Heritage Trail opens at Belfast's City Cemetery

A number of signs have been erected at key points around Belfast`s City cemetery, not only to help people to find their way around but also to map out a new maritime and industrial heritage trail, which identifies some of the more significant memorials located there.

Among the many famous people from Belfast`s past interred in the cemetery are the likes of William Pirrie, Chairman of Harland & Wolff; Thomas Gallaher, the `Tobacco King` and founder of the Gallaher`s tobacco factory; Dr Thomas Andrews, the chemist whose pioneering work led to the development of modern refrigeration; the pioneering educational Margaret Byers; the famed Victorian photographer Alexander Hogg, and many more.

All of these graves, and other points of interest, are highlighted on the trail, which has been developed and funded by Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

Burial records dating back to 1869, and including records for those interred in the Jewish, public and Glenalina extension sections, can be searched via Belfast City Council's online facility. Images are available for purchase (£1.50) for records that are over 75 years old.

Ancestry uploads millions of US & Canadian records

As promised last month, Ancestry has uploaded a ton and a half (nearly 10 million) birth, marriage and death records for Massachussetts. They date from 1840/1 to 1915, the main period of exodus from Ireland, so there should be plenty of Irish immigrants awaiting discovery within this huge database.

The Massachussetts Town and Vital Records collection, which dates from 1620 to 1988, has also been updated. It now holds 23,159,802 records, including some really unusual ones such as dog licence applications, fishing permits, mortgage and tax records, and even details of pew sales.

Another Massachussetts collection, less mainstream but useful, holds 336,033 membership cards dating from 1733 to 1990 of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Massachussetts, the oldest masonic lodge in the United States.

Sticking to neighbouring North-Eastern states, Ancestry has also added new collections for New Hampshire (2.3million birth, marriage, death and divorce records dating back up to nearly four centuries), Vermont (1.4million vital records), Rhode Island (state censuses 1865–1935), and Connecticut (some 1.3million headstone inscriptions dating from 1675–1934 from more than 2,000 cemeteries, the work of Charles R Hale).

Several smaller new or updated packages have also been added to Ancestry in the last week or so, including a total of 1.5million records in a number of Canadian databases primarily related to military service. Among them are British Army and Canadian Militia Muster Rolls and Pay Lists, 1795-1850, and British Navy Ship Muster Rolls and Pay Lists, 1757-1836, the latter covering Canadian ships and shipyards.

Eneclann presents personal genealogy exhibition to Obamas

Eneclann's Fiona Fitzsimons and Helen Moss today presented a private genealogy session to Miichelle Obama and her two daughters in the Long Room in the Old Library, Trinity College Dublin.

Fiona gave an overview of the history of their family, which is better documented than that of other Irish-American presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or even JFK. The Obamas’ story includes wig and shoemakers, merchants and farmers, and politicians.

While their deep ancestry (Kearneys, Donovans, etc.) are of Irish origin, an important line, the Benns (or Behn) were continental religious refugees who settled in Limerick before 1700.

The surviving paper trail enabled the Eneclann team to trace the family back to the 1600s.

The Obamas were introduced to a display of important documents from their Irish family history, including the parish register for Templeharry church in Moneygall (kindly lent by the Representative Church Body Library), maps from the National Library, and records from Trinity College Library.

For more details about Barack Obama's Irish ancestry, see the Eneclann online exhibition.

Famine Walk needs walkers and sponsors

Walkers and sponsors required! The Tracton Famine Walk will take place in County Cork on Saturday 22 June, in memory of 124 desperate men, women and children who, on 22th June 1850, abandoned their Tracton homes and trekked 8 miles to the dreaded workhouse in Kinsale (now the Community Hospital).

Why did those people abandon their homes en masse on that day? History records that the Kinsale Workhouse was overcrowded and riddled with famine fever and typhoid – how could it be better than remaining at home in Tracton?

This is one of the issues the walkers, each one representing one of those on the original trek, will be pondering as they follow the route.

More details of this thought provoking and worthwhile event via the Irish Genealogical Research Society's facebook page.

Irish Architectural Archive to close for two months

The Irish Architectural Archive is to close on Friday 28 June until Tuesday 3 September in a desperate bid to remain solvent.

The archive is one of Ireland's most important repositories. It is the nation's buildings record and has been collecting and preserving material of every kind relating to the architecture of the entire island for nearly 40 years and making it available to the public. But grant cutbacks and a significant reduction in sponsorship from the construction and archictectural industries, both so badly hit by the economic downturn, have left the coffers in a parlous state.

In a recent statement, chairman Michael Webb explained: 'From a worsening but workable financial position up to mid-2012, when grant support was cut again, we ended 2012 with a substantial cash deficit and now face a potential cumulative deficit in excess of €100,000 by the end of 2013. Quite simply, the Archive does not have the resources to operate normally for the whole of the year.

'The Board of the Archive has had to act to protect this vital cultural resource and so we now find ourselves having to close the Archive for July and August 2013. We recognise that this will be a significant disruption for Archive users, especially those working on long-term research and publication projects. The closure will also harm our loyal and hard-working staff, all of whom will be made temporarily redundant.'

If you can help by making a donation, no matter how small, please see the IAA's funding appeal page.

More about the Irish Architectural Archive.

IGP Archives updates for first half of June

Bridget Considine nee McNamara

Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives have uploaded the following files so far this month. It's not a big number of files, but they make up a varied collection.

Along with the list, I've been asked to pass on a call for more volunteer gravestone photographers. They're needed by many of the county project sites, and the process to upload photos has been streamlined to make it easy. If you've a notion to spend some of the summer mooching about in graveyards, why not contact the IGP-web co-ordinater for your county to find out how to proceed?

CLARE Genealogy Archives - Photos
Bridget Considine nee McNamara Photo

CORK Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Castlehyde Cemetery (Parish of Litter) Additional headstone photo

DUBLIN Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Cruagh Cemetery Pt. 3, Rockbrook, Co. Dublin

FERMANAGH Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Lisnaskea, Church of the Holy Trinity (CoI) Cemetery. Two parts.

KERRY Genealogy Archives - Memorial Cards
New Memorial (Funeral) Card page for Kerry

KILKENNY Genealogy Archives - Church Records
Some Callan Baptisms (individual) from 1843

MONAGHAN Genealogy Archives - Census Substitutes
Some CoI Family Members from Aghabog Area, Monaghan, 1824

WICKLOW Genealogy Archives - Headstones
Blessington; St. Marys
Hollywood; St. Kevins Catholic Church & Cemetery

PRONI marks G8 summit with online exhibition

To mark the imminent arrival of the G8 big-wigs in Northern Ireland (Lough Erne, Co. Fermanagh, for anyone who doesn't keep up to date with world news), PRONI has launched an online exhibition.

It goes by the rather snappy title of G8: Hall of Documents & Top 10 treasures of PRONI relating to Co. Fermanagh and displays a range of documents and photographs relating to the countries and governments involved. There's also a list of ...um... the Top 10 archives of PRONI relating to Co. Fermanagh.

And it's this list that may be of greater interest to family historians, especially to those with ancestral connections to the area. It's a very handy list of estate and family papers held at PRONI and a reminder that the papers for Enniskillen Workhouse cover the years 1840-1952.