Read documents carefully to extract all internal evidence and compare all your sources
11 August 2017Vital records are set out to a standard template, devised by bureaucrats. Even so, every civil record is an original document, and can sometimes contain surprising non-standardised details. Recently I called up the death record of a young married woman. At first glance, the death seemed straight-forward enough. Mary Christina...
Honouring & Identifying Your Emigrant on American Immigrant Wall of Honor
11 August 2017Some of you may have considered putting your ancestor’s name on the American Immigrant Wall of Honor that is now part of the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration in New York (USA). The wall overlooks Lower Manhattan in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. It is a permanent...
Behind the scenes at The IFHC: Trudeau’s Visit
11 August 2017In July 2017, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid a visit to EPIC (the Irish Emigration Museum) and to the Irish Family History Centre, both in the CHQ Building in Dublin. The research team of the Irish Family History Centre, headed by the talented and tenacious Fiona Fitzsimons, had, upon learning...
Genealogy Course at Trinity College Dublin
11 August 2017Fiona Fitzsimons of Eneclann (Irish Family History Centre) will deliver a class in Genealogy over 16 weeks commencing in October 2017 and running until April 2018. Suitable for Beginners to Intermediate level. The course will be on Tuesdays 6:00pm to 7:00pm Enrolment begins 21st August. For frurther information and enrolment details...
2017 APG Professional Management Conference
28 July 201729 September through 1 October 2017 DoubleTree Crystal City Hotel Arlington, Virginia Register today for the Association of Professional Genealogist’s Professional Management Conference offering three full days of presentations designed specifically for genealogical professionals. APG members who can’t make the conference in person may register for the Virtual PMC (12...
My Busman’s Holiday: A Genealogists’ Genealogical Holiday to New York
28 July 2017We get many people from overseas visiting the Irish Family History Centre (CHQ Building, Dublin). Some will arrive with information to undertake genealogy research and some have no plans to do research but decide to use our facilities while they are in Ireland. In April 2017, I visited the...
Behind the scenes at The IFHC: ¿hablas español?
28 July 2017I Speak no Spanish, They Spoke no English. Get the Translator! Very many people around the world have some Irish ancestry. This is due to what has become known as the Irish diaspora – the spreading of Irish people to countries around the world due to waves of either voluntary...
The importance of Wills in building your family history
27 July 2017It always worth considering if your ancestor left a will. Often people assume that their forebears were not in a position to make a will as they owned too little to pass on but wills were not just for the well off, and there are instances where the amount of...
Kasandra O’Connell. Moving History- An introduction to the IFI Irish Film Archive
27 July 2017Kasandra O’Connell introduces the Irish Film Institute Archive and collections, with guidance on how to access this rich treasure trove of Irish social history. The collection dates from 1897 to the present, and provides a unique visual record of the development of modern Ireland in the last 120 years....
Searching Births on irishgenealogy.ie
14 July 2017Have you noticed in online civil indexes of registered births ( up to 1915) that your searches for a given name will return children born to either a father or mother of that name? In addition to children registered with that surname, it will also return births of children born...
The Odd Perk of Being a Genealogist at the Irish Family History Centre
14 July 2017Genealogists are in privileged positions. To some extent, we are like doctors: people tend to put their trust in us with otherwise quite personal and private information. And when a genealogist reveals something new to a client about their family, because it is personal, the reaction can be quite emotional...
Behind the scenes at The IFHC: Tracing an Orange Order Ancestor
14 July 2017Tracing an Orange Order Ancestor In June 2017, I had the pleasure of helping a lady from Canada who visited the Irish Family History Centre (CHQ Building, Dublin, Ireland) looking for information on her Orange Order ancestors. Her ancestors belonged to the Orange Order in Canada and she wondered how...
