PRONI updates NameSearch

As announced on this blog on Feb 28th, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has been working on an update to its online Name Search collection, which has now gone online. Name Search is a database mainly comprised of pre-1858 wills entries, some census substitutes form the 18th century and cornoers' inquests.

The following comes from the Northern Ireland Direct website at http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/news-mar11-online-historical-records-facility-updated

Adding nearly 53,000 entries to its internet resource, these eight additional pre-1858 will indexes (some as early as 1608) are for the dioceses of Armagh, Clogher, Connor, Down and Kilmore. The index to coroners’ inquest reports now runs from 1872-1919.

The Name Search includes indexes to:

pre-1858 wills
surviving fragments of the 1740 and 1766 religious census returns
1775 dissenters’ petitions
coroners’ inquest reports

You can view the Name Search at the following link: www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives/proninames.htm


If you haven't yet watched it, the following interview I did with Janet Hancock from PRONI at WDYTYA Live 2011 may be of interest!

(With thanks to @nidirect)

UPDATE: Further information from Gavin McMahon at PRONI

On 11th March a major new update to the Name Search facility was launched on the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) website. Eight further pre-1858 will indexes have been added, containing around 53,000 new entries and the index to coroners’ inquests has been extended by ten years to 1920.

These entries are in addition to the pre-1858 administration bond indexes, fragments of the 1740 and 1766 religious census returns and 1775 dissenters petitions already available on Name Search. The application now provides a searchable index to thousands of records as early as 1608. The new indexes cover the dioceses of Armagh, Clogher, Connor, Down and Kilmore. Given the loss of census records for Ireland prior to 1901, these records will be of great interest to genealogists tracing their family tree as far back as the 17th century.

Although most pre-1858 wills do not survive, the indexes provide information of use to genealogists, such as the names of the deceased, their address, the date of the grant of probate or administration and occasionally their occupation. Previously users would have to come to PRONI and spend considerable time searching these indexes. Now they are available anywhere in the world and can be searched in seconds.

(With thanks to Gavin)

Chris

www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
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