Was 2016 a breakthrough year for you in your research? Did you uncover something of huge interest? We here at Central Research have come up with our own personal family history highlights, and over the next few weeks, we'll be sharing some of them with you.

First up, is Maureen:
Early in 2016 I predicted that Irish genealogy was a case of ‘watch this space’.  And so it proved in September when many of the records that had been promised in the preceding years became available free to the internet – civil registration and land records among them. Now is the time to explore these records, particularly the images of the birth, death and marriage records, which were previously available at a cost of €4 each.  Supplemented by the increasing records available in subscription databases, there has never been a better time to crack some of those brick walls.  For more information please check out the following websites and blogs:

Great news!

Our next family history talk is available online!

"Ireland1898Administrative" by XrysD- Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons -

Geraldene O'Reilly, convener of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists Irish Interest Group gave us a talk about Irish townloads at our fortnightly Family History Lunchtime series event on Wednesday, 1 April.

Irish place names with Geraldene O'Reilly

The majority of Irish genealogy records are arranged by locality and most people within them are identified by the place name where they lived. The townland is the most fundamental land division in Ireland, the basic address for a rural family. 

Listen to Geraldene O'Reilly's talk to help you investigate Irish townlands and other place names.

We hope that this gives you the motivation to start your Irish family history research!

Happy hunting

Seonaid

Ireland and Scotland

Ireland
As with many other records for Ireland, those for Poor Law can be sparse. Remember though that Ireland was under British rule until 1922; therefore, many records are held at The National Archives, England (TNA).  There is a research guide on TNA’s website about Poor Law.  After Ireland split, Northern Ireland remained under British rule with that area of Ireland remaining under the English Poor Laws.

The Irish Poor Law Act passed in 1838 was similar to the 1834 English Act.  Poor Law Unions were abolished in the Republic of Ireland (Eire) in the early 1920s and workhouses were closed accordingly; except for Dublin.  The minute books of poor law unions have mainly survived and these are held at National Archives Ireland in Dublin.

Loan funds were set up in Ireland in the early 19th century and one of these was the Irish Reproductive Loan Fund (which operated 1821-74) and gave credit to the poor without them having to provide any security. These records have recently been added to Findmypast under the Institutions and Organisations group, the record set name is: 'Ireland, Poverty Relief Funds 1821-1874' and they are name searchable.

Scotland
Prior to the passing of the Poor Law Act of 1845 the Church of Scotland had been responsible for the care of the poor and records relating to these matters can be found in the Kirk Sessions.  The Kirk Sessions have been digitised and can be viewed at National Records of Scotland (formerly National Archives of Scotland) (NRS).  These records are not currently available through the internet and Scotland’s People, nor have they been filmed.

Cases of bastardy were vigorously followed up on and it is not unusual to find testimony from what seems to be the whole village.  Payments to the poor may also be found in the Kirk Sessions.

The Act of 1845 established parochial boards and records for these boards may be found at local archives and at the National Records of Scotland. Each board kept a roll of the poor who were receiving relief.  Other records relating to the poor in Scotland are those for charitable hospitals, schools and judiciary/commissary courts (Sheriff Court post 1828) records.

An example from The National Archives, Irish Reproductive Loans Fund Records. County: Roscommon

Marie

Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19221130-39-3

Geraldene O’Reilly, convenor of the NZSG Irish Interest Group, has sent out their latest newsletter. As usual it is full of interesting tips and news concerning Irish archives and tracing your Irish ancestors.

Of particular interest to me in this month’s newsletter is a post she has shared from National Library Ireland News, which I have copied here in its entirety:

Online Catholic parish registers from the National Library of Ireland

A huge change is coming soon for everyone involved in Irish genealogy. By summer 2015, the National library of Ireland will have a dedicated website making its collection of Catholic parish register microfilms freely available online. These records are – by a long way – the single most important source of historical Irish family information, one of the greatest legacies of the Catholic Church to Ireland.

It is important to understand precisely what the website will do. The Library’s aim is to reproduce on the internet the service already available to the public in the microfilm reading room in Kildare Street in Dublin, where images of 98% of parish registers before 1880 can already be viewed by anybody, without payment of proof of identity.

The new site will offer precisely the same (sometimes frustratingly) opportunity to look at (sometimes blurred) photographic reproductions of the original records. But instead of having to travel to Dublin from Buncrana or Ballymena or Boston, you will now be able to view them online. With this service, the Library is simply taking at face value the word “National” in its own title.

What are the implications? Clearly, once these images are as easily available in Salt Lake City and Bungalore as they are in Dublin, swarms of transcribers will descend. Ideally, the results will be free, though some transcripts may sit behind paywalls. On the other hand, there will be nothing to stop any local history society in the country from just putting a transcript of their own parishes online. The more the merrier.

Some opposition can be expected. The existing transcription-only service at rootsireland.ie will protest loudly. But would they not be better advised to use the images to improve their own offering and increase their head-start on competitors?

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of what is about to happen. When the Irish public service gets things right, it can get them spectacularly, gloriously right.

December 1, 2014 @ 1:32 pm by JOHN GRENHAM

What does Auckland Libraries hold that can be accessed in the interim?

Apart from the offerings on subscription websites such as FindMyPast and Ancestry that are available for free through our Digital Library to anyone who is in an Auckland library, you can do a Call number search on our Classic Catalogue for 4 IRL BDM to see the different resources we hold for searching births, deaths and marriages in Ireland.

Church of Ireland Parish Register List

The Representative Church Body Library (RCB Library), the main repository of the Church of Ireland (CofI), has released an updated list of CofI parish registers.  The new list, which can be downloaded, free of charge, from the Archive section of the Church of Ireland website is arranged alphabetically by parish name (with parishes within the main cities alphabetically listed under the name of each city).

Sir George Grey Special Collections,  Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19140326-42-1

It may be considered as the definitive list for registers in the Republic of Ireland.  The RCB Library is working with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast for material relating to parishes in the nine counties of Ulster.

For further information about the project please read the RCB Library Notes article by Dr Susan Hood.

Regards
Maureen

CD-Roms form a very valuable and often under-rated part of the family history collection at the Central Auckland Research Centre. We have 6 sets of 8-drawer cabinets filled with them.

Typically they hold databases, or they might be published family histories saved as pdfs. Either way they are very searchable and hold a mine of information often not found online or in a book.

Sometimes these CD-Roms have replaced the microfiche of old.

Here are a selection of CD-Roms that have recently been added to our collection:

New Zealand

Call number                    Title

• 2 NZL BDM CBY: Lyttelton Times’ births, deaths and marriages 1851-1891
• 2 NZL ELE: New Zealand Elections: Five Significant Rolls 1881, 1893, 1896, 1911, 1925 
• 2 NZL MIL: New Zealand World War I Service Personnel & Reserves Index

You'll note that, as with other New Zealand family history resources, these CD-Roms are also available at our other Research Centres, and also some of our community libraries.

Non-New Zealand CD-Roms form part of the international family history collection held within the Central Auckland Research Centre at Central City Library:

England

Call number                      Title

• 4 ENG BDM SFK: Little Saxham Parish Registers 1559-1850
• 4 ENG BDM WLT: Wiltshire Parish Registers, Marriages 
• 4 ENG CEN DOR: 1891 Dorset Census

14 directories of Yorkshire (Leeds, Bradford, the Ridings, Hull) including these highlights: 

• 4 ENG DIR YKS: 1863 Mercantile Directory of Bradford
• 4 ENG DIR YKS: 1851 History & Directory Of the Woollen & Worsted Trade

Ireland

Call number                   Title

• 4 IRL CEN: Census reports for all the counties 1851-1911 (search using call number for a list of each county)
• 4 IRL CIV: Numbers of Persons Committed or Held to Bail for Trial, 1852
• 4 IRL WIL: Index of Irish Wills, 1484-1858

South Africa

Call number                   Title

• 7 RSA: The Transvaal in War & Peace

An overview of the Transvaal and the Boer War, including the history of the Boers, and hundreds of photos.

As well as our catalogue, we also have a pdf index of our CD-Rom collection that is kept regularly updated. Please feel free to download the full list.

LR

‘Irish townlands are a puzzle and a joy. We shouldn’t throw them away.’

'To foreigners, and direct marketers, Irish townlands can seem like something from Alice in Wonderland. Where in rural Ireland do people live? In a townland. What’s a townland? It’s a place where people in rural Ireland live. The recurrent complaint is that only the local postman understands the local place names. But why exactly should that be a problem?'

Historic map of Ireland 1797 by cartographer Daniel Augustus Beaufort.