Fantastic Find! Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury

The fire that destroyed the Public Records Office in Dublin in June of 1922 with the resulting loss of centuries of Irish records has made researching our Irish ancestors difficult.

[Source: Trinity College, Dublin]

But now, five institutions* have joined together to search out duplicates of the original records in other collections to"recreate virtually as much of the archive as possible in a digital format that can be accessible to everybody" in time for the centenary of the fire.**

The project is called Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury and its director Peter Crooks*** explains:

“We are committed to producing 50 million words of searchable material by 2022 and that is possible with the artificial intelligence we are using,” he said. 

“Tens of thousands of papers will be digitised, but they will also be searchable, which is a change. We will be able to mine this information for individual names.”

I strongly suggest you visit Trinity College Dublin's website about the project, especially the Gallery which has a number of images and videos, including a 1922 newsreel that shows the Public Records Office on fire.

I learned about Beyond 2022 through a link to the this article in the Irish Times.

*They are: the National Archives, the UK national archives, the public records office in Northern Ireland, the Irish Manuscripts Collection and the library at Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
**Which happened on June 30, 1922, two days after the start of the Irish Civil War.
**You can watch a video with Peter Crooks here.

© 2019 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Irish "DNA Atlas"

A year ago The Irish Times published an article about "a new Irish DNA atlas" derived using "DNA samples collected from 196 Irish people whose eight great-grandparents were born within 50 km of each other in Ireland." Here's the project's map as published in the newspaper:

[Thirty genetic clusters have been identified from 2,103 Irish and British individuals. The map shows the geographic origin of 192 Atlas Irish individuals and 1,611 British individuals from the Peoples of the British Isles project, labelled according to the geographic origin of their DNA. Source: The Irish Times]

The study has discovered that "before the mass migration of people in recent decades, there were at least 10 distinct genetic clusters across the country, roughly aligned with the ancient provinces or kingdoms of Ireland." And for the first time genetic evidence of Viking settlement in Ireland was confirmed.

It is hoped that data from the project will improve the diagnosis of genetic diseases, "particularly for illnesses that are prevalent among people with Irish ancestry, including multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis and celiac disease."

The article included a link to the original study which was published by the journal Scientific Reports.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: The Irish DNA Registry on Facebook

If you have Irish roots, have done DNA testing for your genealogy and uploaded the results to GEDMatch, this closed Facebook group could be very helpful.

[From their Facebook page]

Here's how they describe themselves:

We are a group to assist you with researching those links with DNA matches who share Irish Ancestry. We have a comparison tool called Matchbox which allows you to compare our database of member against your GEDMatch one to many match data.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find Revisited: CSI: Dixie

Here's the site's simplest description of what it contains: "CSI: Dixie collects 1582 coroners reports from six South Carolina counties for the years 1800-1900." The counties include Anderson County, Edgefield County, Greenville County, Kershaw County, Spartanburg County, and Union County.

Put together by historians at the University of Georgia as a part of their ehistory project which seeks "not merely to reach a broader public but to involve a broader public."

[Unitarian Cemetery, Charleston South Carolina Gateway Walk, 2008. My photo.]

If your ancestors lived in one of those six South Carolina counties, you just might find familiar names mentioned in the records and you're welcome to share what you know:

"For all its focus on the dead, then, CSI:D is a living project, inviting users to contribute photos, documents, leads, and details in the cases of 1582 unfortunate souls. Unlike a book, which seeks to be the last word on a subject, CSI:D is just the first word; it is an appeal to the public to join an ongoing investigation."

And even if you don't happen to have anyone from those counties, the site provides a useful description of the history and role of coroners and their juries in the 19th century South.

Hat tip to Erik Loomis of Lawyers, Guns & Money blog.

Note: I first posted this in 2016 and I neglected to mention that some of these coroners reports detail the deaths of slaves. Here are links to reviews and notices of CSI:D that include the insight into the violence of slavery.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: The Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation

The Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation (SOLEIF) is a private sector charity which partners with the National Park Service to restore and maintain these monuments. In addition SOLEIF has created an American Immigrant Wall of Honor, listing the names of 700,000 immigrants to date. If your ancestors entered the United States through Ellis Island, you can locate then using the SOLEIF's passenger search page.

[Immigrants on an Atlantic Liner, Levick, Edwin, 1869-1929. Date Created/Published: c1906

Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.]

[Ellis Island, Bain News Service, publisher.

Source: George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

RePost from 2015: Catholic Parish Registers at the National Library of Ireland

A post this morning by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) brought this to my attention. The National Library of Ireland (NLI) has just put its microfilm collection of Catholic parish registers recording baptisms and marriage from most of Ireland's parishes in Ireland and Northern Ireland up to 1880 online for research and download. Starting dates for these records vary from region to region and parish to parish.*

[National Library of Ireland on The Commons, photostream on flickr]

Read what the NLI says about its mammoth project:

Church registers of marriage and baptism are considered to be the single most important source for family history researchers prior to the 1901 census. In many cases, the registers contain the only surviving record of particular individuals and families. With growing numbers of people engaged in family history research and limited on-site facilities at the NLI in Dublin, the decision was taken in 2010 to digitise the parish register microfilms. Following a tender process, the contract for digitisation was awarded to AEL Data who converted 550 microfilm reels, containing over 3500 registers into approximately 373,000 digital images. These images correspond to a page or two-page opening within a register volume. 

Of course since these records are organized by parish within each county, searching for your Irish ancestors will be easiest for those who know where to start. The NLI has a useful section on its Help page on finding the right parish with links.**

[St Saviour's Church and the Tait Memorial Clock in Limerick. National Library of Ireland on The Commons, photostream on flickr]

The NLI site is well-designed and easy to use. Best of all, it's FREE!

*The several counties (Meath, Armaugh and Galway) didn't have anything earlier than the very late 18th century.
**For more information about Irish genealogy in general, this link is a very good place to start.

© 2015 Copyright, Pat Hartley, All Rights Reserved.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: "The prehistoric shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico is so fertile you can see it from space"

The Washington Post published a piece about the region of Mississippi and Alabama known as the Black Belt and used this satellite image to illustrate their point:

It is subtle, and it blends in well with the surroundings, and if you are not looking for it there is a good chance you will scan right over it. But once someone points it out on a true-color map, it is impossible to unsee: a crescent of off-hue land in Mississippi and Alabama that is so perfectly-arced it looks unnatural.

[NASA via The Washington Post]

More from the Post's article:

In reality, this arc is super-fertile, cultivated land surrounded by dense forest. It is the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico as it existed 145 million years ago.

[NASA via The Washington Post]

As you can see, Macon County is one of the Alabama counties in the Black Belt and that's where my Warren, Hardy and Freeman ancestors moved as soon as the land was forcibly taken from the Creek Indians. They settled in an area called Cotton Valley which is located in the southern part of Macon County.

[The University of Alabama Department of Geography via TrueSouth.com]

Before intensive agriculture changed the land forever, the Black Belt comprised at least 356,000 acres of open prairie of which only a small fragment remains. Here's more information (with photos) about some of the plants and insects found there.

Cotton Valley proved to be a stopping point on my ancestors' way west as younger generations all moved on to Texas in the 1850s.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: 1939 England and Wales Register

If your family tree includes people living in 20th century England or Wales* you already know that census records in the U.K. are generally released 100 years after they were collected, so the most recent enumerations currently available are from 1911. (And I just discovered that their 1931 census was destroyed during World War II and no count was done in 1941 so, in any case, there's a 30 year gap in what will eventually be made public.)

However, after Britain declared war on Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939, the government created a register of its citizens "with the purpose of producing National Identity Cards, the register later came to be multi-functional, first as an aid in the use of ration books and later helping officials record the movement of the civilian population over the following decades and from 1948, as the basis for the National Health Service Register."**

If you're looking for more information about someone who was alive at that time the Register is an excellent database to search in--for instance, everyone's birth date is listed.*** Here's a page taken at random (people on the list who might be still alive have their information blacked out):

[Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2018. Original data:

Crown copyright images reproduced by courtesy of TNA, London England. 1939 Register (Series RG101),

The National Archives, Kew, London, England.]

Although the lists covered the persons in each house on September 29, 1939, further information has been added in cases where the original details needed correction which include the married names of women who had been single on that date.

I've been having great fun adding this information to all the relatives of my British-born friend Margaret who asked me to help her with her family tree. Using the Register we were able to locate her maternal grandmother whose whereabouts she hadn't known before.


*But not from Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man.
**Quoted from the Historical Context of the 1939 England and Wales Register on Ancestry.com
***This is important because most of the available birth information for the U.K. is found in indexes which only give the quarter the birth took place.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Texas and the Civil War

Half of my eight great great grandfathers fought in the Civil War. One, Willet O. "Dick" Worden, was a private in the Iowa 24th Infantry, and of the three who were Confederate soldiers*, two were in Texas and I've never been able to locate them in online military records.

So when this email from the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) arrived in my inbox this morning I jumped at the chance to learn more about what happened in Texas during the war.

Of course I don't expect to find any mention of those ancestors who reputedly enlisted in Texas regiments, but since we do know where they were living at the start of the war this information may help me focus on likely military units they would have served in.




*They were John Warren Avery (of Mississippi); the Texans were J.T.S. Warren and Abner Webb.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

New-To-Me Fantastic Find: Family Search "United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014" Collection

I suspect this database came out in 2014, but it is new to me!  I use GenealogyBank constantly for obituaries and other newspaper items pertaining to my ancestors.  Since I have the subscription it did not occur to me to look for a source that indexes these obituaries, but FamilySearch did: "United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014:" 

Index and images of obituaries from thousands of newspapers throughout the United States. Records and images are being published as they become available. This collection is created in partnership with www.GenealogyBank.com. Over 23 million records in this collection were indexed by a computer; there may be some errors. Please help us fix these records by reporting them through the Errors? button.

This database might be effective in the same way that I think FindAGrave is more easily searched at Ancestry than at FindAGrave itself, i.e. more search functionality at FamilySearch if a search on GenealogyBank itself doesn't render a result.

This is definitely a great resource for anyone that doesn't have a subscription to GenealogyBank.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: John J. Egan's "Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley"

One of several enterprising men inspired by the huge economic success of John Bavard's 1846 panorama of the Mississippi River, Dr. Montroville Wilson Dickeson hired itinerant artist John J. Egan to turn the sketches of the region made during his extensive amateur archaeological investigations in the early 1840s into a commercially successful product.

The only known survivor of Bavard's five known competitors, the 348 foot long panorama was acquired by the Saint Louis Art Museum in 1952 but at the time didn't have a suitable space to display it. However that changed when the museum expanded its exhibition space and the painting was restored and is currently on display, one panel at a time due to its fragility, in the Sculpture Hall.

[John J. Egan, American (born Ireland), 1810–1882; Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley (scene 20 of 25), c.1850; tempera on lightweight fabric; 90 in. x 348 ft. (228.6 x 10607.1 cm); Saint Louis Art Museum, Eliza McMillan Trust 34:1953]

As you can see in this 1851 poster, Dr. Dickeson used the panorama as a backdrop to his lectures which were touted as "worth alone, double the price of admission."

[Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley! : Now Exhibiting for a Short Time Only … this Gorgeous Panorama, with All the Aboriginal Monuments … Painted by the Eminent Artist I. J. Egan…. Newark, N.J.: Printed at the Mercury Office, ca. 1851. Princeton University - Western Americana Collection: (WA) E78.M75 M65e]

For a much closer look at this "Gorgeous Panorama" here's a very fine analysis by the blog Paleo Porch which includes many details that aren't visible in the youtube video.

This amazing view of the Mississippi River Valley also qualifies as a Fantastic Find.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

A Fantastic Find Who's Working on Wednesday: Tom Tryniski of Fultonhistory.com

And every other day of the week, as far as I can tell.

The title of Alexandria Neason's article about him in the Columbia Journalism Review says it all: How Tom Tryniski digitized nearly 50 million pages of newspapers in his living room.*

Seriously, if you have ancestors who lived in New York State** you should check out his website. I found a tiny obituary of Lyman Worden, my fourth great grandfather, at the bottom of one of his scans years ago.

[Fultonhistory.com home page]

As Ms. Neason points out, it takes patience to use his system but it worth the effort. Best of all, it's free and Mr. Tryniski intends to keep it that way.




*And if that doesn't make you feel like a slacker, I don't know what possibly could! I hope you will take the time to read about this man who has single handedly scanned an astounding number of pages.
**That's where the coverage is most complete but a quick check turned up papers in Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana among others.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: "Finally! A Gedmatch Admixture Guide!" by Genealogical Musings blog

My Eurogenes K13 piechart result.  Surprise, I'm of European ancestry! lol

For whatever reason, one of my top posts is "New Admixture Test on GEDmatch: PuntDNAL K15" from back in 2015.  DNA tests are getting more popular all the time, particularly for finding out one's ethnicity estimates, but how can you go further in your interpretation of them?

Thanks to a mention on the GEDmatch forum, I found a great guide (in two parts) at Genealogical Musings (not to be confused with Genea-Musings) called "Finally!  A Gedmatch Admixture Guide!" for anyone willing to dive in and use GEDmatch

Parts 1 and 2:

For those unaware, Gedmatch.com is a website where you can upload your raw DNA data for further analysis and matching with people from other companies who have also upload their data.

A Gedmatch Admixture Guide: Parts 3 and 4

Continuing on from Parts 1 and 2 where I covered the different projects and calculators available for Admixture Proportions and what Oracle is and how to read it, I've had some requests to cover the other viewing options available like Admixture Proportions by Chromosome and Chromosome Painting.

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Linda Stufflebean's "12 Tips: Preparing for the Family History Library and Rootstech 2018 - Part 1"

133 days and counting from now.  Image from RootsTech twitter feed.

Linda Stufflebean has just posted "12 Tips: Preparing for the Family History Library and Rootstech 2018 - Part 1" at her Empty Branches on the Family Tree blog.  She has some fantastic practical advice.

I was just thinking about how I would plan and prepare for such a trip to a big conference like RootsTech.  It might still be a few years until I get my kidney transplant (and have more energy) but I might as well start preparing for it now.  The only time I went to the Salt Lake City Family History Library I was woefully unprepared for serious research.

I look forward to her Part II.


As for RootsTech, watch past sessions here. Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings has an enormous amount of the 2017 RootsTech-related blog posts here.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: The Farber Gravestone Collection

Thanks to a Facebook post by Marian Pierre-Louis I've discovered the American Antiquarian Society's Farber Gravestone Collection. As she stated:

"The online Farber Collection should be a part of every New England Researchers toolkit."

[Gravestone of Abigail Minor, Stonington Connecticut from the Farber Gravestone Collection of the American Antiquarian Society. Note: The "Big O Bulb/Square Skull Carver" is in all likelihood Philip Stevens, the second oldest son of John Stevens I.]

And the following quote is taken from the home page:

The Farber Gravestone Collection is an unusual resource documenting the sculpture on over 9,000 gravestones most of which were made prior to 1800. The late Daniel Farber of Worcester, Massachusetts, and his wife, Jessie Lie Farber, were responsible for the largest portion of the collection. Others whose work is incorporated into the collection include Harriette Merrifield Forbes, who worked in the 1920s mainly in Massachusetts, and Dr. Ernest Caulfield, who documented Connecticut grave markers. These early stones are both a significant form of artistic creation and precious records of biographical information, now subject to vandalism and to deterioration from the environment. The data accompanying the photographs include the name and death date of the deceased, the location of the stone, and information concerning the stone material, the iconography, the inscription, and (when known) the carver. Some carvers whose work is known but who have not been identified by name are entered by stylistic groupings, rather than by name. Carver attribution is a young and healthy area of research in a constant state of flux. The American Antiquarian Society would like to acknowledge the assistance of Daniel and Jessie Lie Farber, Henry Lie, Dr. Ernest Caulfield, Laurel Gabel, and David Rumsey, all of whom worked to make this project a reality.

I chose a gravestone from Stonington, Connecticut, because several of my direct ancestors, including Dr. Samuel Worden, died in that community. Unfortunately I didn't find any of their gravestones in the collection but there are other ancestors/places for me to search. Maybe I'll be lucky!


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

From the Probate Files: John Langston - Dawson County, Georgia, 1865

My Monday post about Dorothy Moss (an 8th great grandmother) led me back to my Matthews lineage which I haven't paid much attention to for quite a while. For those of you who share Matthews ancestors in Virginia and North Carolina, I highly recommend a visit to Greg Matthews' excellent website Southern Matthews.*

More information about the extended Matthews clan has surfaced in the intervening years, mostly about collateral relatives, which is the source of today's post regarding the will of John Langston (c.1792-1865), the husband of Clarissa Matthews (1798-after 1880) who is my first cousin 5 times removed.**

["Georgia Probate Records, 1742-1990," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L93R-D61J?cc=1999178&wc=9SBS-W3X%3A267648501%2C267702301 : 20 May 2014), Dawson > Wills and bonds 1857-1896 vol B > image 49/50 of 178; county probate courthouses, Georgia.]

                                              Dawson Court of Ordinary
                                                          At Chambers 1865

Georgia             }
Dawson County} In the name of God. Amen.
I, John Langston of said State and County, being of
advanced age,. and knowing that I must shortly depart this
life, deem it right and proper, both as respects my family
and myself, that I should make a disposition of the 
property with which a kind Providence has blessed me, do
therefore, make this my last will and testament, hereby
revoking all others heretofore made by me.
1st. I desire and direct that my body be buried in a
decent and christian-like manner, suitable to my circumstances
and condition in life. my soul, I trust, shall return to rest
with God, who gave it, as I hope, for eternal salvation through
the merits and atonement of the blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ,
whose religion I have professed and as I humbly trust enjoyed,
for thirty-five years or upwards.
2nd. I desire and direct that all my just debts be paid, without
delay, by my executors hereinafter appointed, as I am 
unwilling my creditors should be delayed in their rights,
especially as there is no necessity for delay.
3rd. I give, bequeath and devise to my beloved wife Clarissa
with whom I have lived with in the strictest quiet for forty-two
years, parts of lots of land, numbers 91, 126,125, and all of
92, 160 acres and half of 93, and 155 acres of lot No. 88, the
remaining five acres, I give to Perry W. Grogan where his house
now stands all lying and being in the 5th. district and 2nd.
Section of said county. I also request that my wife keep all
of the negroes, viz: Eliza & Harriet and Bob and Frank and Jane
and Minerva during her natural life, and one certain bay
horse and bay mare and one yoke of oxen and wagon
and five cows, such as she chooses out of the stock and their increase
and five sows and pigs, such as she chooses and ten head of
sheep, such as she chooses, and all of the corn and fodder
here, and to have control of the household furniture and farming
tools.
4th. I, therefore, appoint Jno. M. Langston and William Langstonand
Gilbert L. Langston and Clarissa Langston my executors to
sell or dispose at their pleasure all of the lots and parts of lots lying in
Lumpkin county, a fraction No. 168,  in the 11th. district, originally Hall
now Lumpkin county, and No. 617 and No. 618 in 5th. district and 1st.
Section of Lumpkin county; also to sell and dispose of anything they
choose, this the 11th. of November 1854  
                                                       John Langston {Seal}
                                                               (Over)
Signed & sealed in the
presence of us.
Richard H. Gordon
J.B. Gordon
Cyrus Leay, J.P.

Of course John Langston's 1854 will, which he never amended, did not anticipate the circumstances his state would be in when it was presented for probate early in 1865. Although at the time the Confederate states hadn't surrendered yet it must have been clear that the old way of life was over.

According to the 1870 U.S. Census, Clarissa continued farming the land but by 1880 she was living with one of her daughters and family, still in Dawson County.

I wonder if I can find out what happened to Eliza & Harriet and Bob and Frank and Jane and Minerva after emancipation?


*Naturally we appear to descend from Thomas Charles Matthews about whom there are almost no records. Once again I refer you to Greg Matthews for more information about him.
**Her father Kinchen Matthews, a son of Thomas Matthews, was the brother of my direct ancestor
Claiborne.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: FamilySearch Poland Genealogy Wiki

By the time I discovered the FamilySearch website our family tree was well established and it was clear that all but one of my ancestral lines had arrived in what's now the United States well before the American Revolution* so I never felt a need to look into what other assistance FamilySearch site provides.

But this summer when I agreed to help a German man** who is trying to find out more about his father's family in Silesia, I knew I needed help and FamilySearch didn't disappoint. (First of all I learned that Silesia is (mostly) located in what's now southwestern Poland, although in the past it's been claimed by Germany.)

[FamilySearch.org]

When DA and I sat down together and opened FamilySearch's Poland Genealogy wiki, the online tutorials looked like the best place to start.

Sonja Nishimoto has done a  impressive job of introducing the subject in her webinars. I wasn't sure how committed my DA was to the process but he watched the whole thing, taking copious notes, and I think he may well follow through.

His son the astrophysicist*** has recently expressed an interest in his heritage and DA was looking forward to sharing what's he's learned about researching Polish records.

And I learned that I should consider FamilySearch as a source for other things besides all those unindexed probate records!



*The only exception being my maternal grandfather Slater's lineage--his Yorkshire-born great grandfather William T. Slater applied for citizenship in 1818.
**Let's call him "DA"
***Yes, really!



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Maps from "Territorial evolution of the United States" Wikipedia article by user:Golbez

I had ancestors in Indiana and the surrounding areas at this time.  "Map of the change to the United States in central North America on December 11, 1816," By Golbez - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44551106

When I was viewing Amie Bowser Tennant's recent webinar, "Secrets and Clues Hidden in the 1790-1840 U.S. Censuses" (only available to suscribers of Legacy Family Tree Webinars), I was interested in the great maps she included of what states were part of the census at any given time.  Thankfully Tennant provided a citation to the sources, and one I didn't recognize was from a user at Wikicommons with the username Golbez.  On further inspection I see that he has provided an huge number of customized maps in the history of the expansion of the United States in a Wikipedia article "Territorial evolution of the United States".

This is a nice set of maps pertaining to the territorial evolution of the United States.  If you have any amount of American history in your genealogy you might appreciate the visualizations.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: GeneaWebinars

A screenshot of the Calendar tab at GeneaWebinars

GeneaWebinars--It's probably not new to you, but it is new to me!  What a great source!:

This site provides information about genealogy-related online meetings, classes, hangouts, seminars and webinars, where there is a visual slide share, website or software demo.
There are currently over 35 hosts and speakers with posting access to this calendar and blog, and over 200 hours of scheduled instruction for genealogists wishing to hone their research skills during the coming year. If you'd like to join the calendar to post your organization's events, contact Myrt@DearMYRTLE.com

You can just add all the events if you want to your Google Calendar (which I've now done).

Couldn't be easier, and now I have a calendar to let me know what is happening online.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: John Grenham - Irish Roots

Mr. Grenham's website is a great resource for those of you researching your Irish ancestors. Check out his blog Irish Roots. For instance, his most recent post (dated 24 April 2017) is titled "We have grave concerns..." and it's chock full of links to an impressive number of sources for Irish cemetery records.

The post begins:

I was once told by an American psychotherapist that the Irish have serious problems with bereavement. Apparently we find it very hard to let go. Maybe that’s the reason we have such a thing about graveyards. Because we certainly do have a thing about graveyards.

[City cemetery, Belfast, Ireland, October 1918. American National Red Cross Collection in the 

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.]

You can read a short biography of John Grenham at Legacy Family Tree's website but, sadly, you've a month late to hear his webinar "Why are Irish records so weird?" for free.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.