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New Irish books well worth a read...

For those family historians with Irish ancestry, there's a couple of new books now available from Flyleaf Press which may be of interest. They form part of the 'Tracing your...' series looking at specific counties in Ireland and offer excellent guidance on how best to go about finding records and generally how to discover more about your Irish ancestors. The 2 latest books I have discovered are 'Tracing Your Cork Ancestors' by Tony McCarthy and Tim Cadogan and 'Tracing Your Roscommon Ancestors' by John Hamrock. Cork is the largest Irish county with a diverse social history and equally diverse sets of records available. Roscommon is one of the smallest Irish counties with a history based primarily around agriculture that suffered greatly in the famine. If you need some advice and guidance on researching your Irish history for either of these counties or the other Irish counties for that matter, this series of books will definitely be of interest. They can be ordered at S&N Genealogy Supplies at http://www.genealogysupplies.com/product_search.php?search=Irish&titlebar=true Have you read any of the series? Let us know!

Tracing Your Cork Ancestors

New Irish county books available at S&N Genealogy

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New WW1 Project in Northern Ireland

An amazing discovery of 77 lantern slides taken by well known photographer Alex R Hogg, dating from World War One has recently been made in Belfast. The slides were found in the organ loft of Alexandra Presbyterian Church last month. A project has now been put together to identify all the men pictured in the slides. Apparently there are 137 men to be identified. The Castleton Lanterns project is now looking for assistance from the public to try to identify the names of each of the soldiers listed. There's more information from their official website. If you have an ancestor from Belfast who fought in the Great War it is well worth taking a look to see if you can help!

Alex R Hogg Lantern slides

One of the lantern slides from Alex R Hogg

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Weekly book review- Tracing your Galway Ancestors

For those family historians with Irish ancestry, or for those people interested in Irish history, the book we've looked at this week could prove of great interest. Entitled 'Tracing your Galway Ancestors' by Peadar O'Dowd, it looks at all aspects of life in the second largest county in Ireland. The book starts off with a look at the history of the county, dating back to the 13th century Norman adventurers. It then gives some handy tips on how to go about researching your Galway ancestry. The author looks at the types of records available to the family historian which can help you find out more about your relatives- looking at Irish census records, census substitute records, church records, land records, grave inscriptions and more. The book is a comprehensive research tool for those looking into this widely diverse population, giving you the ideas on what records are available and how best to use them. The book is published by Flyleaf Press and is available from S&N Genealogy Supplies priced £11.55 at http://www.genealogysupplies.com/product_display.php?prodid=6224

New Book

Tracing Your Galway Ancestors by Peadar O'Dowd

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Tracing those Irish Ancestors...

Family history research can often hit those brick walls which can stop you in your tracks. It is then that the benefits of technology and online research websites come to the fore to help out.

Griffith's Valuation Records in Ireland

Griffith's Valuation records, helps family historians find their Irish ancestors

One such issue can occur when tracing those ancestors who lived in Ireland. In the 19th Century there was an extensive amount of record taking in Ireland to analyse the population of the country. Despite the best intentions, the first Census in 1813 was felt to be greatly flawed and was deemed useless and subsequently destroyed. However, the 1821 census was more successful and produced the first comprehensive record of all the names in every household, fully 20 years before this was done in England! This excellent record taking would have been ideal for the family history researcher looking to trace their records. Unfortunately, the Irish census records for 1861-1891 were pulped by government order during the First World War to clear space, and then an explosion and fire in 1922 destroyed most of the census records from 1821 to 1851. This has proved unfortunate but there are ways around this for the family historian. Griffith's Valuation records provide a valued substitute for the lost census records for Ireland, as it lists every householder in Ireland at the time it was taken. Griffith's Valuation was carried out between 1848 and 1864 and provides records on where people lived and who owned property in Ireland. A typical example of how the records can be accessed online can be seen below courtesy of www.TheGenealogist.co.uk

Simple, easy searching online gives the researcher the following results:

Complete with the original image:

Using the records on TheGenealogist, the database is searchable by forename and surname with phonetic matching and wildcards in combination with County and Barony and lists over 2.6 million Individuals. The information given includes county, Barony, Poor Law Union then divided into electoral divisions, parishes and townlands, and OS map sheet number with link to view available maps. This is the first time that Griffith’s Valuation has been made available with Phonetic matching, Nicknames, Wildcards and OS Maps.
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