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.

When researching in UK, we have several websites to choose from to collect numerous different records to support our online research.

The documents that are at the cornerstone of our research of course, are civil registration documents otherwise known as birth, death and marriage records (BDM), and census records.

We have extensive census record images already digitised from 1841 to 1911, that provide real insights into our ancestors lives.

However, they need to be backed up by the proof derived from civil registration documents. Civil registration started in 1837 in England and Wales, and from 1855 in Scotland. Prior to that we must look in parish registers for baptismal, marriage or funeral/burial records.

Birth certificates prove that the person existed, what their name was at birth, their date of birth, and the mothers' name; often also the fathers. Other information given, would be the area that the family lived in at time of birth. From 1911 mothers' maiden names are included.

George William BOOTHER (b1851) m 1874 Margaret SULLIVAN (b1857)

Marriage certificates prove that the marriage happened, when and provide the spouse's name. Also provides occupation and addresses at time of event. Fathers are listed also along with their occupation. Scotland also provides mothers details.

The age at time of marriage must be taken with a pinch of salt, unless you have the birth certificate of the person to back it up.
No proof of identity was required and a person may lie about their age if they are not old enough to marry, or they may have another reason for not telling the truth - or they may not even be sure when they were born.

Sometimes names on marriage certificates can differ from that on a birth certificate. Changes of first and surnames since birth are common.

Names of witnesses on certificates are handy - often they are family members.

Death certificates prove that someone died, when and gives a reason why they died. It may tell you where they were living, and it will tell you who the "informant" was (who registered the death). The informant is often, but not always a family member. Sometimes it is a friend, or someone like a doctor or lawyer. The other details such as names, date of birth, occupation, marital status etc may be incorrect as the informant is providing details that they think might be correct - but not necessarily so. And of course, the deceased is unable to correct the info.

When searching for BDM events online for England and Wales, we get only the indexes to the civil registration documents.

These indexes are available on FindMyPast, Ancestry, The Genealogist and FreeBMD. They help narrow down our search but mustn't be used instead of the actual certificates themselves.

The indexes provide name, year, which "quarter", and which volume and page number to find the registration on and what registration district the event was registered in. This is to help you order the certificate you require.

George William BOOTHER registered 2nd quarter (April-June) 1851 Shoreditch, Vol II, p453 Note - although registered in the 2nd quarter, George was actually born on 8 March

An index is missing quite a lot of valuable information. Sometimes that actual event occurred in the quarter or even year previous, but was registered later. Sometimes there are multiple people with the same or similar names registered for that event around the same time.

You can't be sure without a copy of the registration that you have the correct person.

So if we have a civil registration event that we want a copy of, we currently need to take the information from indexes and order your English or Welsh certificate through the UK's General Register Office. It currently costs £9.25 per certificate and the site suggests approximately two or three weeks between ordering and receipt (although I've known it to take much longer).

Its fairly expensive, especially as genealogists and family historians only want the historic research value that the registration, rather than proving a legal identity by having a legally certified registration that is a certificate.

Scotland has a much better set-up for researchers by having their indexes and document images available for you to view and download online at their ScotlandsPeople website. Cost for viewing an index and an image is approximately £1.50, although you have to have purchased a minimum of £7 worth of credits first to get started.

It has its downsides, in that it is very easy to run out of credits very quickly if you aren't careful. But you do get instant gratification if you find what you want, and for a much cheaper £1.50 than England's £9.25.

Of course England and Wales have far more registrations to digitise than Scotland. But it seems that there is a move a-foot to do so with a call to sign a petition. Gould Genealogy blogged about this recently.

So, if like me, you would like the UK to digitise English and Welsh registrations, join me in signing the petition. Note you do have to be a British citizen (which includes ex-pats) and/or a UK resident.

And how awesome would it be if the New Zealand Government also decide to digitise its civil registrations too!

Happy hunting

Seonaid