Church records to go online for free

Jellybaby1

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

Thomas from Presence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One month to go, looking forward to this!

spurious

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

Alicat

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

Me too , cant wait though !

Jellybaby1

Ooh, its like the civil records alllll over again!

Thomas from Presence

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

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

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

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

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

Jellybaby1

But it just get more shaky as time goes on.

RGM

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

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

Hope the search options will be made easy

L1011

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

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.