The National Townland and Historical Map Viewer is a new application from the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and I have to say I am mightily impressed with what I've seen so far.  Not only is it a much more straightforward way of finding townlands on old maps than wrestling with their basic GeoHive viewer, there is the added bonus of being able to compare 2 representations side by side with a clever slider function.

The sample illustration above shows the Historic 6" colour map on the left and a matched up modern map on the right.  This is a great way of being able to see how places that you are interested in e.g. farms or churches, may still exist in the same place, or may have been swallowed up by urban growth.  You can even access great aerial photos to compare to the old maps, which is invaluable in trying to decide where to stick the co-ordinate pin into the cartoon Bing map that is usually the only mapping function most of us have access to in our genealogical software.

I had to ask the OSI how to use the application via the Feedback option - you may be more intuitive than me.  I've written up their excellent clear advice on my Irish Maps and Gazetteers page and repeated it on my Townlands page for good measure.

I encourage you to have a play - there are some wonderful historic features you can have highlighted by choosing them from the layers list.  So, if gas works, gravel pits, sluices and windmills of the 1830's are your thing, this is how you'll find them!

Whilst searching for something else online, I was recently very happily diverted for a whole afternoon by a curious document I found on the Irish Manuscript Commission's digital resources out-of-print collection.  The Kings Inns Admission Papers, 1607-1867 is effectively a compiled index to various formal applications held in the Kings Inn Library in Dublin.  

Entering the legal profession in Ireland has involved several formal steps over the centuries, including university study to become a barrister or apprenticeships to become attorneys.  Barristers also had to undertake a period of study in England at the Inns of Court in London.  Luckily for us, when these men applied to the Kings Inn Society in Dublin, they had to supply some genealogical information - father's name and profession and education for example. If you are familiar with the Alumni Dublinenses for Trinity College Dublin, you may have seen this sort of information for your ancestor already.  However, the truly brilliant gem in the Kings Inn papers is that mothers' maiden names were also included in the admission memorials.  So, if you have a legal ancestor for whom you are struggling to find a baptism, this might be just the key you need to unlock a people puzzle. 

Take a look at my updated Students, Clergy & Lawyers page for more details.

I was recently on the hunt for some mention of my ancestor, Joseph Barker, in Irish records on Find My Past and came across the Dublin Gazette, 1750-1800.  This is an indexed collection that is separate from the other Irish newspapers on this subscription site.  You might have to plough through a long list of results, but it could yield treasure.

The Dublin Gazette was the official newspaper, published every few days to announce various government business of the day, including legal notices, bankrupts, military and official appointments and much more.  Joseph had been an Officer of the Revenue in the middle of the 18th century and I found an announcement in 1761 of his appointment as a Land Carriage Officer...twice? Son too? Typesetter having a bad day?!  Be careful what you wish for!
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​There were also a few selected marriage and death notices.  The language of the period was wonderfully florid and watch out for the old-fashioned typesetting and spellings.  I had to smile when I found the following qualification to a marriage notice for another branch of my family tree.

"William Revell, of Ballymony, in the County of Wicklow,Esq; to Miss Braddell, Daughter of James Braddell, of Copnagh, in the County of Carlow, Esq; with a fortune of 5000l (£5000), which is the smallest of her accomplishments."

So, he didn't marry her for her money (nudging £1m in today's money by one calculation I found), no not at all... it was her embroidery that captivated his ardour!!!!

I recently caught up with what's been happening on this fascinating project via a talk on the Irish Genealogical Research Society's website, given by Dr Ciaran Wallace of Trinity College Dublin (hopefully still available if you follow this link.)  If you click on the logo to the left you will go to the project's home page where you can find much more about the plans and progress.

Briefly, the project has bold ambitions to harness the power of technology to re-create in a virtual format as much as possible of the contents of the doomed Public Record Repository that littered the Dublin skyline with seven hundred years of burning historical documents nearly 100 years ago.  Ironic when you consider that after earlier conflagrations at storage facilities elsewhere in Dublin, the new building was so carefully designed to be fireproof as Dr. Wallace explains in his talk.

I must admit when I first heard about the project it seemed to be all about virtual reality headsets and the task of reassembling anywhere near enough material sounded daunting to say the least.  However, listening to Dr. Wallace talk enthusiastically about how the process of collaboration right across the world is being hugely assisted with the power of clever programming, I started to feel that this way of thinking about curating genealogical resources could just as easily be applied to other archives.  By tracking down Victorian and Edwardian transcripts, snippets of personal research, legal papers lurking in law offices and even old photographs of documents, the project is gradually re-assembling some of the lost treasures.  They have even invested in some clever software that can turn handwriting into transcribed content very quickly.

Keep an eye on this project as you never know what it might recreate that could help your research

I've had a page on the website called "Settling under the Saltire - the Irish in Scotland" for a wee while as I gave a talk on this very subject in Dublin a few years ago.  The page provides details of all the resources and useful websites that I highlight in the talk.  However, I recently completed some Scottish research for a client and enjoyed exercising all my hard-won search skills solving people puzzles on the ScotlandsPeople website. 
I give out a few of these tips in the talk but I realised that there were several more I could share, plus of course, I didn't want to forget them myself for my next foray into the records!

So I've created a new page - Search Tips for ScotlandsPeople - which you can find under Techniques accessed from the drop-down menu under Recipes or simply follow the green link above.  I'll try to remember to add to them if I learn more tricks and of course, it would be great to hear your suggestions for getting the most from this website.

I'm now feeling inspired to do the same sort of thing for my favourite Irish websites and will let you know when they are published.

​I've just completed a bit of Spring makeover of the website with regard to the colour scheme for the many hyperlinks.  Previously they were all bold green, which I've kept for all the links that will take you to another of my pages on this site or my sister site, Kindred Ancestry.   Links to great third party sites are all now a fetching shade of bold turquoise which I hope you find easy on the eye and a suitably complementary tone to the rest of the site colours.

I've also taken the opportunity to tidy up quite a few of the pages and add some new content where I could.  For example, I've added links to the appropriate town or city editions of the Royal Irish Academy's Historic Towns Atlas to the relevant county pages.  These are lovely resources with lots of historical insight in the essays and some innovative clear maps.  As you might expect, the cities of Dublin, Belfast, Limerick and Kilkenny feature on their list, but you might be pleasantly surprised to find smaller but historically important places too, like Carlingford and Downpatrick as well.

To complement the completely updated Church of Ireland Parish Record Finder spreadsheets (see previous blog post), I have also completely revamped the Church of Ireland Parishes & Registers page.  Hopefully, this makes it much clearer about where to look, methodically, for surviving records.   

The PRONI "Guide to Church Records" also revealed that this repository has a large number of Methodist church records, not just for the north of Ireland but also for circuits further afield in the rest of the island of Ireland.  So, there's now a prominent link to that document on the Methodist Church in Ireland page.  The same document also has details of Presbyterian, Baptist and other Protestant dissenting churches, including the wonderfully named Moravian church which has its roots in Eastern Europe but set up shop in Ireland too and was blessed with diligent scribes when it came to record keeping.

So, a new colour scheme and a few highlights of the fruits of my labours.  Enjoy!

P.S.  Old blog posts still have all their links in green though.

What to do when you have so much time on your hands stuck at home avoiding world plague ... I'll just take a look at where I got up to with my county specific finding aids for Church of Ireland records, I thought...  I started out building these spreadsheets over 4 years ago and I have learned so much more in that time.

"I'll just ..." have been the words that have started me off on some epic feats of spreadsheet re-engineering in other areas of my research and this proved to be no different.  However, you all get to reap the benefits of this marathon if you so choose.

​So what's new?

Fully Updated.  All the data is now complete for all 32 counties.  This means that every identifiable Church of Ireland parish for which something survives in either the main Dublin or Belfast institutions or selected sites online is listed with its civil parish, diocese and date ranges.  This has all been done with reference to the most up to date information that I could find today and I can tell you there are quite a lot of changes.  As I could not re-validate the date ranges for the National Archives of Ireland microfilms I had to take that information out.  All those previously empty boxes for Ulster parishes?  Mostly in PRONI of course - hope you like the fuschia... which brings me to...

Toned Down.  Having had a pop at the Representative Church Body Library for their lavish use of clashing colours in their Table of All Parish Registers document, I had to rather sheepishly admit that my own finding aids suffered from a similar Pantone blizzard of shades that wasn't really helping anyone.  This particularly applied to the list of parish names where I had tried to cram in too much information by using different colours.  So, I have reverted to a simpler format that focuses only on the positive - what you can find.  I've also tried to improve the layout with better spacing to make them easier to read and date ranges for the same institutions all lined up which is much more appealing to my OCD!

Look out for the extra hyperlinks in the top block too, which can take you to other sites for more detailed or supporting information.  Take a look at my updated Church of Ireland Parish Record Finder page to see exactly how the spreadsheets work now.  

What's next?  Well, I still need to work out if, and how, I can shoehorn the date ranges for records in local custody into the next version so that the positive list is fully up to date.  I also want to create a separate list of parishes for which we know the records were destroyed for specific periods.  However, you'll forgive me if I step away from Excel for a wee while!

Let me know what you think of the new versions.

Many Irish place names have their linguistic roots in the Irish language and speak of nature, landscape features or buildings, perhaps long since built over or demolished.
 
​If you've ever made an Irish road trip you will be familiar with bi-lingual road signs like these.  You might even have tried to pronounce the Irish names, sounding out the syllables phonetically, just like my 8 year old self marvelling at "Sio-ban" as an exotic Irish girl's name and being perplexed at learning that Siobhan was pronounced "Shivawn."

I've met Irish work colleagues who were adept at switching to Irish when they wanted to gossip privately, having had to learn the language in order to complete their secondary education and matriculate to university. It's a wonderfully melodic language, don't you think, but perhaps difficult to learn? 

I must admit I greatly enjoyed reading Charlie Connelly's book, "Our Man in Hibernia", telling his story of not only moving to Ireland and being determined to learn the language of his ancestors, but also re-appraising what he thought he knew about their story of emigration to England as he hunted for his roots.

Maybe we should all take the time to learn a few words as for some branches of our tree this may have been the language they used every day.  Therefore, I was interested in a recent post on the Irish Genealogical Research Society's Facebook page alerting me to a free online Irish Language and Culture course offered by Dublin City University, which I might have a go at as, according to the syllabus, you learn some good curses!

However, in the meantime I can at least hear how Irish place names should be pronounced with a somewhat hidden feature of the marvellous free Placenames Database of Ireland website.  Turn your sound on and click on the small white triangle inside the grey circle to the right of the Irish version of the name and you will hear how it should sound.  This is a really good website for finding all sorts of places and from a genealogist's point of view you will also be able to learn other useful geographical information that you may need to find other records.  In the example above, you can learn that Killegar, Co. Leitrim is actually in the civil parish of Carrigallen and the barony of the same name - useful for finding land records.  Oh, and of course, there's a map - always a winner with me!

I've just added a new Ingredients page for Irish Newspapers as it had escaped my notice that I had not highlighted this wonderful genealogical resource that I have mined for so much great information myself. 

There are actually quite a lot of online sources for this resource although not many of them are free I'm afraid.  Some of the standalone services like the Irish Times, Irish Newspaper Archives and the British Newspaper Archive can work out to be quite pricey actually so hunt out deals or perhaps buy a short-term subscription? 




​Of the main genealogical subscription players, Find My Past is the only one that offers comprehensive access to both British and Irish newspapers as part of its partnership with the British Library to create the British Newspaper Archive.  You will need to purchase the right level of subscription to access them, but quite frankly, I think it's worth the money in this instance.  

I guarantee that once you discover and start plundering Irish newspapers for your family history research you will be hooked and will welcome any rainy afternoon that keeps you indoors "dead-diving" in the newsprint!  How else will you ever find deliciously shocking stories like the one hinted at in the snippet above!  And as for your penchant for purple crepe-de-chine, why it was practically written in your genes considering the report of what your great grandmother wore to her son's wedding!

Enjoy!

Unfortunately, just a year after posting how pleased I was to find this resource for helping map townlands and parishes, I have to report that the site has had a major design overhaul and all that lovely historical detail and simple layered geographical display has now disappeared.  The new version looks like the screen grab above at OpenStreetMap for Ireland which you can contrast with a similar screen grab in my post last August.

I've updated my Townlands page with what slim advice I can offer at the moment, but I think I'm going to have to wrestle with it a bit more to see if I can use it as easily as I could the old version.  The site is massively open source and updates are provided by a huge community of contributors, which means it's not obvious who, if anyone, can be contacted to try to find out what has prompted the changes.  If you know any more, please let me know!