Irish Family History

If you’ve been to the National Archives in Dublin, chances are you have come across Senan as he’s one of the first people you’ll meet.

Senan works at the reception in the National Archives, greeting people as they arrive, making sure you sign in and have your researcher card with you.  Rain or shine, Senan always takes the time to say hello to everyone and to ask them how they are doing.  He knows the researchers who are often in the archives by name and remembers little details about what we’ve been up to, but even if you are a first-time visitor he makes you feel welcome.  In my opinion, everyone should have a Senan at their front desk!

Anyway those of us who are fans of Senan will be sad to hear that he is retiring. Let’s wish him all the best, and thank him for putting a smile on our faces!

The Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations has issued the following press release:

On Wednesday, 7th July Dr. David Craig, the Director of the National Archives of Ireland, was presented with the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations’ (CIGO) annual ‘Award for Excellence in Genealogy’. The Award was given in recognition of the completion of the Archives’ mammoth project to create an on-line database of indexed scanned images from the 1901 & 1911 census returns for Ireland.

Steven Smyrl (CIGO), Catriona Crowe (Senior Archivist, NAI) and Dr. David Craig (Director, NAI)

In presenting the Award CIGO Chairman, Steven Smyrl, said that “while over the past 20 years CIGO had regularly used constructive criticism to encourage improvement in access to records held by public and private bodies, it was also just as important to recognise achievement. The National Archives was to be commended for its commitment to creating the census database and for making it freely available to millions worldwide through the Internet.”

By far the largest digitisation project yet undertaken by the National Archives, it has benefited from major investment by the Irish Government. In publishing the 1901 & 1911 census online, the National Archives has made it available free of charge to the many millions of people in Ireland and worldwide who seek access to it to trace their Irish ancestors. And the success of the project can be seen from the fact that, over the 30 months from December 2007 to May 2010 (when initially only the 1911 census returns were available on-line) the Website received more than 7 million visits and more than 270 million hits.

In accepting the Award the Director said: “We greatly appreciate receiving this award from the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations. We are very pleased that the success of this venture has been formally recognised by the body that brings together in one council such a wide range of organisations active in the field of Irish genealogy.”

Previous recipients of the Award include Dublin City Library and Archives in 2007 for its database of Dublin city electoral rolls and The Irish Times in 2008 for its completed on-line database of indexed scanned images of the newspaper dating back to 1859.

Dublin City Library and Archive is holding its Family History Day on Saturday 28 March 2009, from 9.30am - 3.30pm.  Admission is free and all are welcome to attend, although when I was in Pearse Street Library earlier this week I heard that places are filling up fast!

Speakers include:

Seán Murphy, experienced genealogist and teacher of the certificate and diploma courses in Genealogy at UCD, who will be discussing ‘Know your Surname’  

John Grenham, M.A.P.G.I. and author of Tracing Your Irish Ancestors, who wil be discussing ‘The New Dublin Freeman and Trade Guild Database’

Douglas Appleyard who will be discussing ‘Searching for the Stoker Family’

Paul Gorry, M.A.P.G.I. who will provide guidance to the question ‘Can I Trace Emigrants?’

Steven Smyrl, M.A.P.G.I. ‘Ireland’s Court Records - What Survived 1922?’

Address: 138-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2
Tel: (01) 674 4873
email: dublinpubliclibraries@dublincity.ie
For more information, take a look at the Dublin City Library and Archives website.

It is with regret that my colleagues and I learned today of the death of Rosemary ffolliott one of Ireland’s greatest genealogists. 

Miss ffolliott was editor of the Irish Ancestor journal as well as being the author of a number of books and essays on Irish genealogy and other historical topics.  My first encounter with her work was through her essays in Irish Genealogy: A Record Finder, ed. Donal F. Begley (Heraldic Artists Ltd., 1981)  a book that I frequently refer to. 

The significant contribution Rosemary ffolliott made to Irish genealogy is described in an obituary from APGI.

The National Library has announced today that it will be closed to the public on Thursday 26th February due to Industrial Action being taken by the Civil Public and Services Union.

(More updates soon - am going to the Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2009 show in Olympia so getting prepared for that…)

The BBC reported that a fire broke out this morning on the third and fourth floors of the College of Arms in Queen Victoria Street, London where coats of arms and pedigrees of English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Commonwealth families are archived, along with official copies of the records of the Ulster King of Arms, the originals of which are in Dublin. Thirty-five people were evacuated from the building and a spokesperson said that so far no historical documents have been lost or damaged, but the curator was working ‘closely with fire crews to preserve historical manuscripts held in the building.’

For more information, see the BBC report on the fire in the College of Arms.

You’ve gone through your research notes, compiled a to-do list and planned which repository to go to in order to be able to find a few nuggets of information.  One thing worth doing the night before is checking the opening hours! 

I remember when, as a first year genealogy student I arrived at the National Library at 4.30 one Thursday armed with a list of things to do.  I hadn’t checked the times but had assumed that because Thursday is late night shopping in Dublin that Thursday was probably one of the NLI’s late nights too.  I discovered I was wrong when the bell started ringing 15 minutes later.  Since then I’ve always tried to get into the habit of checking the details in advance.

So if your research plan for the next few weeks features the National Archives, please don’t forget:  for the next three Fridays the archives will open late -  at 11am (30 Jan 2009, 6 Feb 2009 and 13 Feb 2009).   Make a note of it in your diary now!

John D Reid notes in his blog Anglo-Celtic Connections that PRONI (Public Records Office of Northern Ireland) has started making the PRONI collection catalogue available online.

Great news for those with ancestors from Northern Ireland.

Barack Obama’s Irish ancestral home set on 1 acre of land in Moneygall, Co. Offaly was recently withdrawn from the housing market according to a report in the Irish Times (Friday 16 January 2009) .

The site, formerly known as ‘Kearney’s Gardens’ after Obama’s ancestors, had been on the market for two years for 16 plots for social housing, but the article explains that, given the economic slump, Offaly County Council decided to withdraw it from sale.  Some members are now proposing that the site might be used as a heritage centre, which would mark Obama’s connection with the village and bring important tourist revenues to the region.  

Last year Canon Stephen Neill discovered that Barack Obama’s maternal great-great-great grandfather was Fulmouth Kearney of Moneygall, who emigrated to the US in the 1850s.  Eneclann genealogists Fiona Fitzsimons and Helen Moss have traced Barack Obama’s Kearney family history back to 1698.

Don’t plan a visit to the National Archives of Ireland, Bishop Street, Dublin later this week - it’s closed on Wednesday 10, Thursday 11 and Friday 12 December 2008.

This is due to the annual media preview of the archives of governement departments - which in this case will relate mainly to 1978. 

The reading room will be open to the public as usual on Monday 15 December.