Irish Ancestry

Irish ancestry is often hard to trace reliably, but there has been a real push to get Irish genealogy resources online.
Irish Newspaper archive 1820-1926
FindMyPast Ireland has added over 100 years of old Irish newspapers to its online collection. The overall coverage is:
The Belfast Morning News (1857-1882)
The Belfast Newsletter (1828-1900)
The Cork Examiner (1841-1926)
The Dublin Evening Mail (1849-1871)
The Freeman’s Journal (1820-1900)
The Sligo Champion (1836-1926)
This collection is accessible on all Findmypast international sites (UK, Aus, or US) available at Manly Library. You can read the full announcement of it here.

The Irish Genealogical Research Society has launched an online index to its annual journal The Irish Genealogist. The journal was first published in 1937 and contains hundreds of thousands of family names with reference to a variety of different sources.

Censuses and Guiness Employee Records
Ancestry.com has added to their Irish records with three new databases:
Ireland Guinness Archive Index, 1824-2002
Ireland Census 1901 Census
Ireland Census 1911 Census
The census records are an index only but they link to the National Archive of Ireland, which then allows you to view the images.
The Guinness Archive is employee records and include details such as name, date of birth, date of death, date they joined the company, spouse name etc.

Tithe Applotment Books 1814-1855

These are available on FamilySearch and determine the amount which occupiers of agricultural holdings over one acre should pay in tithes to the Church of Ireland. Urban areas are not included.  FamilySearch has all of these Tithe Applotment Books indexed, as well as links to the original images.

Irish Marriage Finder

The Irish Genealogical Research Society's Marriage Finder has now reached 50,000 names. It features information gathered from an array of sources, including Chancery bills, diaries, deeds, marriage settlements, memorial inscriptions, wills, family letters and newspaper cuttings. The database is online and free to use on the website of the IGRS at http://www.irishancestors.ie/?page_id=1926 and a "how to use it" introduction is available at http://www.irishancestors.ie/?page_id=1921.

 

FamilySearch & FindMyPast Partnership

FamilySearch has announced yet another agreement, this time with FindMyPast. More than 13 million records from FamilySearch have been uploaded onto FindMyPast, including major collections of births, marriages and deaths covering America, Australia and Ireland. However little has been said about the advantages for FamilySearch. The Ancestry Insider Blogspot notes that in recent weeks FamilySearch has entered into strategic agreements with Ancestry.com, MyHeritage and DC Thompson Family History, giving each access to millions or billions of FamilySearch’s records.  This is supposed to expand online access for millions of people. Olive Tree Genealogy has also written about this latest pairing.

MyHeritage and FamilySearch

MyHeritage and FamilySearch had announced a Strategic Partnership. This will mean MyHeritage users will benefit from the historical records digitised by FamilySearch and FamilySearch users will benefit from the more powerful search engine technologies created by MyHeritage.  FamilySearch will be able to use MyHeritage’s SuperSearch, which is a sophisticated search engine for historical records with Smart Matching, a means of matching up ancestors using a fuzzy matching algorithm, that overcomes minor errors and alternative spellings The full press release is at http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131014006192/en , but Dick Eastman has also written an article about the partnership in his blog, with a follow-up article the next day. Dick goes into a quite a lot of detail with some excellent background information on both companies - a very informative and interesting read.

Brightsolid becomes DC Thopmson Family History

Brightsolid Online Publishing, the UK company behind Findmypast, ScotlandsPeople, Genes Reunited, and FriendsReunited, has appointed a new CEO, Annelies van der Belt, and announced a name change for the company. They will now be known as DC Thomson Family History, to align with its Dundee-based media company owner and to focus on its core business, leading digital family history brands. This should not affect the delivery of any of their products, but is seen as a strengthening of their organisational structure. You can read the full press release at http://www.brightsolid.com/brightsolid-group/latest-news/recent-news/the-future-for-family-history-is-digital.html