There has been a great deal of excited chatter on various blogs with the announcement that the Department of Agriculture in Ireland has broken it's long intransigent silence on the subject of the huge treasure trove of Land Commission records that they have had squirrelled away in a warehouse in Portlaoise for years (see my Land Commission page for more information.)
Why is everyone getting animated about these records? Because within the folds of vellum may lurk nuggets of your precious family history in the form of leases, marriage settlements, wills, depositions etc. associated with land transactions that might include evidence dating back to the 17th century.
Access to these records has long been denied on the grounds of "privacy", which was not a similar concern for PRONI who have made their allocated records accessible. So what has changed? Well don't get too excited. The first steps in digitising the collection have been prompted by the parlous state of the "finding aids" and it is only these 200 handwritten volumes that have currently been allocated an astonishingly small budget. According to the current keeper of the records these are realistically not expected to be available online this year, at best next. As to to plans for either access to or further digitisation of the millions of records that these finding aids index? I fear it may be many years into the future before these reveal their secrets to us in some shape or form.
This Irish Times story gives a good account of the current scope of the project, whilst this piece has a nice little video that will have you squinting sideways trying to read the names that tantalisingly appear for seconds!
Why is everyone getting animated about these records? Because within the folds of vellum may lurk nuggets of your precious family history in the form of leases, marriage settlements, wills, depositions etc. associated with land transactions that might include evidence dating back to the 17th century.
Access to these records has long been denied on the grounds of "privacy", which was not a similar concern for PRONI who have made their allocated records accessible. So what has changed? Well don't get too excited. The first steps in digitising the collection have been prompted by the parlous state of the "finding aids" and it is only these 200 handwritten volumes that have currently been allocated an astonishingly small budget. According to the current keeper of the records these are realistically not expected to be available online this year, at best next. As to to plans for either access to or further digitisation of the millions of records that these finding aids index? I fear it may be many years into the future before these reveal their secrets to us in some shape or form.
This Irish Times story gives a good account of the current scope of the project, whilst this piece has a nice little video that will have you squinting sideways trying to read the names that tantalisingly appear for seconds!
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