Friday, June 3, 2016

Tipperary Studies Databases

Do you have roots in the Irish county of Tipperary?  The Tipperary Studies website could have useful information now available online for you.
Launched on Saturday 21 May, the new website's Digitization Project provides online access to a wealth of historic records held by the library, including rate books for the Poor Law Unions of Cashel, Nenagh and Thurles (1840s-70s) and Irish Tourist Association Reports (1942-45) for the county’s parishes.  One of the aims of the project is to make these and other information sources held by the Society available to everyone, free of charge.
Tipperary Studies also holds an annual Tipperary People and Places Lecture series throughout the winter months, commencing in October and running through to the following March. Lectures take place on the third Tuesday of each month at 7.30pm, in the Gallery of the Source Library, Thurles. Each season the Series covers a number of different subjects. The Society also has its own YouTube Channel where videos of past lectures can be viewed.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Dublin Prisoner Records



Four volumes of historic Irish police records have been made available online for the first time. Digitised by University College Dublin, the Dublin Metropolitan Police Prisoners Books provide the names of people in the city who found themselves on the wrong side of the law between 1905-08 and 1911-18. The browsable records list the names, ages, addresses and occupations of those who were arrested, plus details of their alleged offence. In most cases, the handwritten entries also provide information about the outcome of the subsequent trial and punishment.

According to the University website, the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) Prisoners Books for 1905-1908 and 1911-1918 are amongst the most valuable new documents to come to light on the revolutionary decade. They include important information on social and political life in the capital during the last years of the Union, from the period of widespread anticipation of Home Rule, to the advent of the 1913 Lockout, the outbreak of the First World War, the Easter Rising and its aftermath, including the conscription crisis of 1918.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Scottish Mental Health and Paternity Records



Graham and Emma Maxwell, genealogists at Maxwell Ancestry, have developed the Scottish Indexes website with a wealth of resources to help you trace your Scottish family tree online. They have a large collection of indexes, from unique sources such as prison and court records to more commonly used sources such as birth, marriage, death and census records. While currently many records are from the south of Scotland, their Quaker records and mental health records cover all of Scotland, and more records from other areas of Scotland are to be added soon.

Online record sets include :

  • Pre-1841 Censuses and Population Lists
  • 1841 Census
  • 1851 Census
  • 1861 Census
  • Mental Health Records
  • Prison Registers
  • Sheriff Court Paternity Decrees
  • Register of Deeds
  • Register of Sasines
  • Kelso Dispensary Patient Registers
  • Non-OPR Births/Baptisms
  • Non-OPR Banns/Marriages
  • Non-OPR Deaths/Burials

In addition, Scottish Indexes has also set up a dedicated Mental Health Institutions in Scotland homepage, providing historical information and details of locally held archive resources for hospitals that are yet to appear online.  Institutions are indexed by County.