Ireland

As you know from previous blog posts I am going to Ireland in the Fall and have been busy preparing my research plans for the trip. My plans for PRONI are complete and I have just finished the plans for the repositories in Dublin.

National Archives of Ireland

I have a relatively small list of items to check here. Unfortunately they don’t have a complete online catalogue. It starts about 1980 and is only updated with the new items that are donated to the archives. They do have a long list of wills and testaments but I researched most of those in 2003 but have one or two to check on this visit. There are some parish registers on microfilm that need to be checked. When I go to the Archives I will see what they can suggest for further research.

A written synopsis on the person of interest has been prepared. This will help me focus on the subject and will help the archivist/genealogist to understand what I am trying to achieve.

They have a free service for researchers. There are professional genealogists who will provide you with suggestions for your research.

National Library of Ireland

There is a long list of items for this repository. There are quite a few newspapers I want to check and they have a good selection on microfilm. There are some online but unfortunately not the ones/years I am interested in researching.

There are a few manuscripts and books that also need to be checked.

Dublin City Libraries and Archive

Here I will be searching parish registers, newspapers, a few books and manuscripts. I did a search in their online catalogue and came up with a few interesting hits so they need further research.

Valuation Office

The Valuation Office is a stop on this research trip. There are properties in Dublin and Tipperary I want to check. Fortunately these appear to be digitized and available for the public to view in their offices. I have checked and copies from this office could be expensive, especially with the current exchange rate, so I will have to be choosy about my copies.

General Register Office

There are a few birth, marriage and death records that I need to get. I already have my index references so it should be a relatively quick visit to get the copies. The office is located on Werburgh Street and is near St. Werburgh’s Church which I would like to see so I can do both at the same time hopefully.

Representative Church Body Library – Church of Ireland

I am going to the RCBL to search some parish registers. I have done research here several times and always find something I wasn’t expecting. They have online lists for some records that they hold.

So that is my plan for my research trip to Ireland. It is about 25 pages long and has addresses, opening hours, email, phone numbers, catalogue listings and any other pertinent information listed on it. I will be going through it several more times before I leave. Cleaning it up, adding more information that may be relevant. I always add a little extra so that if I have time it would be nice to find out more.

©2015 – Blair Archival Research
 

 

As mentioned in a previous blog post I am preparing to go to Ireland to do research this Fall. Since my first stop will be Belfast my main focus at the moment has been on the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland – PRONI.

They have a great website and an e-catalogue that I have been searching. The other online catalogue being searched is Sources at the National Library of Ireland because they have some information in that database that can be found in PRONI.

When you do research in Ireland you need to research in Dublin, Belfast, England and sometimes Scotland for your Irish ancestors. They may not have lived in all those places but records pertaining to them may be found in the repositories of these countries.

Sources is the online version of the Hayes Manuscripts. In the early 1940s Richard Hayes started an indexing and cataloguing project that would encompass 30 countries. He was going to source all the documents that related to Ireland and have a single place to search for them. You can read more about it here.

Thanks to Richard Hayes we have a wonderful resource to search for records relating to Ireland and her people. The records could be found in repositories around the world including PRONI. A search of several surnames provided links to documents I want to examine at PRONI.

Now I only have one full day and several hours to do research at PRONI. There is no way to get a readers ticket prior to my visit. Therefore there is no way to pre-order documents I want to examine before I actually get there.

When I get to PRONI I will be researching with military precision so that I can access all the information I need. Just to double check I emailed PRONI and they confirmed that there was no way to pre-order copies before my visit. Copies can be ordered and mailed to me but there is a £15.50 search fee plus copy charges for every document I want copied. Since the exchange rate is not very good at the moment this option is financially unfeasible.

In the reading room five documents can be ordered at a time and it takes 20 minutes to get the documents. Reading the website I have learned that a photocopy order form will have to be filled out for each document. Once the copies are ordered the next five documents can be requested. Since there is 20 minutes to wait for the orders to arrive the forms can be filled out while I’m waiting.

To date I have about 27 documents to view and about 10 microfilms to search. The documents are almost certainly related to my family. This can be deduced from the catalogue reference description. The microfilms are church records and finding something is less certain.

So my research plan for PRONI is almost complete. All that is left is to tidy up the cutting and pasting I have been doing from the online catalogues. This is a great way to make sure you have all the right information to order the documents.

Next are the research plans for the Dublin repositories!

©2015 – Blair Archival Research