Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Researching your Irish Ancestors is getting easier!

There are some very useful sites available now to research your Irish Ancestors -
http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/
This site is hosted by the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport. At present there are 1,334,000 Church records of Baptism, Marriage and Death available to view free of charge on this website. These Church records were computerised with funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport and through the work of the Dublin Heritage Group and Kerry Genealogical Research Centre. This Department continues to work with Dublin City Public Library to bring about the completion of the computerisation of the Church records for Dublin City up to 1900. This Department is also collaborating with Carlow County Library and Cork County Library in the completion of their Church records and these records will be available to view free of charge through this site in the near future.

http://www.genealogyireland.ie/
This site provides informative Assessment Reports, detailing all findings and where relevant the best way to proceed. It is an independent genealogical research company, Genealogy Ireland, and uses all available genealogy sources for Ireland. They have an excellent working relationship with the many family history centres and local historians.

http://www.irishfaminerecords.com/
A commercial website with links and advertising. Can be frustrating to use.

http://www.irishorigins.com/
This is an Origins Network site and offers subscription access to key Irish genealogy records online featuring:
· the definitive version of Griffith's Valuation
· Censuses, Wills, Militia and Burial records, Passenger lists, Electoral registers etc.
· the Irish Origins Image Library
· Irish genealogy guide
It does also have an extensive list of accessible collections .

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More Additions to Ancestry

The following databases have also been added to the Ancestry Database recently:
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations),1861-1941
British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920
U.K., City and County Directories, 1600s-1900s
New South Wales, Australia, Cowra Military Camps Personnel Photo Index, 1905-1970
UK, Casualties of the Boer War, 1899-1902
UK, Waterloo Medal Roll, 1815

These are worth checking out. Don't forget that you can limit your searches to one particular database within Ancestry or to a group of similar databases.

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Australian BDMs on Ancestry

The following indexes are now available on the Ancestry database:
Australia Marriage Index, 1788-1949
Australia Birth Index, 1788-1922
Australia Death Index, 1787-1985
Australia and New Zealand Obituary Collection

This can make seaching easier, if you don't already know the State in which the event was registered, but also more costly if don't have free access to Ancestry through your local library.
It is possible to seach each state individually, but Ancestry has provided a single portal through which to search.
A word of warning: I searched for Norman Hinds in Ancestry. Norman was born in 1905 & died 1985. I did not find a reference to his birth record, but found his marriage record and numerous references in the Sands Directory. After some time looking I had to limit the search to particualr databases within Ancestry, but I still couldn't find the birth record. I found lots of other Hinds, with variant spellings, but not the one I was looking for, and I know I can bring up his record easily and quickly when searching http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/

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