Church records to go online for free

Coolnabacky1873 · 06-01-2015 2:06pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

Paul Gorry, prominent member of APGI has posted on facebook about this today.

https://m.facebook.com/PaulGorryMAPGI/posts/485650954909176

He makes some interesting points.

Thanks for posting that link, Pinky, and apologies in advance for the long post. TL;DR in advance - a bit of a ramble, mostly disagreeing with Paul Gorry's FB post

Some initial thoughts:

NLI services in general - I don't know enough to comment on that.

The general point about the NLI 'going it alone' and not consulting with the Church and other genealogy groups - well done to the NLI. John Grenham has commented before about how the IFHF have been the biggest opponent to getting the parish registers digitized and online. There were efforts when Jimmy Deenihan was the relevant minister to bring all the groups in Irish genealogy together, but there has been too much heel dragging, resistance, and funding cuts over the last 10 years. This should have been done a long time ago.

Professional genealogy in Ireland - Having all the records free and online creates a space in the market for the expert, who knows these records inside out, to sell their knowledge to those who are researching their family. Yes, it might lead to less commissioned client research, but if researchers hit a brick wall and are not extracting the full benefit from the records then that's where an expert can step in and sell their knowledge. I've worked as a pro gen (still do in a limited capacity) and if the market changes you have to change with it and look for an edge.

Other countries not offering free access to records - I feel that Ireland is quite different, we have a much larger diaspora than other European countries and except for a very, very small minority in Ireland, people outside of Ireland were the main drivers of Irish genealogy for decades up to the 1990s. The first Irish genealogy book was written by an American, Margaret Dickson Falley, in 1962; the Utah-based Mormon Church microfilmed huge numbers of Irish records that were made available to anyone, worldwide. When widespread internet access came about in the 90's, it was people outside of Ireland who started transcribing those Mormon microfilms and put the info online. There has always been an understanding that people outside of Ireland are the 'target audience' for Irish genealogy records. The Irish Govt has slowly but surely realized this and the main benefit derived from free records online is the increase in tourism when they come to visit.

The outraged Heritage Centres - competition leads to innovation. Having a monopoly over a record set can lead to a poor and expensive service. If the digitized parish registers are going to compete with what Heritage Centers/IFHF offer then they need to brainstorm about how they can compete and offer a service that is needed. There are plenty of non-profit genealogy organizations in many countries that sell a service or access to records and I've never heard any of them complain when records are digitized. IFHF have a fantastic network of centres in almost (none in Carlow) every county, and loads more records beyond parish registers. They should be shouting loudly every day to make sure it is the first place that people go to when they go to a county to do research.

The benefit to commercial genealogy companies after tax-payer efforts - Paul makes a good point with this. This is a byproduct of not have a coherent Gov't policy about how genealogy can be a part of economic tourism. The National Archives of Ireland has realized this and adopted the model of partnering with a commercial company, who get exclusive access to the digitized records for a set number of years, before they become open access records. If they can't do it themselves, then this seems to be the next best option.

pedroeibar1 · 06-01-2015 3:50pm

Hermy wrote: »

It seems that maybe Paul's issues go beyond the mere uploading of church records and have more to do with his own dissatisfaction with the way the National Library conducts its affairs.

I agree with you H but it does not detract from his message overall. Genealogy is a football that has been kicked around by too many vested interests for too long a time. IARC was launched in Limerick a year or so ago to much fanfare and its 'public' face has disappeared. I'd love to see the Advertising Standards people jump on many of the geno companies as a result of false/misleading advertising and fee structures. Am I holding my breath? No, because we never have had /have/ will have a politician or quango with the ability to something positive about it in a coherent way.......

Hermy · 06-01-2015 8:54pm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

...it does not detract from his message overall...

Paul Gorry's message seems merely to be - at least from my reading of it - that the National Library releasing on-line the parish registers is a bad thing.

I don't see how this is so.

pinkypinky · 06-01-2015 10:19pm

"Outraged Heritage Centres" - are as faceless as the "public" who have been overwhelmingly positive. I haven't seen any comments from them, ever.

Lionheart · 06-01-2015 10:51pm

Having the baptism and marriage records available online- and for free - of a large number of my ancestors has been an enormous help to me. I thank the Catholic Church for facilitating me in my efforts to trace my ancestry but I don't see it as a huge gesture on their behalf. However when I see how difficult they could make it I am grateful.

Ok its only for those records prior to the 1880's but they have answered many of my questions. How anyone could argue against releasing additional records online is beyond me.

Then again if I had a vested interest in people being dependent on me to do the research I may have a different view.

Hermy · 08-01-2015 12:06am

John Grenhams view on the matter:

About the Church:
I don't think the information in the registers belongs to anyone. What the Church owns is the physical objects, the paper and ink. Because they've never been published, there's no copyright and even if there was copyright, it would have expired long ago. If anyone has a (moral) right to this information, it can only be the people recorded and their descendants.

I don't think the argument about affecting possible future collaboration between the Church and NLI holds much water either. The chances of the Church agreeing or NLI being able to afford such collaboration were already vanishingly remote.

And NLI is not a safe-storage facility. Anything deposited there is destined to be made publicly available.

About genealogists:
You might be right on this, Paul. The argument (and I've made it) is that professional genealogists will inevitably get a smaller slice of the cake, but the cake will be much bigger. The same argument applies to the heritage centres. But that's pretty speculative: I could well be a turkey voting for Christmas. Then again, I get almost no commissions that depend on the fact that the microfilms are only available in Dublin.

Anyway, I still think making the images of the microfilms available online is absolutely the right thing to do. We actually do owe it to the Irish Diaspora, like it or not. And if the aim is to maximise the benefit to Ireland as a whole, it should be as easy as possible for researchers anywhere to identify their Irish ancestors. The spin-offs might be hard to get into measurable statistics, but they're very real.

And Paul Gorry's response:

I’m not against the images from the microfilms going on-line. That may very well be good for all concerned. However, I don’t believe the National Library has any right to unilaterally decide to upload the images without consultation with the owners of the records and without due consideration of the impact on Irish jobs. Please explain to me why these records must be uploaded for free? Do you not see that the only ones who will benefit financially from this in the long-run are the large data providers? Surely the NLI could have co-operated with the Irish Family History Foundation in allowing them to link their indexes to the images. And regardless of whether the NLI could ever in the future afford to collaborate on digitising the post-1880 registers, they may have ruined the chances of any institution getting that chance.

About the owners of the records:
The information in any documents acquired by any library has a monetary value. That’s why the NLI has spent huge chunks of its budget over the years acquiring Joyce and Yeats manuscripts. I’m not suggesting that the owners of the parish registers should be given monetary compensation and it’s nothing to do with copyright, but a library given permission to copy a document has a moral obligation to the owners. The owners of records (regardless of who they may be) have a moral right to be consulted about what happens to the information contained in them. In this case the records are owned by the Roman Catholic Church. That doesn’t mean that the bishops or the priests “own” them (and they’re an easy target for bashing). The bishops and priests are the custodians on behalf of their parishioners. They have a moral obligation to their parishioners to preserve these records and do what’s best for them. There is a difference between the parishioners and the descendants of people recorded in the registers. They are not necessarily the same set of people. Many of us are not members of the Church. RC registers are owned by the Church (i.e. the parishioners). On the other hand, re-Disestablishment Church of Ireland parish registers are public records. This means that they are owned by the State. That doesn’t mean that they are the property of Enda Kenny. The State is the custodian on behalf of the citizens. There is a difference between the citizens and the descendants of people recorded in the registers. On behalf of the State the National Archives safeguards public records. Pre-Disestablishment C of I registers held by the Representative Church Body Library are held with the consent of the National Archives. The RCBL cannot unilaterally decide to scan these registers and upload them on-line. When those from Carlow and Dublin were uploaded in recent years this was done by the owners (the National Archives and the Dept. of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, on behalf of the State) in co-operation with the RCBL. Co-operation – that’s what’s lacking in the case of the NLI’s intended action.

So is this basically about the impact this will have on APGI and IFHF and never mind the opinion of Joe Public?

shanew · 08-01-2015 12:37am

Surely the IFHF messed up any chances of cooperative project with the NLI when they blocked this kind of idea when it was raised before ?

The records may not be so easy for third parties to exploit - searches might be protected by captcha, and hot-linking blocked, and the images may only available page by page like the current registers, making bulk downloading less easy.

Hermy · 08-01-2015 12:55am

shanew wrote: »

Surely the IFHF messed up any chances of cooperative project with the NLI when they blocked this kind of idea when it was raised before ?

I thought that might be the case.

The portraying of the NLI as the villain and the IFHF as the victim really does speak for itself.

shanew · 08-01-2015 1:05am

The stated mission of the National Library is '...to collect, preserve, promote and make accessible the documentary and intellectual record of the life of Ireland and to contribute to the provision of access to the larger universe of recorded knowledge...' (my italics), and isn't that what they are doing ?

I dont know what if any arrangement there was with the Catholic church at the time of filming, but the records are already available to the general public, or more accurately to the lucky few that live close-by, or can afford to visit Dublin.

p.s. has anyone heard any complaint from the Catholic Church ?

Hermy · 08-01-2015 1:51am

And do you know if they intend to carry out this stated mission or will they consult with Mr. Gorry first?:o

Mollymoo19 · 08-01-2015 12:35pm

I’m thinking there may well have been some prior consultation between the NLI and the IFHF. Otherwise their recent change in fee policy, not long after a previous change, seems very opportune – a free index to freely available register images would have caused some real 'outrage'.

Coolnabacky1873 · 08-01-2015 1:18pm

shanew wrote: »

p.s. has anyone heard any complaint from the Catholic Church ?

This short article from the Irish Catholic is dated Sept 2013 but only alludes to unhappy bishops.

Catherine Green's response in the FB comments is very good, IMO (edited by me):

Professional genealogists may expect the increased availability of early Irish Catholic records to lead to further work for themselves, not less: those who through the church records finally find their townland of origin will then want to find more of their family's story......I've never asked or expected for everything to be "free on the internet" but the centres' charging a fee per name search was not feasible for some of my Irish names as Donahoe, Sullivan, O'Brien, Murphy and O'Connor. It is 179 years since some of my Irish family first came to the United States, and about 170 years since most of the rest of them came. In that time, from those who have been very interested in my family over the generations, the profit from our trying to find our records has gone to research centres, donations have been made to parish priests and researchers have been hired. Some answers were found, some not. Hundreds of dollars spent and hours willingly worked with all available US records and census films and many letters written. Now at this point in history what is the benefit of keeping the church records from the people they belong to? Additionally, I look forward to the images as a way to search sponsor names and interconnected families. I will happily spend time over these in a way I could never expect a paid researcher to do for me and that I can only do if the records will be free. Even if I could go to NLI, which I cannot do at this time in my life, there is no way to have enough time there to go over films, as I would have from home access. I sincerely and gratefully thank NLI for providing this record set in 2015. Other countries may not provide this exact type of record, but Australia, for one, is a dazzling example with its free searchable historical newspapers. Any access to records can lead to further interest in genealogy, so I hope this is a win-win for everyone, including operators of B&Bs back home in Ireland.

shanew · 08-01-2015 1:30pm

I would think at least some parishes might be relieved that the films will be easier to access, as it takes the pressure off them. It's difficult to tell the volume of requests they get, probably often vague queries that would take up more time than they have. With the images available online, most parishes can direct people to the NLI/IrishGenealogy website.

and in relation to Catherine's mention of Australian Newspapers free online - the Trove website really is an absolute treasure!

Skerries · 18-03-2015 2:46pm

looks like rootsireland will be going out of business now

http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/genealogy/Genealogists-delight---Irelands-Catholic-Church-Records-go-online.html

edit: oops! probably old news as this is from last December

shanew · 18-03-2015 3:24pm

The records from the NLI are as images of the Catholic registers only, so I think there will still be business for RootsIreland - especially where people are not sure of a parish

pinkypinky · 18-03-2015 3:34pm

I wonder if we'll see a commercial scramble though to get transcriptions of those images asap.

Thomas from Presence · 18-03-2015 6:39pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

I wonder if we'll see a commercial scramble though to get transcriptions of those images asap.

I hate to say it but I hope so. RootsIreland.ie is the biggest thorn in my side in terms of getting anything done. I've given over lots of money to them and they seem to do everything to prevent me finding what I need.

I would volunteer to Eneclann et al as a transcriber as part of a group effort to get this stuff properly documented and out there. These records are of critical importance to anyone doing any research in Ireland. Even if they're just the images.

L1011 · 19-03-2015 8:23am

I'd be fairly certain that enthusiastic genealogists, amateur or not, would do better transcriptions than the 1980s FAS scheme ones that make up a lot of the core of Rootsireland's data to begin with. Double-entering with verification (like FreeBMD uses) coupled with a less restrictive index search could make the same image data far, far more useful.

Actually seeing the images could be invaluable too; as there's often notes scribbled in that are unlikely to have been transferred to the existing index due to lack of any fields for them to go - I know the local RC parish here makes extensive notes on any communion, confirmation, wedding and known death for instance.

pinkypinky · 19-03-2015 11:06am

I'm sure lots of us would be willing to volunteer for such a project. The issue is who would coordinate it. The NLI wouldn't have funding, nor would any other State organisation. I wouldn't be willing, for example, to work unpaid for one of the big commercial sites, unless there was a quid pro quo X number of months free use of their full site.

Thomas from Presence · 19-03-2015 11:20am

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

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

Church records to go online for free

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