Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives - April updates: Headstones photos and church records from nine counties across the island

Last month brought another bumper delivery of files to Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives from the volunteer team. The additions include headstone photos and transcribed inscriptions from seven burial grounds plus church records from two Ulster congregations, one Presbyterian, the other Methodist.

As always, these files have been contributed by researchers for the benefit of other researchers, and are available on a free-to-access basis. If you have any similar records or photos, please consider donating them to IGPArchives. You can find out how to contribute here.

Headstones to Conway family in Illinaspic
graveyard, Mooncoin, Co. Kilkenny. Photo courtesy
of Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives
and the contributor, Emma Bates.
Click for enlarged image.

CARLOW Genealogy Archives - Headstones
St. Lazerian Cemetery, Kildavin

CAVAN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Laragh Old Cemetery (Updated)

CLARE Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Holy Rosary Graveyard, Doolin, Part 2

DONEGAL Genealogy Archives - Church Records
Ballyshannon Methodist Marriages, 1872-1920

KERRY Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Listowel Burial Ground - Partial

KILKENNY Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Killinaspic Pt 2, Mooncoin, Completed

TYRONE Genealogy Archives - Church Records
Sion Mills Presbyterian Marriages 1866-1921

WEXFORD Genealogy Archives
HeadstonesCalvary Cemetery Pt. 2, Bunclody
Memorials St David's Interior, Family of Adoration Convent, Ferns

WICKLOW Genealogy Archives - Headstones
St. Brigid's Graveyard, Annacurra

Latest genealogy updates for English, Scottish & Wales collections

Please find below a two-week summary of newly-released and updated family history collections for England, Scotland and Wales from the major genealogy databases. (For previous list, see 11/4 blogpost.)

These regular listings are designed to help researchers whose Irish ancestors migrated, temporarily or permanently, to England, Scotland or Wales.

By default, they will also be useful to anyone carrying out research in those three nations, regardless of the origin of their ancestors.

Please note that I don't usually include updates of fewer than 1,000 records.

NEW COLLECTIONS

Figures in parentheses are the numbers of records (or images, if browse-only) in each new collection.

Ancestry

• Aberdeenshire, Scotland, School Admission Registers, 1852-1927
• Aberdeenshire, Scotland, World War II Related Records, 1940-1945
• Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Police Records, 1818
• United Kingdom, Red Cross Volunteers During WWI, 1914-1918 (244,156)

BritishNewspaperArchive (BNA) and FindMyPast (FMP)

• Deeside Piper |  Midhurst and Petworth Observer  |  Pontefract & Castleford Express  |  Sleaford Standard  |  Hucknall Dispatch  |  Daventry and District Weekly Express  |  Kirriemuir Herald  |  Glenrothes Gazette

FamilySearch

• England, Manchester, Miscellaneous Records, 1700-1916 (10,241,065)

FindMyPast

• Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography Enhanced Genealogical Data (4,013)

MyHeritage

• England, Cheshire Bishop's Transcripts Burials, 1569-1933 (1,167,929)

UPDATED COLLECTIONS

Unless otherwise stated, where there is only one figure in parenthesis, it reflects the total number of records in the updated collection. Where there are two figures, the first is the number of records added in the recent update, the second is the revised total number.

FamilySearch

• England, Devon, Parish Registers (Devon Record Office), 1529-1974 (2,926,636)
• England, Devon, Parish Registers, 1538-1912 (1,043,193)
• England, Staffordshire, Church Records, 1538-1944 (4,850,444)
• Wales, Death Records, 1998-2015 (172,310)

FindMyPast

• Oxfordshire Baptisms Kiddington, Chudlington and Spelsbury (6,200 / 260,211)
• Oxfordshire Marriages (72,782)
• Oxfordshire Burials Kiddington, Chudlington and Spelsbury (41,327)
• Surrey Prerogative Court Will Abstracts, 1420-1857 (11,308 / 12,701) additions from 1700
• Lancashire Wills & Probate 1457-1858 (5,803 Infra Wills ie under £40 value)

FreeBMD

• England and Wales Civil Registration Index (202,914 / 294,092,936)

TheGenealogist

• Land Tax Records (IR58), Surrey property owners and heads of household, 1910-1915 (225,000+ / 2.6Million)

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Newly launched: County Armagh: The Irish Revolution, 1912-1923

Published April 2024

The most recent county to be studied in the Four Courts Press The Irish Revolution, 1912–23 series is Armagh.

The 240-page paperback, written by Donal Hall and Eoin Magennis, explains how Armagh's long-standing antipathy between unionism and nationalism intensified during the 'third home rule crisis' of 1912–14 and saw the unionists mobilize both politically and militarily to demand a partitioned Ireland. The IRA was largely forced from the county by 1922 by the dominant Crown Forces and many volunteers were interned on both sides of the new border.

Using both official and private archives, this study offers new perspectives on the continuities, changes and wider social and economic dynamics which shaped County Armagh during this tumultuous decade.

The illustrated paperback has been published this month and is now on sale at a reduced price of €22.45 from Four Courts Press. ISBN: 978-1-80151-080-6.

Click here for the full line-up of titles in this popular series which now covers Counties Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Kildare, Leitrim, Limerick, Louth, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Tyrone and Waterford.

Any ancestral connections to Borrisokane in Co Tipperary?

Tipperary Studies had added an interesting collection to its digital archives: the Kent Collection. It's a treasure trove of historical documents and photographs that were kindly loaned for digitisation by Roland Dyer, the great grandson of Walter Francis Kent, a prominent merchant and grocer from Borrisocane in the north of County Tipperary in the late C19th and early C20th.

Click for enlarged view of this sample

Born in 1856, Kent completed his apprenticeship with a hardward store in Birr before opening his own shop in Borrisokane. It offered a wide range of goods, including builders’ supplies, farm and garden seeds, coal, soap, cigarettes and groceries.

The shop’s ledgers, which span 1884 to 1932, provide insight into the daily lives of the local community, including farmers, carpenters, blacksmiths and shopkeepers.

Account transactions were recorded in these ledgers, noting the name of customers, their residence and, in many cases, their occupations, and keeping the necessary tally over time. Fascinating to look through, and an absolutely terrific discovery if you can identify an ancestor.

Each of the two ledgers has been digitised into a set of eight downloadable pdfs. Each holds about 100 pages.

The remaining parts of the collection are mostly photographs, including several of Roland, one of his sons, who enlisted in the South Irish Horse in 1915, and other WW1 army memorabilia.

Take a look through the collection, which is free to access on Tipperary Studies' Digital Archive, here and read a well-research article, including the family's genealogy, by Mary Flynn here

BNA and FMP add to Irish historical newspaper collection

The Irish collection within the BritishNewspaperArchive and its shared database at sister company FindMyPast has seen some action for the first time since early January.

Making its debut was the Banbridge Chronicle while the Belfast News Letter received a full-year update, as follows:

Some 652 editions of the Banbridge Chronicle are now available to search and view on either site. The 23,996 pages date from 1980 to 1998.

All editions of The Belfast News Letter published in 2002 have joined the online databasers. With only a few gaps, the holding now tots up to 553,298 pages dating from 1828.

With these updates being of relatively recent publication, they probably won't offer too much to genealogists. However, it's good to see that the Irish newspapers collection is still growing, even if at a much slower pace than we once enjoyed.

PRONI publishes second edition of free Ulster & Slavery guide

To mark #DouglassWeek in Belfast, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has updated and republished its Ulster & Slavery: The Story from the Archives, an essential resource for learning more about the region's historical connections to slavery and reflecting on its influence in the present day.

It was first published in 2007 by PRONI to mark the bicentenary of the slave trade's abolition in the UK.

This second edition contains revised text and additional documents including one written by American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. There is also a foreward by Kenneth B Morris Jr, the 3 x great-grandson of Frederick Douglass.

Other revisions include a refreshed list of PRONI sources and artefacts from other institutions telling the story of slavery and the slave trade, 1680s–1890s. There is also an updated Bibliography and Websites page.

Click the image to read or download the ebook free of charge from PRONI's website.

Any connections to WW2 Nurses from Ireland? New resource online

In partnership with the Royal College of Nursing NI, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has today launched a ground-breaking Biographical Dictionary of Nurses from Ireland, which describes the lives of those nurses who served on the home front and in various theatres of war around the globe during WW2.

       Click to view online or download

The 325-page online publication full name The Biographical Dictionary of Nurses from Ireland in Service on the Home Front and on Allied Battle Fronts during the Second World War, 1939-1945, is edited by Seán Graffin and provides a comprehensive (but incomplete*) list of those nurses born on the island of Ireland who served. It is available via PRONI's website and is free to view online or to download.

It is well-illustrated and laid out, with a handy Timeline of the war itself and a good listing or Primary Sources, newspapers & journals, websites and a bibliography. There is also a listing of abbreviations used in the nursing profession.

The partnership project began in 2020 following the commemorations to mark the 75th anniversaries of Victory in Europe (VE) Day and Victory in Japan (VJ) Day, in order to identify those who had served in that war.

As names were gathered, it became evident that many nurses, mostly women, from across Ireland applied to train in British hospitals and when qualified applied to enlist to support the war effort.

* Research is continuing.

Fifteen Dublin City databases taken offline for redevelopment

The popular databases.dublincity.ie site which hosted fifteen free-to-access collections (see list below) was taken offline on 4 March 2024. According to a subsequent tweet, this action was taken by Dublin City Council, which manages the site, as "a precautionary measure due to cyber security concerns". I assumed this was a newly identified technical issue that would be quickly corrected. And then I forgot about it. Apologies.

Unfortunately, it looks as though there is no speedy fix in sight.

The reason the material was removed is that the site needs to be redeveloped to meet the EU's Web Accessibility Directive of 2016.

Web accessibility allows everyone, including people with disabilities, to perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the Internet. So what was that about the cyber security concerns?

DCL&A, Pearse Street, Dublin 2

In an undated statement released on the Council's online news pages, the organisation apologises for the inconvenience and adds: "Until such a time as the site can be redeveloped in accordance with the EU’s Web accessibility Directive, material previously accessed online must be accessed instead via the Dublin City Library & Archive (DCLA) Reading Room, 139-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2. Where possible, we will add links to digital catalogues and listings as soon as possible. Please contact cityarchives@dublincity.ie to make an appointment to view materials."

The phrase "Until such a time as the site can be redeveloped" sounds ominous, doesn't it?

But so does the increasingly frequently heard 'make an appointment'. Isn't it quite the fashion statement since Covid. Previously open throughout normal office working hours, the DCLA Reading Room is another of those repositories to have switched to appointment-only access. Appointments have to be booked in advance and are usually available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Here's the full list of databases affected:

~ Ancient freemen of Dublin (1461 to 1491, and 1564 to 1774)
~ Cemetery Burial Registers (Clontarf, Drimnagh, and Finglas)
~ Community Memory
~ Dublin City Electoral Lists 1908 to 1915
~ Dublin Directory 1647-1708
~ Dublin Guild Merchant Roll
~ Dublin Graveyards Directory
~ Medieval Manuscripts of Dublin
~ Parish Registers
~ The Dublin Fire Brigade Ambulance Log book, Easter 1916
~ The John V O'Connor Papers, 1692-2015
~ The Index to Dublin City Council Minutes 1881-1987
~ The Monica Roberts Collection

Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors, 1600-1800 - special saving

Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors: The Essential Genealogical Guide to Early Modern Ulster, 1600–1800 is on special offer until the end of this month.

Written by the highly regarded Dr William Roulston and published by the Ulster Historical Foundation, the 640-page paperback is an essential reference book for any genealogist or historian looking for reliable guidance to sources of material from this period.

This is a second edition of the book. It includes a lot of additional material on church records and landed estate papers, as well as new chapters looking at records relating to law and order, emigration, business and occupations, diaries and journals, and clubs and societies.

Among the appendices is a parish-by-parish breakdown of the sources available in the nine counties of Ulster, a listing of surviving pre-1800 church records); a detailed description of around 350 collections of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century landed estate papers; and a listing of more than 500 towns and villages in Ulster with parish locations.

PLEASE NOTE: This book is sold in the UK and Ireland as Researching Ulster Ancestors but is identical in content to the book, Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors. Customers are welcome to purchase either version.

The book is reduced from £19.99 to £12.99.

ISBN 9781909556652

NAI technical issue: Calendars of wills 1858-1982 currently offline

If you're needing to download any of the National Archives of Ireland's Calendars of grants of probate of wills and letters of administration from 1858 to 1982 (held in CS/HC/PO/4), you're out of luck. This won't be a surprise to some researchers. The online links to download pdf copies of the annual calendars, previously available via the the online catalogue, are out of action.

I don't know how long this has been the case. While an NAI member of staff told me this problem has been ongoing for 'a while', he wasn't able to confirm how long 'a while' meant. However, he was able to tell me that the technical team is aware of the problem and will fix it as soon as is possible.

Up to 1917, the calendars in this collection cover the whole of the island of Ireland. From 1918 onwards they cover only the 26 historical counties in the Republic. Those indexes covering the six counties of Northern Ireland since 1918 are in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and are not affected by this NAI techie issue. You can search and view here.

UPDATE, 26 APRIL 2024: A message advising the above had been placed on the home page of the NAI and a parallel tweet says that researchers can email query@nationalarchives.ie for any calendars they may need.