News
23rd June 2008
Republic's
1926 Census Returns
CIGO has long called for the early release of the Republic's 1926 census
returns. These returns constitute the first snapshot of the Free State's
population only four years after the creation of the State. Eighty-two
years have elapsed since the census was compiled and few people from that
time are now still living. Also, the data that was recorded in 1926 cannot
be deemed 'sensitive' in terms of the information recorded in contemporary
census records. CIGO argues that as the 1926 census holds vital genealogical
information for so very many people born in Ireland before the commencement
of civil registration, then these records should now be made available
to the public. There is certainly a precedent for this as the 1911 census
(which covers all of the island of Ireland) was first made available at
Dublin's Public Record Office of Ireland (now the National Archives) in
1961 - only 50 years after it was compiled! Internationally, census returns
in the USA are released after seventy-one years has elapsed since their
compilation. You can read more about CIGO's '1926 Census' policy here.
The Genealogical Society of Ireland is also firmly behind the campaign
to get the 1926 census returns released to the public and as such has
announced that it is to propose the publication of a parliamentary Bill
providing for such access. The Bill is likely to be initiated through
the Seanad (Senate and the Upper Chamber) of the Houses of the Oireachtas
(the Republic's parliament). This move is very much in-line with CIGO's
own policy and - in addition to CIGO's current negotiations with the Central
Statistics Office (the body which controls access to all census records
created since the foundation of the State) - we will be supporting
GSI's Bill. Obviously - with only a slim chance of success - the campaign
needs all the support it can harness and CIGO implores all those with
an interest in Irish genealogy to support both it and GSI in anyway they
can. Everyone who is interested in this issue can help the success of
the campaign by signing CIGO's petition
which is to be presented to Brian Cowen TD, the Taoiseach [Prime Minister]
of Ireland.
29th May 2008
National
Library has re-opened Roman Catholic parish registers for Cashel &
Emly, Cloyne and Kerry.
After 16 years of no access, the National Library has finally re-opened
public access to the parish registers of the 'closed' dioceses of Cloyne,
Kerry & Cashel & Emly. The issue of access to the microfilms of
the registers from these dioceses has been a hot issue for many years
now and is one that CIGO has raised previously with the Library. However,
much of the success in finally getting the films once again open to the
public must be attributed to the Association of Professional Genealogists
in Ireland (APGI) and in particular its members Paul Gorry and Maire Mac
Conghail and the influence they have both used in recent times. In doing
so they highlighted the fact that as far back as 1994 the Library had
received legal opinion that the Bishop of Cashel & Emly's claim to
own copyright of the registers (and thus the Library's microfilm copies
of them) was without legal foundation. An excellent press release about
this story can be read on APGI's
website.
29th May 2008
Irish
Roots magazine
The second edition of Irish
Roots magazine to be published under the editorship of its new
owners, Maureen and Julie Phibbs, has hit the shelves. Already one can
see the changes they are making to the magazine's image and layout. This
month's includes stories about customs & traditions; 2008 - the year
of the potato; gleaning information from old photographs; a new instalment
in Paul Gorry's 'beginners series'; and genealogy news from across Ireland
and Australia. Its well worth subscribing to.
27th May 2008
CIGO
welcomes the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa
The British Isles Family History Society
of Greater Ottawa has recently joined CIGO.
19th April 2008
CIGO
Welcomes Three New Overseas Members
Three organisations from overseas have recently joined CIGO. One is
from Australia, the Australian Institute
of Genealogical Studies; and the remaining two are from the USA: the
British Isles
Family History Society - USA and the Federation
of Genealogical Societies. CIGO is also delighted to announce that
- in reciprocal fashion - it has joined the Federal Genealogical Society.
16th April
2008
National
Library of Ireland Launches its 'Strategic Plan'
Dublin's National Library has launched its Strategic Plan for the period
2008 to 2010. The document reveals how the Library hopes to improve existing
services and service delivery during the three years in question. When
the Library held a consultation period in the summer of 2006 about the
Strategic Plan CIGO made a submission which can be read here.
In his introduction to the Strategic Plan, Gerry Dahaher, Chairman of
the Library's Board, draws particular attention to the need to complete
the reconstruction work at the Library's Kildare Street premises as a
matter of urgency. Mr. Danaher says: "...unless the construction
of the facility proceeds as a matter of urgency, the Board’s ability
to discharge its core functions of safeguarding, preserving and maintaining
the library’s collection and making it available to the public will
be in grave doubt." The Strategic Plan can be read on-line here.
2nd April
2008
Clare
Roots Society receives grant from Heritage Council
The Heritage Council has
approved an application from the Clare
Roots Society (CRS) for a grant for the Drumcliffe Old Graveyard Transcription
Project. The cemetery, which has been in use for at least two hundred
years, is just outside of Ennis town. The grant will enable CRS to commission
a professional survey of the graveyard which will provide them with a
detailed map with every grave marked and individually numbered. In turn,
this should help to make the project more manageable. The work will also
reveal graves which have apparently 'disappeared' in recent years, but
most likely have become grown-over with grass. The resulting data will
then be collated and the inscriptions from each grave linked to a digital
photograph of the headstone and its position on the overall map noted.
CRS is aiming to submit an interim report to the Heritage Council in July
and run a public event during Heritage Week in August. If the project
goes to plan it will have been completed by the beginning of November.
The Society hopes that the database compiled from the information collected
will be made available on the Co.
Clare Library website, which already hosts many other genealogical
sources for the county.
20th March
2008
Irish
Minister For Arts to Provide National Archives with an 'Iconic' New Home
The Republic's Minister for Arts, Sports & Tourism, Séamus
Brennan TD, intimated during a recent parliamentary debate that he is
considering the construction of an 'iconic' building to house the National
Archives. During the debate he said that "like our [national] museum or
our [national] library, they need the same kind of national status". The
Minister stated that there was about €20 million in the national
development plan for the archives and further stated that while it "does
not specifically lay down that it is for a building...I have come to the
conclusion that the archives are unsung heroes that need to be brought
centre stage." The need for a purpose built home to house the National
Archives' collections, whether in an iconic building or not, has been
overdue for many years now.
The lack of storage at the National Archives has meant that much of it
collections are not available for public consultation. They are either
in shrink-wrap storage (to the rear of the current premises in Dublin's
Bishop Street) or, worse, they are held in the basement of the old Public
Record Office which is in the Four Courts complex and which was built
in the mid-19th century. Given this most unsatisfactory state of affairs,
it is to be hoped that Mr. Brennan will now act where his predecessors
have failed and provide the National Archives with a new building.
The National Archives moved into its current premises in Bishop Street
in 1992 and although at the time it was an improvement on the former premises
in the Four Courts they were only ever meant as an interim measure. The
ideal would be to re-build on the current site. What the National Archives
really requires is a modern, state-of-the-art building on that part of
the current site which faces Peter Street. The other part of the site,
which faces Bishop Street, should be sold off to pay for the new building.
The solution couldn't be more straightforward. The newly revitalized area
around Peter Street would be ideal for this much needed ‘iconic’
building. You can read more about this story in The
Irish Times, on the Houses of the Oireachtas
website and in Ireland's
Genealogical Gazette (formerly the Genie Gazette).
14th March 2008
Irish
Family History Foundation Launches new 'On-Line' Service
Over the past few months the Irish Family History Foundation has been
incrementally adding counties to its searchable on-line database of records,
some of which date back to the 1600s. Generally speaking, apart from a
few exceptions, the records are those compiled from the registers of the
various main Irish Churches: Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian
& Methodist. Wednesday the 12th March saw the formal launch of this
new service aboard the replica famine ship, the Jeannie Johnston, moored
at Dublin. Although the on-line service is a new departure for the IFHF,
it is not the first time that such a project has been attempted. One of
the key objectives of the Irish Government sponsored ‘Irish Genealogy
Ltd.’ (IGL), formerly known as the ‘Irish Genealogical Project’
(IGP), was to have been the creation of a Central Referral Index (CRI).
From the early days of the IGP, which was begun approximately 20 years
ago, there has been continued reports of bad feeling and friction amongst
the members of the board. This generally manifested itself in an unwillingness
by the IFHF to allow the IGP (and later IGL) any significant say in the
planning of the project in return for the large sums of public money which
have been invested in the project over the years through IGP and later
IGL. Within the last couple of years the IFHF withdrew from IGL. However,
before this IGL was successful in part in launching the CRI, which is
available on-line here.
Although it is of limited use - it includes only eleven of Ireland’s
32 counties: Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Limerick, Derry/Londonderry,
Mayo, Sligo, Tyrone, & Wexford – it is, however, free to access.
The same cannot be said for the new IFHF service, which can be found on-line
here. This pay-per-view service
is normally €10 per record viewed, although IFHF announced that during
March ‘to celebrate St Patrick’s Day’ the cost will
only be €5. Those in the know might suggest that the 50% reduction
is actually a reaction to the vocal public criticism already made on the
subject by private individuals, representative groups and public representatives.
With his permission, here is comment one member of the public recently
e-mailed to CIGO:
“I think I speak for a great majority of the Irish Genealogical
community when I say that, although we very much appreciate the effort
that went into the creation of the online records, the cost per record
is totally outrageous! I think that [the IFHF’s] great effort has
been completely wasted in that the level of information available from
the Search process is insufficient to precisely identify an individual
of interest....and no one is going to spend €10 (euros) each [per
record] to sort through the myriad of possibilities presented. Perhaps
[the IFHF] should have a closer look at sites like Scotland's People which
provide a much more realistic approach to supporting Genealogical Research.
I suggest that [the IFHF] obtain the services and advice of someone from
the business community to assist with restructuring [their] service to
provide reasonable value to the community while generating sufficient
funds to sustain operations. It really is a shame to see such a great
resource so poorly managed.”
In The Irish Times (13th March) even though the IFHF’s
launch of the service had taken place only the day before, what was reported
was public criticism of the service and the cost of it. Olivia Mitchell,
the Fine Gael spokeswoman for Arts, Sport & Tourism, was quoted as
saying: “It was regrettable that the new genealogy service was
designed to be a commercial one with people being charged €10 for
every single item of information. The gathering and digitalisation of
the parish records was done at public expense and it was always envisaged
that this kind of public information should be made freely available to
the public. It is a complete break with tradition and practise that an
important aspect of our national archives should be subject to a charge.”
The full story can be read here.
It is of course worth pointing out that the project to index the records
of Dublin’s parish and church records is being undertaken by Dublin
City Public Libraries & Archive and the results willeventually to
be made available on-line and free of charge.
CIGO would prefer to see the management of the IFHF’s database funded
by government and thus made available free of charge. But, at the very
least, if there has to be a charge it should be minimal – which
in itself would quite obviously promote use of the database and thus generate
funds to maintain it as a non-profit service.
27th
February 2008
Good
News on GRO's 'Five Photocopy' Rule
Frustrations are now running at an all time high about the daily limit
of only five photocopies of entries from the registers per person at the
General Register Office’s Dublin-based Public Search Room (PSR).
Having paid a €20 fee to allow a full day's searching in the Indexes,
the imposition of a limit on the number of photocopies is being seen as
a severe limitation on 'value for money'. Researchers are constantly juggling
their photocopy requests, not wanting to waste one of their valuable five
daily 'chances' to hit on the correct record. Generally, once these five
'chances' have been used-up researchers are leaving the PSR as there is
little point in staying. It can take several days of attending the PSR
and playing 'genealogical poker' until one eventually hits the correct
record and then return to searching the indexes again. Obviously, for
those visiting Ireland to undertake research this is a particularly frustrating
situation as they only have very limited time available. Being informed
that extra photocopies can be posted out to them at their home address
is, to say the least, not very helpful. What one disgruntled researcher
had to say about the GRO in 1999 can be seen here.
There seems to be no convincing the GRO management in Roscommon town
that a new access structure is urgently required to their records. Until
only a few years ago there was no limit on photocopies at all and when
a limit was first imposed it was set at eight, but then without warning
reduced to five. Up to only five or so years ago there was a PSR staff
of only two who very obligingly implemented a 'no limitation' service
on photocopy production. The staff now number at least eight and while
they provide a much more efficient service than ever before, they are
severely hampered through having to implement the restrictive five photocopies
'rule'.
In order to the clarify the position about obtaining certificates [now
known as certified copies] and photocopies [now known as uncertified copies],
CIGO recently approached Brian Hayes T.D. [Fine Gael] and asked him to
request information from Martin Cullen T.D.[Fianna Fail], Minister for
Social & Family Affairs, through the asking of a Parliamentary Question
(PQ).
For those using the PSR the reply to the PQ (which came out on the 12th
February) was very helpful in that the Minister clearly stated that both
certified and uncertified copies may be obtained from any of the State’s
32 local Superintendent Registration Offices (SRO). In practical terms,
for those using the GRO’s Dublin-based PSR it now means that additional
uncertified copies [photocopies] at the usual price of €4 can also
be obtained from the SRO on the ground floor of Joyce House, Lombard Street
East, Dublin 2.
CIGO has prepared a copy of the PQ, which those attending at the Lombard
Street SRO should print-out and take with them when next they visit there,
which can be seen here.
15th February
2008
Birth Registration Ruling
New legislation might have to be implemented on foot of a ruling by
the Irish High Court which found that parts of the Civil Registration
Act 2004 are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR). The Court found that the State does not provide 'meaningful recognition'
for people who have undergone gender realignment surgery and in particular
that the Act did allow for the amendment or re-registration of the birth
of Dr. Lydia Foy, the complainant, who underwent such corrective surgery
in the mid-1990s. The full story was carried in the Irish
Independent.
5th February
2008
Dublin Diocesan Archives (RC)
Noelle Dowling, Archivist at the RC Dublin
Diocesan Archives, has announced that she has recently accessioned
the parish registers of three Dublin city parishes:
- St. Catherine's, Meath Street: Baptism: 1740-1898; Marriages: 1740-1892;
- SS Michael's & John's: Baptisms: 1768-1899; Marriages: 1790-1879;
Banns to 1902;
- St. Audeon's: Baptisms: 1778-1901; Marriages: 1746-1901.
2nd February
2008
Excellence in Genealogy Award
Last year the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO) inaugurated
an annual ‘Award’ to recognise achievements in, and relating
to, Irish genealogy. The Council has decided that the annual recipient
should have excelled in at least two of the following categories:
i) encouragement of the study of genealogy;
ii) preservation of archives;
iii) provision of physical facilities;
iv) innovation in access to genealogical records and data.
At its last meeting the recipient for the 2007 'Award' was decided upon
and during the coming week an annoucement will be made.
16th January
2008
Chris Ryan
Chris
Ryan, founder of the Ballinteer Family History Society, died on the 14th
inst. He had been unwell for a couple of years, but the news of his death
was nonetheless a surprise. Chris & his wife Lily, having lived at
Ballinteer, Dundrum, Dublin, for many years, had in more recent times
moved to live near one of their sons in Co. Westmeath. Committed to promoting
the study of Irish genealogy, Chris had been very active in the committee
which oversaw the running of the four Irish Genealogical Congresses and
was the editor of the IGC's third volume of proceedings, published in
1999. He will be missed by all his friends who knew him through genealogy.
10th
January 2008
Irish Family History Society
The
annual Journal of the Irish Family History Society was posted to all its
members in early January 2008. Copies of the Journal, Vol.23 (2007) along
with earlier journals (Vols. 6-22) can be purchased from the Society.
For details see IFHS
Website.
6th January
2008
Raheny Heritage Society
Commeration ceremonies to mark the 100th
anniversary of the death of Dr. Marie Elizabeth Hayes
were held on Sunday, 6th January 2008. The evening began at 7pm
at the Hayes Memorial Cross in Raheny village. Despite the rain, a large
crowd gathered to hear Rev. Jim Carroll lead the prayers and a young member
of All Saints parish laid a wreath. Fr. Jerry Moore, CC Raheny, also attended
and Dublin City Council provided floodlighting. At 7.30pm all attended
a Choral Evensong in All Saints Church.
Carol Conway, Vestry Secretary, gave a brief history of the life of Marie
Hayes (1874 - 1908) and read extracts from her letters which Raheny Heritage
Society had transcribed from the book 'At Work', edited by her mother,
Annabella Hayes, who was the founder of the Mothers' Union in Ireland.
Sylvia Ayling, Mothers' Union, read a poem written by a colleague of Marie
Hayes in India shortly after her death. After the service, refreshments
were served in All Saints' Hall where our society had mounted an exhibition
on Marie's life. This attracted vey favourable comment and the exhibition
then went on display in Raheny library for the month of January. Thanks
to all our members and all others who assisted with this wothwhile project.
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