Roundtable discussion at the National Library

Waitsian

Short notice I know but this is on tonight at 7 pm for anyone in or near Dublin. Should be interesting.

Details of speakers in the link:

http://www.nli.ie/en/list/current-events.aspx?article=0187f83c-c738-42a4-b666-316b2c3ba167

It's free to attend, and no pre-booking reqiured. All are welcome.

Alicat

Has anyone been to one of these before? What kind of things will be discussed? If it was worth my while I might pop in

pinkypinky

Too late to answer your questions now but I was in attendance last night.

It was a panel of Fiona Fitzsimmons (Eneclann/FMP), Brian Donovan (Eneclan/FMP), John Grenham (APGI) and Michael Merrigan (GSI) being asked questions by Tommy Graham of History Ireland.

They had run this panel before but were unable to podcast due to technical issues, so a repeat was arranged. The event was very well attended: approx 60 people - 70 people. Graham asked questions of the panel for about an hour and threw open to the floor for audience questions, which brought up some interesting comments. He himself is not a genealogist and seemed surprised when a show of hands revealed most people in the room had looked into their ancestry (what did he expect at a debate on the future of genealogy?!)

It was quite general in its topics discussed: what is genealogy, what are the major issues and sources. I liked that he asked the panel if they could have one wish what would it be and it basically came down to a time machine to stop the Four Courts destruction, along with digitisation of everything, reform of the GRO and better collaboration between different genealogy organisations.

Fascinating discussion.

Alicat

I ended up going myself actually, and I brought my Dad. I found it quite interesting. In fact, I loved just listening to people discuss genealogy. I have so few people in my social circle that have a genuine interest in genealogy, most interactions are via Internet forums, so it was nice to see so many people talk about it. I would definitely be interested in attending other Genealogy discussions.

Pinky, there seemed to be a crowd of UCDers on one side of the room; quite a vocal bunch!

pinkypinky

Alicat wrote: »

Pinky, there seemed to be a crowd of UCDers on one side of the room; quite a vocal bunch!

Yeah, that was me and my friends! I asked the first question.

Waitsian

pinkypinky wrote: »

It was quite general in its topics discussed: what is genealogy, what are the major issues and sources. I liked that he asked the panel if they could have one wish what would it be and it basically came down to a time machine to stop the Four Courts destruction, along with digitisation of everything, reform of the GRO and better collaboration between different genealogy organisations.

Funny how these senior genealogists always bring this up, but never mention the census returns destroyed by officialdom ie 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891. Only those from 1821-1851 were destroyed in 1922.

Edit: I am aware there was much more lost than census returns.

pinkypinky

mod9maple wrote: »

Funny how these senior genealogists always bring this up, but never mention the census returns destroyed by officialdom ie 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891. Only those from 1821-1851 were destroyed in 1922.

Edit: I am aware there was much more lost than census returns.

Grenham did reference the separate destructions last night.

Waitsian

pinkypinky wrote: »

Grenham did reference the separate destructions last night.

Well good for Tommy, but I've previously heard two of the panel, who are professional genealogists, publicly lambast the occupants of the Four Courts for destroying it, but have failed to mention the deliberate destruction of other records by British governments. It's just something that annoys me.

pinkypinky

mod9maple wrote: »

Well good for Tommy, but I've previously heard two of the panel, who are professional genealogists, publicly lambast the occupants of the Four Courts for destroying it, but have failed to mention the deliberate destruction of other records by British governments. It's just something that annoys me.

John Grenham, not Tommy Graham.
He only mentioned it in passing.

The pulping of the later censuses is something that we don't have a lot of detail on. What is clear: it was being done in parallel in Britain, the civil servants who handled it do not appear to have known they were destroying the only copy. In Britain, every return had been copied into enumerator books. This hadn't been done here (for unknown reasons).

Ponster

pinky, is there any one 'exciting' source that has yet to be digitalised that genealogist are waiting for ?

shanew

As far as I know the 1861 and 1871 returns were destroyed shortly after the censuses were taken, once the various statistics had been extracted. The other two were apparently destroyed during WW1, likely due to the paper shortage.

pinkypinky

Ponster wrote: »

pinky, is there any one 'exciting' source that has yet to be digitalised that genealogist are waiting for ?

They went on a lot about the 1926 census (but personally, that's not going to be very exciting....I think a lot of us will know about our more recent ancestors in the 1926 census). There wasn't anything untapped, certainly. They really want the GRO digitised and the parish returns in the NLI, though someone did elude to rootsireland briefly.

Waitsian

Ponster wrote: »

pinky, is there any one 'exciting' source that has yet to be digitalised that genealogist are waiting for ?

An Irish version of ScotlandsPeople (church and civil records, census returns, wills, and valuation rolls) would be amazing.

We can dream...:D

Waitsian

pinkypinky wrote: »

They went on a lot about the 1926 census (but personally, that's not going to be very exciting....I think a lot of us will know about our more recent ancestors in the 1926 census). There wasn't anything untapped, certainly. They really want the GRO digitised and the parish returns in the NLI, though someone did elude to rootsireland briefly.

That would be great. Isn't there a tender out for digitizing the NLI church records?

pinkypinky

There is but I haven't heard anything about it recently. It was first mooted about 3 years ago so money must not be available.

Waitsian

Ponster wrote: »

pinky, is there any one 'exciting' source that has yet to be digitalised that genealogist are waiting for ?

The Morpeth Roll, although I'm not sure what names will be on it. I'm pretty sure that Ancestry have finished transcribing it through voluntary submissions and isn't it due for viewing online in March?

pinkypinky

Claire's latest post on the subject - it certainly will be interesting:

http://irish-genealogy-news.blogspot.ie/2013/02/ancestry-to-release-lord-morpeths-roll.html

Ponster

And here's a little more info, with sample images, from Ancestry