - they organised the transcription of the US 1940 census.

L1011 · 19-03-2015 12:28pm

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

I think the NLI should have a system for user transcriptions. Crowd source the problem.

Development costs are the issue with this - using an existing platform has huge advantages. Ancestry's is hugely flexible but all they guarantee is the indexes are free and with a small discount for active keyers, nothing huge or really tempting for a state to get involved in.

oceanclub · 13-04-2015 11:54pm

Anyone know if this is on schedule? I was tempted to subscribe to Rootsireland to access some church records but if I only have to wait a few months am happy enough.

P.

Thomas from Presence · 14-04-2015 12:50am

oceanclub wrote: »

Anyone know if this is on schedule? I was tempted to subscribe to Rootsireland to access some church records but if I only have to wait a few months am happy enough.

P.

If you're looking for something in particular send me a PM - I've an active sub with them presently.

oceanclub · 14-04-2015 3:57pm

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

If you're looking for something in particular send me a PM - I've an active sub with them presently.

Hi Thomas,

You're currently exceeded your PM quota and need to delete a few before I can PM you again

P.

FTGE4 · 22-04-2015 10:09pm

Sorry I'm new here - not to geneology. Is it true what pinkypinky said that commercial interests are indexing the National Library registers? Will that negate the free access?

pinkypinky · 22-04-2015 11:12pm

FTGE4 wrote: »

Sorry I'm new here - not to geneology. Is it true what pinkypinky said that commercial interests are indexing the National Library registers? Will that negate the free access?

I should think it's very likely that commercial firms will do it but probably just link to the nli image. I don't have any inside knowledge though

Coolnabacky1873 · 22-04-2015 11:25pm

I'd agree with Pinky. For example, Ancestry do this for the 1901 and 1911 census. It's a way for the commercial websites to say they "have" such records. There can also be value for the researcher as in the same example, the Ancestry search engine has more options.

KildareFan · 23-04-2015 9:47am

I'd agree - Ancestry links to a lot of free databases, for example, www.findagrave.com, but has a better search function [sometimes].

pinkypinky · 29-04-2015 2:28pm

Woohoo! 8th July.

www.irishgenealogynews.com/2015/04/nli-announces-date-for-launch-of-rc.html

Jellybaby1 · 29-04-2015 11:59pm

My Woo Hoo is just as loud. However, fingers crossed that they will be satisfactory.

Thomas from Presence · 30-04-2015 9:45am

I imagine if they're off the microfilm they'll be black and white which I'm sure will be fine. I love the NLI but I hate microfilm!

I did try browsing the ones for Dublin by changing the URL to flick through pages and missed a couple of ancestors until I discovered they support Wild Cards.

I think if I could go back in time I'd work for better literacy and to get a bishop to ensure that all pedigrees were recorded at marriages and baptisms!

pinkypinky · 30-04-2015 10:00am

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

I imagine if they're off the microfilm they'll be black and white which I'm sure will be fine. I love the NLI but I hate microfilm!

I did try browsing the ones for Dublin by changing the URL to flick through pages and missed a couple of ancestors until I discovered they support Wild Cards.

I think if I could go back in time I'd work for better literacy and to get a bishop to ensure that all pedigrees were recorded at marriages and baptisms!

They definitely are black and white.

If I could go back in time, I'd stop the fire in the Four Courts, and then we wouldn't have to rely quite so much on parish registers!

Jellybaby1 · 30-04-2015 11:27am

I expect if the images are taken directly from the microfilms they will be as legible or illegible as the microfilms themselves.

Thomas from Presence · 30-04-2015 4:04pm

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

I expect if the images are taken directly from the microfilms they will be as legible or illegible as the microfilms themselves.

I noticed that some of the church registers on Ancestry are full colour and beautifully scanned. It would be fantastic if at some point such a project was undertaken by literally anyone.

Dream scenario for me - Ancestry or Find My Past buy the RootsIreland.com database, rescan the registers as they have for St. Canice's Finglas et al. They also proactively poll user submissions to ensure corrections.

Almost as good as a time machine to the Four Courts!

Coolnabacky1873 · 30-04-2015 4:13pm

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

I noticed that some of the church registers on Ancestry are full colour and beautifully scanned. It would be fantastic if at some point such a project was undertaken by literally anyone.

IIRC, Ancestry got those from a company who was contracted by the Catholic Church (maybe only a diocese or certain parishes) to scan some parish registers in the last couple of years. Hence the full glorious colo(u)r.

Thomas from Presence · 30-04-2015 4:35pm

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

IIRC, Ancestry got those from a company who was contracted by the Catholic Church (maybe only a diocese or certain parishes) to scan some parish registers in the last couple of years. Hence the full glorious colo(u)r.

It's great work. Good to know.

FTGE4 · 02-05-2015 5:42pm

I heard those records on Ancestry were stolen by a company contracted by the church to preserve the records and sold to Ancestry. I'm surprised Ancestry would buy them. Was I naive to think they'd have integrity?

L1011 · 02-05-2015 6:32pm

FTGE4 wrote: »

I heard those records on Ancestry were stolen by a company contracted by the church to preserve the records and sold to Ancestry. I'm surprised Ancestry would buy them. Was I naive to think they'd have integrity?

Ancestry would only ask for proof that the records were allowed be provided. I suspect "stolen" is an extremely pejorative term here - sounds like something a parish office that used to charge €20 for a record would say when they found out what was going on.

If the firm that did the work for the dioceses had no permission and did this, they'd be open to legal action and ensure no further work was forthcoming.

This probably also pushed the IFHF to their subscription model as suddenly a huge swathe of the records they charged a fiver a go for were available on subscription.

Coolnabacky1873 · 02-05-2015 10:04pm

FTGE4 wrote: »

I heard those records on Ancestry were stolen by a company contracted by the church to preserve the records and sold to Ancestry. I'm surprised Ancestry would buy them. Was I naive to think they'd have integrity?

Over the top to say stolen.

Where did Ancestry get them? The source given is "Digitized images, Dublin, Ireland: E-Celtic, Limited". This part-Irish, part-Indian company produces parish record management software and presumably obtained rights to the images as part of their work with local parishes. Good on them.

24 March 2014, John Grenham column

Source information from database on Ancestry website
Ancestry.com. Ireland, Select Catholic Birth and Baptism Registers, 1763-1912 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Original data: Celtic Catholic Registers. Digitized images. Dublin, Ireland: E-Celtic, Limited.

Coolnabacky1873 · 04-05-2015 1:11am

Jealous beyond words: John Grenham got to try the parish register website.
Maps, skip to month of interest, sounds f€ckin' deadly!
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/irish-roots-1.2191844

Ponster · 04-05-2015 11:55am

But the site has the potential to be much more than the sum of these parts. The navigation by map and parish-name is utterly intuitive, permitting Ireland-wide overviews, easy movement between adjoining parishes and a comprehensive search of variant parish names.

This could change the way we search for information and will be very useful for foreign researchers.

Coolnabacky1873 · 04-05-2015 1:19pm

Definitely, I though the site might be basic enough, with just PDFs of registers arrange by county. The ability to jump to a certain year and month too will really cut down the amount of browsing through pages. Well, we have waited years and years and it's starting to look very, very promising!

Jellybaby1 · 04-05-2015 8:19pm

Brilliant news all round then. So now, when can we get to see all the records of the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Methodist, Quaker, and uncle Tom Cobbly and all religions I wonder? As you can see, I am never satisfied.

BigCon · 08-06-2015 5:14am

One month to go, looking forward to this!

spurious · 08-06-2015 5:38am

Please let someone involved realise the likely demand for this and not skimp on the servers.

Alicat · 08-06-2015 1:57pm

I've resigned to the prospect of waiting a week or two, after they are released. I just know it'll be deathly slow or crashing the whole time for the first few days.

Mac222 · 08-06-2015 7:12pm

Me too , cant wait though !

Jellybaby1 · 08-06-2015 8:57pm

Ooh, its like the civil records alllll over again!

Thomas from Presence · 09-06-2015 2:38pm

It's going to be amazing. It's the most important release since the census. I hope that in time it prompts some sort of transcription effort to unseat the horrors of Roots Ireland or at least prompts them towards some sort of innovation.

On the other hand I'm terrified at the prospects of having to read early 19th and late 18th century handwriting.

L1011 · 09-06-2015 2:45pm

I'd be fairly certain that the type of people (I don't know why that sounds really threatening...) who've done graveyard transcriptions and similar for IGP and other websites will be diving in to do their local areas / areas of interest. A single organised project would be ideal, however, along the lines of the FreeBMD setup in the UK.

Hermy · 09-06-2015 5:39pm

Thomas from Presence wrote: »

On the other hand I'm terrified at the prospects of having to read early 19th and late 18th century handwriting.

It may not be too bad if your dealing with one persons hand writing for a large number of entries. Gradually you will get your eye in and the more you try to decipher the easier it can get as you become familiar with the particular persons penmanship.

Earlier this year I had access to an original 19th century church register and I surprised myself when it came to transcribing it. At first it seemed like a hopeless task but after repeated reading I began to see things more and more clearly and I'm sure you will too.

Time and patience as a friend of mine always says.

Jellybaby1 · 09-06-2015 7:57pm

Hermy wrote: »

.....Gradually you will get your eye in and the more you try to decipher the easier it can get as you become familiar with the particular persons penmanship.

I found that to be very true when I did some transcriptions a couple of years ago. The handwriting becomes familiar, like a member of the family almost. I found myself marking names I couldn't make out by highlighting them on the computer, and by the end of a few more pages I could return and insert the correct name which had magically become legible further down the line!

L1011 · 09-06-2015 8:42pm

Most parish records will likely have the same handwriting for 30+ years across every chapel in the parish thankfully.

Jellybaby1 · 09-06-2015 8:50pm

But it just get more shaky as time goes on.

RGM · 11-06-2015 7:00am

Is there a list of exactly what the coverage of the registers will be in terms of parishes and dates? I'm not seeing that information.

shanew · 11-06-2015 7:30am

RGM wrote: »

Is there a list of exactly what the coverage of the registers will be in terms of parishes and dates? I'm not seeing that information.

see the pdf documents on this link : http://www.nli.ie/en/parish-register.aspx

or check here (swilson.info) , under the 'NLI Film Details' for each parish

Mac222 · 11-06-2015 6:37pm

Hope the search options will be made easy

L1011 · 11-06-2015 6:47pm

Mac222 wrote: »

Hope the search options will be made easy

There's no index. So the search will solely be year and parish. Hard to get wrong and Grenham claims it's done quite well

RGM · 11-06-2015 9:41pm

shanew wrote: »

see the pdf documents on this link : http://www.nli.ie/en/parish-register.aspx

or check here (swilson.info) , under the 'NLI Film Details' for each parish

That's fantastic, thanks. I can now be appropriately excited.

CassieManson · 14-06-2015 7:13pm

When is this due to be available?

L1011 · 14-06-2015 7:17pm

CassieManson wrote: »

When is this due to be available?

Three weeks roughly.

pjproby · 14-06-2015 9:21pm

Is there a template available for collating the information?

pinkypinky · 14-06-2015 10:32pm

pjproby wrote: »

Is there a template available for collating the information?

What do you mean by this?

Records will be launched on 8th July.

pjproby · 15-06-2015 9:59am

I mean is there a template available, such as an excel spreadsheet, for assembling the various parish's information.As I understand it there is no index, so transcribing the information would be helpful. these records could in theory be used to assemble a street index among other things for example.

pinkypinky · 15-06-2015 10:19am

As far as I know, there is no grassroots (pardon the pun) plan to transcribe the registers.
The registers do not all follow the same format so a template would have a lot of empty boxes. Very generally speaking, the earlier ones will give less information. For example, a marriage from 1830 would probably only give the date, couple's names, a townland address and the name of the clergyman who married them. 20 years later you'd get witnesses plus parents' names on some level. Later still you might even get addresses for all 6 people.

I expect the big companies to transcribe them and make it available on subscription at some stage.

pjproby · 15-06-2015 11:33am

thanks for the reply.

P. Breathnach · 15-06-2015 12:41pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

...
I expect the big companies to transcribe them and make it available on subscription at some stage.

The waters are muddied by IFHF/RootsIreland. Who would invest big bucks in such a project, knowing that such a group already has indices?

pinkypinky · 15-06-2015 12:56pm

I think it will happen. If you already have a sub for Ancestry/FMP, you win. If you are choosing a sub, and one of them has the parishes plus everything else they have, then you're much more likely to choose the bigger selection.

Where Rootsireland has the edge is that most of their records go to 1910-1920, which is a lot later than 1880 and helpful for finding those pesky mothers' birth surnames.

Thomas from Presence · 15-06-2015 9:36pm

P. Breathnach wrote: »

The waters are muddied by IFHF/RootsIreland. Who would invest big bucks in such a project, knowing that such a group already has indices?

Aside for the recent nature of their records (hat doffed to pinkypinky) their offering is horrid compared to Ancestry, FMP and even Familysearch.

You cannot search sponsors/witnesses, you can only search with a first name and while they note that they have a surname index, it's functionally useless.

In my case my priority surname is quite rare, Brunkard, and is consequently often misspelled. I can tell RI have some of those misspelling not associated with my surname (Brunkord, Brunchard etc.) and to find who these records belong to I have search all categories (births, marriages et al) for every 20 year period (i.e. =/- 10 years so 1700, 1720 etc.) with every letter of the alphabet for a first name.

It's a total chore and, since scans are not provided, the veracity of the transcriptions is circumspect. I've come across records which were extremely poorly transcribed in comparison to the actual original.

[BRAVEHEART SPEECH]

If the LDS create a system for a crowdsourced transcription of these then I'm on board.

These records are our people's heritage and the poor curation of the tax payer subsidised transcriptions must be corrected.

[/BRAVEHEART SPEECH]

Church records to go online for free

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