Irish Genealogy Research

The Irish Cultural Center is holding a virtual class Saturday, September 12. The description follows. Use this link to register:  https://www.azirish.org/education-and-classes/genealogy-classes/ 

Thanks, Jim, for providing the information!

“19th Century Irish Genealogy Research: What’s Available and How to Use It”

with
Miles Davenport

When: 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 12th, 2020
Where: Class will be held virtually through Zoom

Workshop Summary:

This workshop will provide participants with an in-depth look at Irish records created during the 1800s. The Irish Civil Registration process will be explored, including the time period covered and their limitations. The workshop will demonstrate how to use church parish records, Griffith's Valuation, Tithe Applotment Books, and other early 19th Century sources to uncover your Irish ancestors prior to the start of Civil Registrations. Participants will also develop an understanding of Ireland's civil and religious jurisdictions and why this knowledge is essential in locating your Irish ancestors. A case study will be used to illustrate the various ways to determine family relationships prior to the start of the Civil Registration process.

Ontario Land Records

FROM A RECENT ISSUE OF DICK EASTMAN'S NEWSLETTER:


All 54 Land Registry Offices (LRO) in Ontario are closing their in-person counter services to the public effective Tuesday, October 13th, right after the (Canadian) Thanksgiving long weekend. The last day you can visit a Land Registry Office in person is October 9th.

Normally, you might think the closure of the offices would be bad news. However, in this case, there is a silver lining: Traveling to one of the offices and looking up records on microfilm is being replaced by online images of the same microfilms. You can now search for and find the same records and even print them out, all without leaving home.

What's New at FamilySearch?

We watched another virtual session yesterday and learned about some changes they have made at FamilySearch recently.

Books: Under the search button, choose the "books" option. You will find several libraries listed where you can search for digital books available in those facilities.


Images: This seems to be a new choice. Once you have clicked on "images" under the search button you can narrow a search to a specific location--and then to a particular time period. The results will be microfilms, but narrowing the search to a certain year or years will let you begin to browse the film at that entry point rather than reading the entire film.


FamilyTree: Have you tried "enable relationship viewing?" Click on your name in the upper right and choose "contact" in the resulting field. Then you can opt to make your relationship public. If other folks have done the same, it's possible to learn how you are related to people who are adding sources and other information to your ancestors' pages.

FamilySearch is also adding other "helps" that can assist you in making decisions when you are thinking about merging ancestors in FamilyTree. This is an ongoing process.

Use the handy link to FamilySearch in the menu list on the right.

September Webinars

Another month has passed. Visit www.familytreewebinars.com to see whether you would like to watch any of these presentations in real time or during the following week.


Wednesday, September 2 - "Using Chromosome Browsers, Segment Data and Triangulation" by Michelle Leonard.   Intermediate


Wednesday, September 9 - "Cyndi's List in Practice" by Cyndi Ingle.   Beginner, Intermediate


Tuesday, September 15 - "Reconstructing the Murphy Family Using DNA & Documentary Evidence" by Melissa Johnson.  Intermediate


Wednesday, September 23 - "Introduction to VPNs" by Thomas MacEntee.  Intermediate, Advanced


Wednesday, September 30 - "5 Ways to find your Family in Southern Manuscript Collections" by J. Mark Lowe.   Intermediate

Ancestral Mathematics

Mary Anne shared the chart above. When your friends or relatives ask whether you're "done" with your genealogy research, use this example to explain why not!

Thanks, Mary Anne.

Today's Chuckle

My favorite line from a recent commercial:


"Your father's been researching our genealogy: we're Vikings!"

Overlooked Genealogy Resources

If you read Internet Genealogy, you might remember Diane Richards' column called Net Notes. She describes recent website discoveries in each issue. She combined a group of these in a presentation called "Fifty Overlooked Genealogical Resources in Fifty Minutes." I am reporting a partial list of websites she mentioned. You can Google any that are of interest.

Endangered Archives Program: funds digitization projects to preserve content of archives.

Mexican War Soldiers and Sailors

Europeana Newspapers

Frederick Douglas Newspapers

From the Page: a resource for collaborative transcriptions

Crowd Source Indexing: created for genealogical indexing; both large and small projects

The Ancestor Hunt

Online Genealogy Records: Google "death indexes"

Linkpendium

Digital Public Library of America

FreeUKGenealogy

Can Genealogy: a handy guide to the best Canadian resources

Peel's Prairie Provinces

Court Record Books, Online German Church Registers, Google Docs

We continue to enjoy the National Genealogy Society's virtual conference. Recent sessions touched on a wide variety of topics.


Court Record Books was actually titled "FamilySearch's Secret Weapon." The court record books that are available in the FamilySearch catalog include reports of cases dealing with all sorts of offenses where an ancestor's name may be mentioned. Examples included alimony back payment, indentures, mortgage foreclosures, ferry licenses, lists of jurors, etc.

Many of the records are available online. If you have an interest, the easiest way to locate a record is to go to the catalog. Use "court record books" in the keywords selection and choose "online." These records are not indexed so you will need to browse in a location and time period where your ancestor may have been mentioned.


Online German Church Registers provided an overview of the most common types of records, online sources, and an explanation of what might be found: originals, duplicates, recopied records, indexes, transcripts or abstracts. The speaker also pointed out that German immigrants in America followed the same format in their German language churches.


Transcribe and Take Note was a discussion of Google Docs, Sheets, and Keep for data collection. It was evident that the speaker was a long-time user of these tools. In Google Docs she demonstrated how to create automatic transcriptions of typed and handwritten text, how to insert a bookmark, voice typing, etc. We learned how to add links to Google Sheets and how to use it side by side with Google Docs. Google Keep is a note-taking app that allows you to save web pages. The speaker's examples were focused on time lines, genealogy reports, and research logs.