The year ahead in Irish genealogy

Waitsian

Anyone aware of anything we might expect in the coming year? Any new online additions? Anything at all in the pipeline?

L1011

ROI Cancelled land books *might* turn up online, considering there's been mutterings for two years now.

New government are likely to make noises about the '26 census again but likely no progress at all. Its not even filmed as far as is publicly known.

Waitsian

Online originals of historic GRO records perchance? I know the legislation for it passed in recent memory.

Waitsian

I'd also love to see the NI and Scottish 1939 censuses go online, much like those for England and Wales.

L1011

mod9maple wrote: »

Online originals of historic GRO records perchance? I know the legislation for it passed in recent memory.

Forgot about that - yes, that's probably an inevitable actually.

Considering the record damage we've suffered here we are going to have a seriously impressive, free of charge, set of sources. Scotland will always have us beat with what they still have but they charge - a lot - for the privilege.

pinkypinky

I don't think there's anything serious in the wind. If they were working on the census already, they'd have said so as a PR boost.

I did expect the big commercials to do something with the RC parish registers, even though they've been trumped by Roots Ireland. If the latter weren't allowed to link directly to the page of the relevant register, then I doubt the others will be either.

The IGRS (with my involvement hat squarely on) is celebrating 80 years, so we will have some events.

OU812

With the year that's in it, they really should do something for 1926. A state of the nation ten years after the rising.

If not... Oh well, just another ten years to wait...

pinkypinky

11 actually - it won't be released officially until 1st Jan 2027 (hopefully, a straight up addition to the current census website, properly indexed in one go!)

We've talked about this a lot on the forum. The current government committed to releasing it during their term but backed off when the CSO stamped their feet and said they didn't want to do it. The CSO has a new census to deploy this year, so without a lot of extra hiring, they won't have the staff to work on a census release.

If there's to be any campaign to get it released early now, the obvious date in June 2022, as a nod to the date when the earlier censuses were destroyed.

OU812

How hard is it for the government to change the law to say 75 years?

Has anyone ever seen the 1926? By that I mean does anyone know anyone who works there that would be able to check one person for me?

shanew

As far as I know the CSO has special status so requires a more complex change... their concern as I understand it is that due to the nature of their work gathering statistics for the government they depend on guaranteeing privacy to any participants ... appearing to break this guarantee to release details of a census might not look good

pedroeibar1

OU812 wrote: »

How hard is it for the government to change the law to say 75 years?

It's not hard if there is a will. The idea was to have it online as part of the 1916 centenary jamboree. It was supposed to be reduced to 70 years; the Bill went from the Dail to the Seanad, was approved, then on being sent back to the Dail it was binned due to input from the CSO.:rolleyes:
It's all here

Hermy

I'd like to see existing record sets and services brought to a higher standard.

GRO website - exact dates for all entries, maiden name for all births, match all couples for marriages, improve search function, include full name for all entries

GRO research room - index books need reprinting with legible entries, image scan quality must be improved, sourcing of new staff from tourism/ genealogy sector would be nice too

Census website - put programme in place to correct all errors, emphasis on place names, followed by surnames, forenames etc.

Anyone else got ideas of existing stuff that needs improving.
What about services at NLI, NAI, Registry of Deeds etc?

pinkypinky

That's a fine aim, Hermy!

GRO: I think they do plan to extend the maiden names to the full index retrospectively but I imagine that's a big task. More couples have been matched since the system launched so they are working on that too.

Reading Room: I'd also like more toilets, wifi, an a revision of the stupid double-queuing system.

Census: they are working on errors. All the ones I've submitted (over the years, some on the first day of release!) are fixed. But not enough people working on it, so it's slow. What they have not done is scan the places that are omitted because they were never microfilmed. Tangent: did we compile a list of those? We should.

tabbey

Provide open access to the local registers that have passed the hundred years threshold.

There are too many BMD records not in the GRO index, The GRO staff say they were probably not registered, but in many cases, this is unlikely. The only way to establish whether or not they were registered, is to open up the registers for browsing. Microfilm, hard copy online, free or a modest charge, but open them up.

In the case of hundred year old records, there should be no secrecy.

Newstreet

I have an awful lot of people in my tree, who appear in the 1901/1911 census returns, but for whom no birth registration appears. There are also some missing marriages. Do you suggest there may be registrations there that do not appear in the index? How could you possibly search these if there were?

pinkypinky

I don't think Tabbey is quite right. People did slip through, certainly in the first 20 years of registration, but the vast majority will be there after about 1880. In my 10+ years of working in genealogy, I've only had about 4 events that were definitely not registered. There's a lot of mistranscription though from cert to index, and this does cause a problem.

I think the government does plan to make those registers available online. That's why irishgenealogy.ie has the time limits in place, because ultimately they will have the certs as well as the indexes.

shanew

I've found a couple of marriages where just one of the couple was indexed .. I had to take a chance on these but eventually found good matches - so there are definitely a few indexing problems in the original index books.. the be expected I suppose in a manual system.

hjr

I have a similar case, where my great grandfather remarried after his first wife died, but I can find no record of the death in the BMD records...

pinkypinky

Let's keep this thread on topic, folks. It's about our wish list for 2016 in genealogy. Please create a separate thread if you want help searching indexes, etc.

/mod

shanew

my, hopefully feasible, wish list is :

further work on GRO records - maybe initially a way to order from the index, eventually leading to full online system like G.R.O.N.I.
Valuation / Cancelled Land books online - partially imaged already so should not be that big a job
Griffith field and note books - raw images would be fine if there is a problem with indexing
Further work on getting other non-RC church records online on the IrishGenealogy Website - e.g. Church of Ireland, Presbyterian

Alan259

Didn't Find My Past have a five year agreement with the National Archives to host the Prison Registers and Petty Sessions Records? And when the five years were up the records would be uploaded to the National Archives genealogy website free of charge. Does anyone know when Find My Past originally released the records?

L1011

Alan259 wrote: »

Didn't Find My Past have a five year agreement with the National Archives to host the Prison Registers and Petty Sessions Records? And when the five years were up the records would be uploaded to the National Archives genealogy website free of charge. Does anyone know when Find My Past originally released the records?

March 2012: http://www.eneclann.ie/2012/03/findmypast-ie-launch-petty-sessions-court-records-online/

Alan259

L1011 wrote: »

March 2012: http://www.eneclann.ie/2012/03/findmypast-ie-launch-petty-sessions-court-records-online/

Thanks L1011, I'll put that on next year's wish list so.

pinkypinky

I think that the deal is already partially finished, because you can search the prison registers and petty sessions on familysearch.org, and you get a partial transcript.

VirginiaB

What a tantalizing list--a belated Christmas wish list. I don't know what to put at the top for myself--the land revision books for the Republic, which have been so valuable for my Antrim ancestors, or the images of civil vital records, as I have found a few errors in the transcription index, critical errors.

Hermy

I think at the very least standards need to be maintained - hence my gripe with GRO scans and index books.
When I started researching in the 1990's scans of research certs were of a much higher standard than those currently available.
And the current set of index books which are quite a recent reprint are illegible in places which is unacceptable for any civil records.

Hopefully an on-line system will eventually negate these issues and if good quality scans of the local registers are included then we'll really be getting somewhere.

Regarding the publishing of non-RC records, is there a comprehensive list - parish by parish - of what records survive?

pinkypinky

Well, there is for the Church of Ireland - on the RCBL website, which is regularly updated.
http://library.ireland.anglican.org/index.php?id=168

Thomas from Presence

My wish list:

1. A concerted effort by somebody to transcribe all the early church records including their little but crucial annotations. By all I also mean COI and presbyterian. There's a broader point here. I find many researchers are RC-centric in their approach, often forgetting that the religion of their grandparents may not be the religion of previous generations.

2. I hope that Roots Ireland realise that the existential threat to them can only be countered by improving their offering in this regard and they have a head start.

3. With that in mind - I'd hope for at least a reasonable search engine to query the Roots Ireland transcriptions. Those of us with dodgy surnames have to do very silly things when denied wildcards!

4. There's a job lot of will abstracts transcribed by Crosslé, Thrift et al. These are insanely useful. They need to be scanned professionally and have the names and relationships identified.

5. The Irish Deeds Index project is incredible. Someone should invest in these people trawling through the memorials. They are doing amazing work

6. Land Commission records - these are sitting in a silo somewhere. Understandably they may include records of recent strife but they have the potential to be a genealogical windfall. Someone let these things out!

7. Unknown finds. I hope that some researchers find some hitherto unknown collection that reveals more on our ancestors and how they lived. These things appear all the time. The masonic records, the workhouse records etc. I wonder what else is lurking in the NAI and I hope that it's found.

Grandiose desires but you never know!

Alan259

pinkypinky wrote: »

I think that the deal is already partially finished, because you can search the prison registers and petty sessions on familysearch.org, and you get a partial transcript.

Thanks Pinky.

Another thing I would like to see, is a nationwide collection of the school records and roll books, which would sometimes have details of places of residence and parents names. It could be done like the parish registers project in the 50s and 60s, but instead of microfilming the records, it would be taking full colour digital images of the records.

Waitsian

I agree. When you read the 'How to...' books and websites and you realise how scattered they actually are, you can't help but be infuriated. They could be such an amazing resource, another census substitute of a sort, only one predominantly for children.

But they're not centralised. Why aren't they though? Some are in the NA granted but what of those in county libraries, county archives and even still in schools!? How hard would it be to have them all sent to one location? Say those from 1830s to 1900.

Has anyone ever accessed them in any of these places?

pinkypinky

Yes, you're right. They're all over the place. It would require extensive research to work out where they were first. Imagine this: some with Dept of Education in the NAI, county libraries, old headmasters' attics....

It would need to start with a letter to every school over, say, 50 years, asking did they have class roll books, would they be willing to allow digitisation, etc. It would need national coordination.

Waitsian

pinkypinky wrote:

It would need to start with a letter to every school over, say, 50 years, asking did they have class roll books, would they be willing to allow digitisation, etc. It would need national coordination.

I feel a campaign coming on... :-)

Maybe one or more of the genealogical societies could take it on.

P. Breathnach

mod9maple wrote: »

I agree. When you read the 'How to...' books and websites and you realise how scattered they actually are, you can't help but be infuriated. They could be such an amazing resource, another census substitute of a sort, only one predominantly for children.

But they're not centralised. Why aren't they though? Some are in the NA granted but what of those in county libraries, county archives and even still in schools!? How hard would it be to have them all sent to one location? Say those from 1830s to 1900.

Has anyone ever accessed them in any of these places?

I have seen school records for one ancestor online - school closed, records found their way into the National Archives.

I have seen the records for other family members in the school they attended about 100 years ago - a school where everybody involved seems to have respect for their heritage.

Herself saw transcripts of records relating to her family. They were retrieved, rain-sodden, from a skip and a local historian made the transcripts.

Alan259

mod9maple wrote: »

I agree. When you read the 'How to...' books and websites and you realise how scattered they actually are, you can't help but be infuriated. They could be such an amazing resource, another census substitute of a sort, only one predominantly for children.

But they're not centralised. Why aren't they though? Some are in the NA granted but what of those in county libraries, county archives and even still in schools!? How hard would it be to have them all sent to one location? Say those from 1830s to 1900.

Has anyone ever accessed them in any of these places?

pinkypinky wrote: »

Yes, you're right. They're all over the place. It would require extensive research to work out where they were first. Imagine this: some with Dept of Education in the NAI, county libraries, old headmasters' attics....

It would need to start with a letter to every school over, say, 50 years, asking did they have class roll books, would they be willing to allow digitisation, etc. It would need national coordination.

mod9maple wrote: »

I feel a campaign coming on... :-)

Maybe one or more of the genealogical societies could take it on.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I have seen school records for one ancestor online - school closed, records found their way into the National Archives.

I have seen the records for other family members in the school they attended about 100 years ago - a school where everybody involved seems to have respect for their heritage.

Herself saw transcripts of records relating to her family. They were retrieved, rain-sodden, from a skip and a local historian made the transcripts.

I'm glad to see many people agreeing with me. As far as I know, all the national school registers that are in the National Archives were digitized and released with Find My Past in September last year.

Also, another set of records that are scattered across the country that could do with a collecting-and-digitizing project are all the surviving electoral registers from the earliest that could be found right up to the twentieth century.

L1011

Alan259 wrote: »

Also, another set of records that are scattered across the country that could do with a collecting-and-digitizing project are all the surviving electoral registers from the earliest that could be found right up to the twentieth century.

This could be invaluable - Dublin City's are extremely useful but also extremely limited in where they cover as the earlier years are Dublin Corporation and not the townships etc that were later merged in to the current City Council area.

As well as most men, some women (ratepayers) were able to vote in local elections from 1869 and pretty much all councils were formed in 1898/1899 so they'd be a huge source of info on anyone over the age of 21 from then on.

pinkypinky

L1011 wrote: »

This could be invaluable - Dublin City's are extremely useful but also extremely limited in where they cover as the earlier years are Dublin Corporation and not the townships etc that were later merged in to the current City Council area.

As well as most men, some women (ratepayers) were able to vote in local elections from 1869 and pretty much all councils were formed in 1898/1899 so they'd be a huge source of info on anyone over the age of 21 from then on.

Actually, in reality lots of them, don't survive. Also, the books for Dublin county are tiny all the way through the 1950s so not that many people can have been registered.

L1011

pinkypinky wrote: »

Actually, in reality lots of them, don't survive.

I suspected there'd be a fair bit missing anyway

pinkypinky wrote: »

Also, the books for Dublin county are tiny all the way through the 1950s so not that many people can have been registered.

The population of the county - outside the City and Townships - was tiny though to the 1950s though. Was nearly all agricultural land until the construction of council housing and associated development in Ballyfermot, Finglas etc.

Some of the Townships got subsumed to the Corporation and some to the various councils at various times.

Waitsian

For some reason I can't link to the specific page but Claire Santry has a post up on this with some very interesting news, specifically the historic civil records.

OU812

mod9maple wrote: »

For some reason I can't link to the specific page but Claire Santry has a post up on this with some very interesting news, specifically the historic civil records.

This one?

Thursday, 11 February 2016
Ancestry to add 10million Irish RC parish records
In case the headline above is giving you déjà vu, I should point out that last week's news of the release of the same 10million Irish Roman Catholic parish registers was by FindMyPast. Today is Ancestry's turn.

So, just as the rumour mill foretold, both major databases will be adding an index and transcriptions to the National Library of Ireland's registers collection.

As with the intended FindMyPast upload, the new index will link to the NLI's images and will be released next month. The collection is made up of Baptism, Marriage and (a small number of) Burial records from over 1,000 Catholic parishes across the whole of the island of Ireland. The cut-off date for the collection is 1881/2.

John Slyne, VP, International Operations at Ancestry comments: “The Ireland Catholic Parish Registers is the single most important collection needed to trace Roman Catholic ancestors in Ireland in the 1800s and we are delighted to make it available through Ancestry. Providing the very best Irish records to our members is important to us and this collection helps us do that, taking the total number of Irish records to over 55 million. It also means we continue to provide the largest online collection of Irish Catholic parish records available anywhere, which is good for those in Ireland and also those across the World with Irish roots."

Ancestry already has several collections of RC parish records, including the complete collections for at least 73 parishes added two years ago, and only this morning released baptism, marriage, burial and confirmations records for Cusheen, a parish in Co Clare (see blogpost).

Waitsian

No, it's dated Feb 2 and titled 'What to expect in 2016: a belated preview'.

Hermy

Perhaps this is it...

Civil registration of births: Sit down for this one! I am told by a reliable but unofficial source that all the historical birth certificates (ie minumum 100-years-old) are going to join IrishGenealogy.ie in the not-too-distant future. Yes: full-on images of birth certificates. They're going to be available free of charge. That's a surprise, eh? Timing wise, I haven't the faintest, but the certificates have been prepared and scanned. It appears there's only the upload to deal with before this unexpected bonanza arrives. Will the same happen with the marriage and death certificates? I haven't been told this is the case, but it would be odd to upload the births in isolation, so I'm expecting the full trio, subject to the 75-year and 50-year cut-offs. It may be that they'll all appear at the same time, which could make not-too-distant not-too-imminent.
- See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/02/what-to-expect-in-2016-belated-preview.html#sthash.Cz5SOCr0.dpuf

OU812

That'd be fantastic.

Waitsian

Thanks Hermy. Her whole post is very interesting and enlightening but that one snippet jumped out at me. I wonder does she read this forum?

Hermy

After the previous GRO on line debacle I won't be getting ahead of myself.
If it happens it will be fantastic but seeing will be believing.

pinkypinky

Well, the legislation is in place now: which (along with unhelpful nosey IT reporters) was the problem last time.

I've heard from other sources that this is imminent too, but there is only one guy running irishgenealogy.ie so I don't know how quickly he'll get it done.

I have made a list in preparation though: all the certs I want copies of, just in case Ms Data Protection gets on her high horse, I'll be in like a ninja when it goes up.