Saturday 3 October 2020

Coming soon: Virtual British Institute on England, Wales & Ireland genealogy

With my Irish hat on, a friendly reminder that the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History's Virtual British Institute (www.isbgfh.com/Virtual-British-Institute) kicks off in just over a week's time on Monday 12th October. 


The original plan for the institute was for three streams to be taught in Salt Lake City, Utah, over 5 days, but Covid forced a change of plan, with a three day event now to be taught entirely online. Yours truly kicks off on Monday 12th with Ireland, Paul Milner then covers England on Tuesday 13th, and Darris Williams discusses Wales on Wednesday 14th. Each of us will be giving four 90 minute long in-depth presentations on various topics, and taking questions and answers throughout the day.

For convenience this is what I'll be covering on the first day, for the Irish tract:


1. Church and State: Ireland's vital records

This session will explore how to locate ancestors in Ireland using the civil registration records of births, marriages and deaths from 1845 and 1864 onwards, both online and in Ireland itself, as held at both the GROI in Roscommon and the GRONI in Belfast. It will also examine how to understand and utilize the records, and to appreciate their strengths and limitations.

Chris will then look at the various church denominations in Ireland, how they were structured, and the types of records they kept. He will explore how to locate surviving material, to equally identify what has not survived (and why), and to understand where Protestant and Catholic Ireland occasionally overlapped, with the role of the Church of Ireland as the state church.

Where gaps in such records exist, Chris will further discuss how other sources may be able to provide alternative information to plug those gaps, including resources in Britain.

2. Irish land records

In this session Chris will provide an understanding of the administrative boundaries within which various records were created and gathered in Ireland, look at how to locate places mentioned in records in Ireland, and to understand what those place names might mean.

He will also provide an introductory overview of the key land records available for ancestral research - the surviving censuses and census substitutes, the records of land valuation and taxation (including 19th century tithe applotment book and Griffith's Valuation), the Registry of Deeds, the value of estate records – and of course, how to find them, both online and in the island's many archives.

3. Daily life in Ireland

As well as the basic resources to establish the genealogy of our families, additional record sets exist that document their role and status in society, and often their fate.

In this session Chris will look at additional resources that can place our families in context, including, for example, freeholders lists and absent voters lists, the administration of the poor law and the role of the poorhouse in Ireland, and education records.

He will also look at surviving judicial records and the records of law enforcement, and provide a flavour of what might be out there, by exploring a case study of a 19th century murder which unblocked a genealogical brick wall, and pushed a family narrative back a hundred years to the mid 18th century.

4. The Decade of Centenaries

From 1912-1923 a dramatic transformation occurred in Ireland, culminating with the Partition of the island into the two constitutional territories in existence today. In this session Chris will explore the dramatic events of the period, which are today being commemorated north and south of the island as the 'Decade of Centenaries'.

These include the struggle for Home Rule and the defiance of the Ulster Covenant, workers' rights and the Dublin Lockout of 1913, the Suffragette campaign for the enfranchisement of women, the pause on all fronts created by the First World War, and the subsequent sacrifices made in the British Empire's name. During the turmoil, Ireland experienced its Easter Rising, which led towards a constitutional turning point, with the Conscription crisis, the subsequent War of Independence against British rule, the Partition of Ireland into two administrative territories, and the resultant tragedy of the Irish Civil War.

Amongst all of this, Chris will examine the many records becoming increasingly available to work out where our ancestors may have fitted in.

You can sign up for the Irish tract at https://www.isbgfh.com/page-18077 by going to the bottom of the page and clicking on Register Here, or by visiting https://www.isbgfh.com/event-3843668.

The fees (in US dollars) are as follows:

1 Day Member: English Research – $89.00
1 Day Member: Hidden Treasures in Welsh Family History – $89.00
1 Day Member: Tracing Your Irish Family History – $89.00
1 Day Non-Member: English Research – $99.00
1 Day Non-Member: Hidden Treasures in Welsh Family History – $99.00
1 Day Non-Member: Tracing Your Irish Family History – $99.00
2 Day Member: English and Irish Research – $160.00
2 Day Member: English and Welsh Research – $160.00
2 Day Member: Welsh and Irish Research – $160.00
2 Day Non-Member: English and Irish Research – $198.00
2 Day Non-Member: English and Welsh Research – $198.00
2 Day Non-Member: Welsh and Irish Research – $198.00
3 Day Member – $230.00
3 Day Non-Member – $297.00

FREE BI Committee


I believe there are just under ten spaces still available, so if interested, best to get in quick!

I look forward to hopefully seeing you there!

Chris

My next 5 week Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Registers course starts November 2nd - see https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=302. My book Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is now out, also available are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

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