With apologies to true Irish speakers for the lack of proper accents in the title above, I would like to welcome any new visitors to my website who have made their way here from the excellent National Library of Ireland's Family History Links page where Irish Geneaography now features.

I would also like to reciprocate the compliment by highlighting a couple of my favourite links and features accessible from the NLI website which I think are invaluable for your Irish family history research.

• Of course, the most uniquely exciting development on the NLI website this year has been the release of digital access to their collection of Roman Catholic parish registers, on which much has been written (see my own July blog here.)
• However, as a great fan of the rich source of material to be found in Irish newspapers, I would particularly like to highlight their Irish Newspapers Database.  I recommend that you start your search of this database by county to get an idea of the titles that were nominally associated with them.  Remember to consider neighbouring counties if your ancestors lived close to the county border and there were perhaps one or more reasonably large towns capable of supporting a newspaper nearby.  When you click on a title, take some time to familiarise yourself with any history of changes of name as this might help you get further back than you first thought.  Although the primary purpose of this NLI database is of course to help visitors to the library to find the references they need to order microfilm on site, the link to the NEWSPLAN database may help you to find similar materials elsewhere.  Another reason I am very fond of this database is because it played a truly extraordinary part in my own family history research that I have written about on my Kindred Ancestry blog ... who knows, it could happen to you too!

Be sure to check out the other NLI Family History pages for advice and guidance.  Their Catalogues and Databases page also gives details of how to navigate to other resources that may be useful, but like all major library and museum databases, you sort of need to know what you're looking for in order to find it.  However, you have nothing to lose by lobbing assorted search terms into the catalogue search engine and see what might come up. For example, I've been playing around with searching for maps of particular localities I'm interested in as I believe that the NLI has a good collection of maps, which I intend investigating further on my next visit.

I've just finished reading a hugely enjoyable book by Michael Sharpe on the history of genealogy called Family Matters.  It is a well-researched romp through the great and good of genealogy, introducing us to some of the notable personalities, dubious practices and deliciously bitchy internecine feuds and spats that have characterised the rise of genealogy since its beginnings in medieval heraldic visitations.  

The chronological treatment of the subject is of course pleasing to the genealogical mind as we follow the birth (and deaths) of various societies that have helped to promote the topic and campaigned for more access to public records.  The Society of Genealogists comes in for a bit of a drubbing but perhaps that's a fair reflection on their attitude to various new initiatives throughout their history given the evidence presented by Sharpe as a long-time SoG member?

Victorian gentlemen genealogists and their inspired "descendants" take the story forward into the 20th century with great side stories on antediluvian Government responses to growing public demands, dedication to the cause (Percival Boyd, I salute you), the WDYTYA democratisation of genealogy and the extraordinary effect that the rise of the internet has had on the business of genealogy.  Perhaps you shouldn't be too surprised to learn that "Father of the World Wide Web" Tim Berners-Lee's own father, Conway, was a pioneer of computing for genealogy.  The book finishes off with a chapter on DNA as a tool for genealogists in which I think I finally got my head around the different types and what they can actually contribute to our search through the past.  Looking to the future, the observations on the rise of personal privacy legislation and "throwaway" digital communications are also definitely something to ponder on.

I have to say I really enjoyed reading this book - it helped my understanding and appreciation of the resources we have access to today and made me think about the issues involved in gaining more access in the future.

I will conclude by blatantly lifting a brilliant quote from the book, originally attributed to the indomitable John Horace Round [1854-1928] which I think chimes perfectly with my philosophy for this website,

"The topographer should always have a pedigree by his side, and the genealogist a local map.  When you have once grasped the method of combining the two studies, you will be surprised at the results."