Tuesday 26 March 2013

Irish Genealogy website expanded as a portal

The Irish Government has expanded its Irish Genealogy website at www.irishgenealogy.ie. No new content is available, just a portal appended onto the previous church records database previously in existence, which now facilitates a more global search. (The church records site is now directly accessible at http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords). A lot of content on the site is accessible via links, as opposed to being included in the global search.

Here's the press release from the Irish Government (www.ahg.gov.ie/en/PressReleases/2013/March2013PressReleases/htmltext,16913,en.html):

Tuesday, March 26th - Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, will today launch a newly expanded web portal that is dedicated to helping people search for information on their ancestors.

The portal - www.irishgenealogy.ie - enables visitors to search genealogy records from a number of on-line sources. The aim of the expanded portal is to make it quicker, easier and less complicated for members of public - at home or abroad - to find information about their ancestors.

Minister Deenihan commented: "There is a huge level of interest in genealogical research, especially overseas. I am frequently impressed by the strong connection that people feel with Ireland, and the interest they have in finding out more about their past and where they have come from.

"There are many different places that you can find information about your ancestors. This can sometimes seem confusing to a novice researcher starting out. The aim of the expanded www.irishgenealogy.ie portal is to allow people do one search which will scan a range of records. A link will then bring you directly to the results of the search.

"Major additions to the search facility includes links to the American emigration records of Castlegarden now called 'Castle Clinton' and Ellis Island. Records such as these are vital as these are the first records emigrants completed on arrival in the New World and are a great starting point for those looking to research their ancestry.

"This development is timely in that 2013 is the year of The Gathering. We need as many ways and means as possible to ensure that people from all around the world can readily gain access to the records of their ancestors."

Doing a search on www.irishgenealogy.ie will now include a range of records:

• Census 1901 Records - Irish Census of populations for 1901 for all counties of Ireland.
• Census 1911 Records - Irish Census of populations for 1911 for all counties of Ireland.
• Griffiths Valuations - the first full scale valuation of 19th Century property in Ireland, published 1847 to 1864.
• Tithe Applotment Records - compiled 1823-1837, these records include details of occupiers of holdings over 1 acre and the amounts they had to pay.
• Soldiers Wills - a collection of the wills of Irish Soldiers who died while serving in the British Army.
• Military Archives - the largest resource for individual testimonies for the revolutionary period 1913-1923.
• National Library of Ireland - many of the NLI's catalogued collections including its digitised material are included in searches.
• Ellis Island Records - including passenger lists and other records of U.S. immigration through Ellis Island, New York.
• Castle Garden (Castle Clinton) Records - comprising a database of information on 11 million immigrants to the United States for 1820-1892.
• Ireland-Australia Transportation Database - this National Archives of Ireland database of records relates to the transportation of convicts and others to Australia.
• Women in 20th Century Ireland 1922-1966 - this is a database of almost 20,000 entries on a set of records relating to central government.

Minister Deenihan also added "The launch today is a first step, with the focus being mainly on providing access to records which are available from bodies under the aegis of my Department like the National Archives, the National Library and includes Church records which were already available on the website. I hope that through further discussion we can include information from other genealogical sources in the future"

One search on www.irishgenealogy.ie will tell you whether relevant records are available in a number of online sources as set out above.

(With thanks to @GenSocIreland)

Chris

My new book, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, is now available from Pen and Sword. For my other genealogy books, please visit  http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html; whilst for my online Scottish based genealogy courses please visit the Pharos Teaching and Tutoring Ltd site.

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