Schoolbooks and Archival Notes
OK, not the most inspiring of titles. You are no doubt conjuring up visions of the horror of staring at quadrilateral equations when you were 11 or recalling the musty funk of a ledger that hasn't been opened in decades that you ordered up on the basis of a scrawled and yellowed index card?
Fear not, I have some more interesting treasure to recommend that might help you to connect to long lost places or perhaps explain some aspect of local folklore that has been puzzling you.
Fear not, I have some more interesting treasure to recommend that might help you to connect to long lost places or perhaps explain some aspect of local folklore that has been puzzling you.
The Duchas Project is a collaborative project between the Irish Government and various Irish academic institutions, working to digitise and make available a vast range of material that forms the Irish National Folklore Collection. Whilst it has a particular focus on preserving the oral traditions of Irish history expressed in the Irish language, there is plenty of material in English too. Take some time to explore the site and learn about the extensive written and photographic resources that have been collated.
One collection that caught my eye when I was doing a speculative search for an unusual place name online was the Schools Collection. Goodness knows how they survived, but this lovely collection of 1930's children's essays describing Irish history with respect to landmarks, traditions and people might just be the key to solving a particularly perplexing place puzzle. The collection is nominally arranged by county but perhaps the easiest way to delve into the material is to use the Place Search function and see what is returned. You'll see images of the original handwritten essays and many of them have been transcribed. In fact, you can get involved in transcribing more of the materials - find the details of how to do this on the site.
If you have ancestors whose native tongue was Irish then the Irish Surnames Index on this site might provide the key to finding them in censuses etc. Just a list of equivalent names rather than the etymological reasons behind the choices, but a fascinating mix of Irish and English versions to give you some ideas when searching. The link to the actual database is well hidden in the text of the information page referenced above, so click on the blue text at the beginning of this sentence to go straight to the search screen.
One collection that caught my eye when I was doing a speculative search for an unusual place name online was the Schools Collection. Goodness knows how they survived, but this lovely collection of 1930's children's essays describing Irish history with respect to landmarks, traditions and people might just be the key to solving a particularly perplexing place puzzle. The collection is nominally arranged by county but perhaps the easiest way to delve into the material is to use the Place Search function and see what is returned. You'll see images of the original handwritten essays and many of them have been transcribed. In fact, you can get involved in transcribing more of the materials - find the details of how to do this on the site.
If you have ancestors whose native tongue was Irish then the Irish Surnames Index on this site might provide the key to finding them in censuses etc. Just a list of equivalent names rather than the etymological reasons behind the choices, but a fascinating mix of Irish and English versions to give you some ideas when searching. The link to the actual database is well hidden in the text of the information page referenced above, so click on the blue text at the beginning of this sentence to go straight to the search screen.
Excerpt of the results for Tinahely, Co. Wicklow on logainm.ie
I promised you archival notes and these are to be found on the related Placenames Database of Ireland (Logainm) website, a resource I've highlighted on other pages as being invaluable when it comes to tracking down elusive settlements.
If you search for any place name there will usually be several spelling variants suggested, an explanation of the meaning and the ability to hear how it should be pronounced in Irish and English (turn on your computer sound and click on either of the white triangles inside grey circles to the right of the names in pink.)
A little further down the page you will see a heading entitled "Archival Records", with a count of what is available in white in the blue box below. Click on this box to open a screen show of the scanned images. These will be original old-fashioned index cards on which archivists have noted how the place has been spelled and where it has occurred in various historical documents chronologically. There might also be other notes supporting or perhaps debunking theories of how the place acquired its name.
All great information to use when thinking about searching by place name back through time.
If you search for any place name there will usually be several spelling variants suggested, an explanation of the meaning and the ability to hear how it should be pronounced in Irish and English (turn on your computer sound and click on either of the white triangles inside grey circles to the right of the names in pink.)
A little further down the page you will see a heading entitled "Archival Records", with a count of what is available in white in the blue box below. Click on this box to open a screen show of the scanned images. These will be original old-fashioned index cards on which archivists have noted how the place has been spelled and where it has occurred in various historical documents chronologically. There might also be other notes supporting or perhaps debunking theories of how the place acquired its name.
All great information to use when thinking about searching by place name back through time.
(c) Irish Geneaography - 2023
