Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) now on sale

Chris Paton blogs that the 2nd edition of his popular book is now available  —Pen & Sword wouldn't be publishing the 2nd edition if it weren't popular.

I expect to have the chance to review it in due course. In the meantime here's the table of contents.

Chapter 1 – The Genealogical Landscape
 Recording information
 Gateway sites
 Irish Archives
 British archives
 Libraries
 Heritage
 Societies
 Commercial vendors
 Commercial research services
 Networking and Communication
 Languages

Chapter 2 – The Vital Records 
 Civil registration
 Other civil records sources
 Adoption and children
 Records in Britain
 Overseas British records
 Surname distributions
 Parish registers
 Burials
 Wills and probate
 Biographical resources
 Newspapers
 Books and other periodicals
 DNA testing

Chapter 3 – Where They Lived 
 Census records
 1901 and 1911 censuses
 1821-1891 census remnants
 British censuses
 1939 National Identity Register (UK)
 Other censuses
 Census substitutes
 Land records
 Other land listings
 Maps, gazetteers and place names
 Photographs

Chapter 4 – Occupations 
 The Military
 Merchant Navy
 Law and Order
 Other professions
 The Poor

Chapter 5 – The Decade of Centenaries
 Home Rule Crisis
 Women’s Suffrage
 The Dublin Lockout
 The First World War
 The Easter Rising
 Towards Independence
 The Treaty and Civil War
 Ireland's Revolutionaries
 Legacy

Chapter 6 – Ulster
 Antrim
 Armagh
 Cavan
 Donegal
 Down
 Fermanagh
 Londonderry
 Monaghan
 Tyrone

Chapter 7 – Munster
 Clare
 Cork
 Kerry
 Limerick
 Tipperary
 Waterford

Chapter 8 – Connacht
 Galway
 Leitrim
 Mayo
 Roscommon
 Sligo

Chapter 9 – Leinster
 Carlow
 Dublin
 Kildare
 Kilkenny
 Laois
 Longford
 Louth
 Meath
 Offaly
 Westmeath
 Wexford
 Wicklow

Chapter 10 – Ireland's Diaspora
 Emigration
 United States
 Canada
 Australia
 New Zealand
 South America
 Europe
 Ireland Reaching Out
 Irish Citizenship

Further Reading

Index

British Newspaper Archive sale

The discounted price of  £56 UK, about $90 Canadian, for full search access to the more than 33 million digitized newspaper pages from all countries of the British Isles, even the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, is a deal.
The BNA has over 1,000 newspapers, from Penzance to John o'Groats.
You have until the end of day UK time on Sunday 18 August to decide.
Check it out at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

New this week from Findmypast

Scotland, Published Family Histories
A collection of over 400 publications of Scottish family histories. Dating mostly from the 19th and early 20th centuries they include memoirs, genealogies, and clan histories. There are also publications that have been produced by emigrant families. Treat with caution as fabrication was known to occur in such documents in the period.

Scotland, Glasgow & Lanarkshire Death & Burial Index
Over 37,000 records have been added to the Glasgow & Lanarkshire Death & Burial Index. These additions cover Bent Cemetery in Hamilton and consist of transcripts of original documents that will reveal a combination of birth year, death and burial dates, age at death, burial place and mortcloth price.

Middlesex Monumental Inscriptions
Over 5,000 additional records are now available to search. The new records cover two cemeteries in Teddington as well as the Parish of St Mary's in Sunbury.

United States, Passenger and Crew Lists
Over 777,000 new records from the major port city of Baltimore in Maryland have recently been added to these passenger and crew lists.
This national collection brings together records of passengers and crew who arrived in America by ship or by plane from the East Coast to the West Coast and will reveal the place of birth, where they sailed from, where they arrived and when.

160 attendees at a summer Thursday event

Who says genealogists don't come to summertime events. I was amazed and delighted at the number of folks who came to the DNA and Online Resources for Discovering Your Lost Family History event on Thursday. Beyond the National Capital Region there were attendees from Montreal, Brockville and Kingston, and one from Windsor. 160 doesn't count all those staffing the tables in the foyer.

Daniel Horowitz from MyHeritage, who gave two professional and entertaining presentations, ran out of DNA kits to sell — always a good sign of success when sales exceed expectations.
Leanne Cooper on The Wonders of WikiTree: Collaborative Genealogy and DNA and Lesley Anderson on Secrets & Shenanigans: How AncestryDNA was used in an unexpected mystery showed that Ottawa speakers are just as capable of giving excellent presentations.

See more photos of the event by BIFHSGO photographer Dena Palamedes here.

Thanks again to all who helped make this an enjoyable event.

Ancestry updates Wiltshire, England, Wills and Probate, 1530-1858

There are now 102,570 records provided by Ancestry in association with Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. Records are name indexed and linked to images of the original.

You may not need information on the court but difficulty with the spelling of names means it may not be written as you expect. It may be helpful to be able to narrow down by the court which covered the place. The collection is composed of records from 30 different courts.

Even if you know the ecclesiastical jurisdiction where the deceased died, if you know the parish look it up in England Jurisdictions 1851, it's possible probate may have been handled by a superior court. Ancestry suggests these may have been:

The Consistory Court of Sarum. This was the largest court, representing the Bishop's own probate jurisdiction in his diocese. This court was able to "inhibit" the operation of certain other probate courts (Berkshire, Sarum, Wilts Archdeaconries, and the sub-dean of Sarum), in effect dealing with cases which would have come before them for 6 months in every 3 years. The Court also had jurisdiction over the Bishopric peculiars of Berwick St James; Devizes St John and St Mary; West Lavington; Marlborough St Mary and St Peter; Preshute; Potterne; Stert and Trowbridge with Staverton.
The Archdeaconry Court of Sarum. The Archdeacon of Sarum had jurisdiction over the southern part of Wiltshire, excluding peculiars. This court was "inhibited" for 6 months in every 3 years by the Consistory Court.
The Archdeaconry Court of Wiltshire. The Archdeacon of Wiltshire had jurisdiction over the northern part of Wiltshire, excluding peculiars. This court was "inhibited" for 6 months in every 3 years by the Consistory Court.
The court of the sub-dean of Sarum. The sub-dean's jurisdiction covered the five parishes in and near Salisbury, namely, St Thomas, St Edmund, St Martin, Stratford-sub-castle and Milford (the inhabitants of the latter, having no church of their own, used St Martin's). The court was "inhibited" by the Bishop for 6 months in every 3 years. There are almost no surviving records for the years 1589-1610.
and
The Peculiar Court of the Dean of Sarum.

Deaths registered in England and Wales: male/female life expectancy gap narrowing

This latest release from the Office of National Statistics reports that 541,589 deaths were registered in England and Wales in 2018, an increase of 1.6% compared with 2017 (533,253); this is the highest annual number of deaths since 1999.

The gap between male and female life expectancy at age 65 has narrowed. In England, the life expectancy of 65-year-old women in 1991 to 1993 was 3.7 years higher than that of men, but by 2015 to 2017 (latest available), the difference had fallen to 2.3 years. A similar decrease was observed in Wales, where the difference between the life expectancy of 65-year-old men and women fell from 3.8 years in 1991 to 1993 to 2.4 years in 2016 to 2017.

The gap is narrowing but equality is still years away!

UPDATE: See Why do women live longer than men?

Two good things from MyHeritage

This morning I received the best match I've ever had at MyHeritage, 97 cM shared in 4 segments, the largest being 42 cM. It's also the best match out of all my tests, except for known family members. I think I know who the common ancestor is. Will I get any response to my message?

The other good thing is knowing that MyHeritage's Daniel Horowitz has arrived in Ottawa in preparation for the DNA and Online Resources for Discovering Your Lost Family History event at Ben Franklin Place on Thursday.

New UK Library search from Jisc

Sometimes you'd like to refer to a book, one your local library can't help you with.

My first stop in this situation, after trying Library and Archives Canada's Aurora or Voilà, and local university libraries, is WorldCat.

Searching in the UK my first stop would be the British Library catalogue.

Now there's a new UK catalogue resource from Jisc (formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee), the library hub discover service. It's open to all; designed to make UK academic library collections visible through web searches, which means they’re available to a wider audience.  It gives access to details of materials held in many UK national, academic and specialist libraries, currently containing 40,280,184 records created from 95,197,654 records contributed by 115 institutions.

News about the Statistical Accounts of Scotland

The Statistical Accounts of Scotland Online website is being hosted by the University of Edinburgh Library for a period of two years starting 1 August 2019. Scans, transcripts, map-based searching and our Related Resources will be available free of charge to all users. As a result of these changes, you no longer need a subscription or a user account to use the website.

The Old Statistical Account (1791-99) and the New Statistical Account (1834-45) are uniquely rich parish reports, written by Church of Scotland ministers, detailing social conditions in Scotland.

Over the next year, the Statistical Accounts Board will be working with the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow, Historic Environment Scotland and the National Library of Scotland on their plans to integrate the Statistical Accounts of Scotland into their national collections.

Based on information from the Statistical Accounts of Scotland via a post on British Genes.

Newspapers.com is a major resource

Digitized newspaper site newspapers.com, owned by Ancestry.com, has been adding significant Canadian content, the latest being 23 years of the Whitehorse Daily Star, from 1995 to 2017. While still weighted to the US, Canadian coverage of 76 titles is now comparable with that for California which has a larger population.
Within Canada, coverage favours the Western provinces.
There are 44 papers from British Columbia, three of which extend for more than a century: The Nanaimo Daily News, Chilliwack Progress and Vancouver Sun.
The 12 Alberta newspapers include 132 years of the Calgary Herald and 111 years for the Red Deer Advocate.
While there are only 6 Saskatchewan papers they include 137 years of the Regina Leader-Post and 118 for the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix.
Moving east, Manitoba is represented by 7 papers including 60 years of the Winnipeg Tribune starting in 1890 and 58 years of the Manitoba Free Press starting in 1874.
Ontario lists 5 titles. Ottawa is covered by the Daily Citizen for 1846 to 1897 and the Citizen for 1898 to 2019 — both together constitute the longest run, 174 years. The Ottawa Journal is available for 1885 to 1980. The Windsor Star has coverage from 1893 to 2019 and the National Post/Financial Post for 1907 to 2019.
Quebec has a single title, 163 years of the Montreal Gazette 1857 to 2019.
Newspapers.com has no coverage in the Atlantic provinces.

Much of the new content is from Postmedia. Access requires a premium subscription to newspapers.com. It may be that revenue from the digitized archive is helping in a small way to stem the company net loss which decreased to $7.7 million in the quarter ended 31 May, 2019 from $15.5 million in the same period in the prior year. Postmedia holdings not yet available include the Edmonton Journal, London Free Press and numerous smaller publications the archives of which will be of considerable interest for family history for the years when Canada's population was more rural and local newspapers had extensive coverage of social happenings.

Where could newspaper.com, or any other organization look for additional content? Opportunities would include the Irving-owned Brunswick Group newspapers including the Saint JohnTelegraph-Journal, Moncton Times & Transcript and Fredericton Daily Gleaner. The SaltWire Network owns the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Charlottetown Guardian and St John's Telegram among many other Atlantic Canada newspapers.

In Quebec it appears the Thompson organization owns the archive of the Montreal Star, for much of its 110 years the city's leading English language paper.

August in Algarve

Today, the seventh anniversary of the day my mother left us, I take a break to publish one of her many poems.


August

Relentless sun beat down to scorch the earth,
To tan its worshippers upon the sand,
To sear the clinging vegetation, and
bleach rocks exposed by winter’s pounding surf.

Ocre and umber cliffs and green stone-pine
Enthral the eye against the brilliant hue
Of shimmering summer sky, which never knew
A cloud’s intrusion. Little children play
Where rippling wavelets sink into the sand
As mighty ocean marries with the land.

Whilst inland, fruit hangs heavy on the vine
Imbibing sun for sweetening the wine,
And tapping poles of peasant gatherers cull
the ripened almond from the splitting hull.

Then comes a strong ‘Levanta’ wind to steal
All the calmness from this Algarve scene;
Paradise stays thus where it has ever been....

(c) E. Dorothy Reid

Inspire the public art and landscape for the new OPL-LAC joint facility

There's an open invitation to participate in a public consultation for the design workshops on Public Art and Landscape, with an emphasis on sustainability, for the new Ottawa Public Library (OPL) and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) joint facility. Find out more here.

I certainly hope this is more successful than a consultation for public art at the City Archives, the result of which was recently described as a lunch box in the sky.

TheGenealogist expands headstone collection

Nearly 60,000 new individuals from another 61 churchyards and cemeteries have been added, with an emphasis on Wales.

This release covers the following burial grounds:
Anglesey, St Tysilio; Atcham, St Eata; Badger, St Giles; Belbroughton, Holy Trinity; Betws-y-Coed;
Bishops Wood, St John; Blymhill, St Mary; Boningale, St Chad; Bristol, St Paul; Buckhorn Weston, St John; Bylchau, St Thomas; Capel Garmon; Cofton Hackett, St Michael & All Angels; Dolwyddelan, St Gwyddelan; East Orchard, St Thomas; East Stour, Christ Church; Edgerton Cemetery; Frankley, St Leonard; Gwytherin, St Winefride; Harlow, St Mary Little Parndon; Harlow, St Mary Magdalene; Heanton Punchardon, St Augs; Henllan, St Sadwrn; Ince, St James; Iwerne Courtney; Lickey Parish Church; Lickey Rose Hill; Llanedwen; Llanfair Talhaiarn; LLangernyw Capel Garnedd; Llangernyw, St Digain; Llanrwst Seion Methodist Chapel; Llanrwst, St Mary; Llansannan Capel Coffa; Llansannan, St Sannan; Llanwrst, St Grwst; Long Crichel, St Mary; Marnhull Cemetery; Marnhull, Our Lady; Meltham, St James; Newborough, St Peter; Penistone, St John; Penmachno Capel; Penmachno, St Tudclud; Pensford, St Thomas a Becket; Pentrefoelas Church; Publow All Saints; Purse Caundle, St Peter; Rhydymwyn, St John; Santon Downham, St Mary; Shillingstone, Holy Rood; Tal-y-Bont Capel; Tisbury Cemetery; Todber, St Andrew; Trefnant Holy Trinity; Trefriw, St Mary; Tyn-y-Groes; West Orchard, St Luke; Wilton, St Mary & St Nicholas; Wroxeter, St Andrew; Ysbyty Ifan, St John

The total at TheGenealogist headstone collection is over 174,500 individuals from across England, Scotland and Wales as well as Jersey in the Channel Islands, Cyprus and India.

FamilyTreeWebinars Top Ten for July: the Ottawa connection

Geoff Rasmussen writes in an email — The top ten list of most-watched webinar recordings for this month (July) is impressive, led for the 2nd month in a row by the founder of CyndisList.com - Cyndi Ingle:

1. Remedies for Copy & Paste Genealogy by Cyndi Ingle — Cyndi is a featured speaker at the 25th anniversary BIFHSGO conference, 27-29 September/
2. Evaluating Shared DNA by Paul Woodbury
3. A Month's Worth of Must-Have Tech Tips To Start Using Today by Gena Philibert-Ortega
4. Should You Take the Hint? Automatic Record Hinting on the Giant Genealogy Websites by Sunny Morton
5. How to Better Manage Your MyHeritage Family Site by Daniel Horowitz — Daniel is giving two presentations this Thursday at the DNA and Online Resources for Discovering Your Lost Family History special event.
6. Census Hurdles: How to Jump Over or Go Around by Cari Taplin, CG
7. An Introduction to DNA Painter by Jonny Perl
8. 12 DIY Photo Projects to Share Family Stories by Denise May Levenick
9. Discover the new Legacy Family Tree 9 by Geoff Rasmussen
10. Using DNA for Adoption & Unknown Parentage Work by Mary Eberle, JD

FamilyTreeWebinars

Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

FamilyTreeDNA Summer Sale
Summer savings on Family Finder, Y-DNA, and mtDNA. $20 to $150 off select tests

Findmypast adds over 644,000 new Cincinnati records to the Catholic Heritage Archive
No new British records this week, except newspapers.

Thomas Coram: “Unmistakable honesty and sterling goodness of heart”
Blog post from the Dorset History Centre.

GLAM Collections as Data
A video from the fabulous Tim Sherratt.

UK Soundmap
The first nationwide sound map, invited people to record the sounds of their environment, be it at home, work or play. Over 2,000 recordings were uploaded by some 350 contributors during the period July 2010 to July 2011.

Intelligent Pothole Detection
Research on automated detection of potholes and rough roads using smartphone accelerometers. I'd love to see this tested here. Could Waze make this automated reporting a part of their service?

Top ten UK’s hottest years all since 2002
An updated analysis of the annual UK temperature records from the British Met Office shows that since 1884 all of the UK’s ten warmest years have occurred since 2002; whereas none of the ten coldest years have occurred since 1963.

REMINDER:  Have you registered yet for the BIFHSGO annual conference, the 25th is something special. See information here.

Does volunteering make us happier?

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

This blog reports on a UK study which found that:

• Volunteering is associated with higher levels of wellbeing, better general health and fewer mental health problems. This finding has stood up to repeated analysis using the full range of quantitative evidence available in the UK. 
• Formal volunteering as part of a group improves wellbeing significantly more than informal, irregular volunteering. 

Births in England and Wales: 2018 and historical perspective

The following, in italics, is from a 1 August press release by the (UK) Office of National Statistics (ONS).

There were 657,076 live births in England and Wales in 2018, a decrease of 3.2% since 2017 and a 9.9% decrease since the most recent peak in 2012.

The total fertility rate (TFR is how many children the average woman would have if she experienced that year’s ‘age-specific’ fertility rates throughout her life) decreased from 1.76 to 1.70 children per woman in 2018; this is lower than all previous years except 1977 and 1999 to 2002.

For perspective, the graph incorporates historic TFR data from The Demography of Victorian England and Wales, by Robert Woods with the recent ONS data.
In Canada, the TFR in 2017 (the latest year available) was 1.50 children per woman.

The crude birth rate decreased from 11.6 to 11.1 live births per 1,000 total population in 2018; this is the lowest rate since records began in 1938.

Fertility rates decreased in all age groups except for women aged 40 years and over, where the rate remained at 16.1 births per 1,000 women of this age.

The proportion of live births to non-UK born mothers fell for the first time since 1990, from 28.4% to 28.2%.

The stillbirth rate reached a record low for the second year running in 2018, with 4.1 stillbirths per 1,000 total births.

For additional historical perspective read The motherhood revolution: how the great fertility decline affected the lives of women from History Extra.

REMINDER: Have you registered yet for the BIFHSGO annual conference? As the 25th it's something special. See information here.

Enjoying a sunny Sunday at Westboro Beach

The forecast looks promising, 27C and sunny, so I plan on heading to the Westboro Beach Cafe at noon on Sunday. If you feel so inclined you're welcome to join me.

More Netherlands records on Ancestry

The following index records were updated on 31 July on Ancestry. The source is the commercial site WieWasWie — linked so you can purchase images of the original.

Title	Records
Netherlands, Population Registers Index, 1720-1944 (in Dutch)	11,324,119
Netherlands, Baptism Index, 1557-1902 (in Dutch)	16,631,058
Netherlands, Marriage Index, 1575-1938 (in Dutch)	3,410,859
Netherlands, Death Index, 1795-1969 (in Dutch)	34,876,013
Netherlands, Birth Index, 1784-1917 (in Dutch)	29,992,380
Netherlands, Newspaper Announcements Index, 1795-1945 (in Dutch)	5,056,879
Netherlands, Dutch East India Company Crew Index, 1633-1795 (in Dutch)	836,988
Netherlands, Burial Index, 1540-1899 (in Dutch)	1,638,989

FreeBMD August Update

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Thursday 1 August 2019 to contain 271,040,162 unique records (270,691,539 at previous update).

Years with major additions at this update, greater than 5,000 records, are: for births 1964, 1978, 1982, 1984-86; 1988; for marriages 1965, 1969, 1980, 1984-86; for deaths 1984-86.

www.freebmd.org.uk/

REMINDER: Have you registered yet for the BIFHSGO annual conference? As the 25th it's something special. See information here.