Click on the image to take a look at Co. Wicklow in it's new guise 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.
"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.
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