Beyond 22 & Records Lost in Four Courts Shelli h

quartz1

Does anybody know when they intend to release the records they have recovered or found after their trawl of other Repositories.

And might there be any Genealogical date in there.

pinkypinky

I think the big reveal will be on the anniversary in June. Not expecting much in the way of genealogical records but you never know. They have repeatedly said there's no census material or CoI records. Possibly they'll have found some wills.

Waitsian

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/06/17/recovered-census-will-help-unravel-life-in-pre-famine-ireland/

As experienced genealogists should we be getting excited about this? I'm dubious tbh but open-minded too. We'll never get the censuses back but anything else worth the wait? It certainly sounds intriguing.

Hermy

It's hard to know what to expect. What seems most likely is that we will get a comprehensive inventory of what survives but there's still the hope that some new source material will be unearthed.

Mick Tator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058240134/beyond-22-records-lost-in-four-courts-shelli-h

We had a few comments on that here - https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119219538/#Comment_119219538

Hermy

As per Claire Santry at Irish Genealogy News the Virtual Treasury of Ireland has been launched.

100 years after the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland, historical records thought lost have been made accessible online thanks to a three-year multi-disciplinary and international project. You can access it at the Virtual Treasury of Ireland. It's free. And it looks magnificent! I may be some time...

virtualtreasury.ie

Xander10

has any of the census records been reconstructed ?

pinkypinky

There are some additional parts of a religious 1766 census that have been recovered, but nothing from the (more useful) 19th century censuses.

Jellybaby_1

When I searched for a name I got "404 While we are usually very good at finding things unfortunately the page you are looking cannot be found".

Hermy

Yeah, I found the site very slow earlier when I tried searching for something.

Hopefully that's just teething issues or high demand which will be addressed in time.

Mick Tator

Similar bad experiences here. I eventually found a dozen or so references to my extended family, some in relation to 1903 Land Acts, others with NAI references and a few land records that I would like to read, although I suspect they will not provide anything new (land transactions in the early 1700's that I know about from Nick Reddan's Reg of Deeds Project).

The 'search' function is chronically slow: the search engine is very quirky as it found nothing first time using keyword search, then just one item the second and a dozen or so after I hit the ‘back’ button – but it then did not include the original reference found.  One item on the ‘found’ list is a reference in the Hussey Walsh Manuscripts Index from the IGRS . What is that doing in there?? However, it was impossible to see any of the images, I keep getting one of two error messages:-

An error occurred SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data

and

404 While we are usually very good at finding things, unfortunately the page you are looking for cannot be found.

Hopefully these are teething problems but I am underwhelmed, I'd rather an intuitive search, retrieval and imaging system that is functional instead of a 'virtual tour' of a reading room! Most of us are researchers, not Disneyland tourists!

Hermy

Have to say I found the virtual tour of the building fascinating - Disneyland it is not!

While the loss of the records is by far the greater loss, seeing the layout and structure of this purpose-built records repository (something I hadn't seen before) highlights the significant loss to our architectural heritage that the destruction of the building represents.

One can only imagine, had the building survived, the sheer pleasure of visiting it to conduct research.

pinkypinky

The IGRS was a partner in the project, Micktator.

I actually found the browse function by organisation very interesting - each document/file contributed by each repository is then linked, but I couldn't get some of them to open either.

It'll settle down in a few days when most of the world goes away.

srmf5

I'm really struggling to navigate the website. I'm trying to figure out if there's any record for my 4x great grandfather. According to notes passed down on in the family, my 3x great grandfather was born on 25th February 1788 and his headstone has him aged 84 when he died in 1871 (can't find a death record). I have his parents' names from notes as well. If my 3x great grandfather was born in 1788, his father would likely have been alive in 1766. There is a will left in 1805 by a man sharing the same name as my 4x great grandfather and living in the same townland so he could be my 4x great grandfather or maybe a generation earlier even. I've only seen the 1805 record from Diocesan & Perogative Wills hosted by the National Archives so I don't know if a more detailed entry exists. Looking at the map on the Virtual Treasury, householder names were returned in 1766 but I'm not certain if anything survives according to the other map.

Has anyone figured out the best way to navigate the 1766 census records?

Lime Tree Farm

I selected the 1766 tab, entered the Ecclesiastical Parish name by which it was known as back then. I am very pleased with the result.

It has Protestant heads of household, noting their Popish servants - if they employed them. Popish heads of household by townland with the number of occupants. The number of students attending the Charter Blue coat school with a separate accomodation total for the accommodation of infants. It listed those employed at the school their occupation and number in each household. The Popish thatched school, which seemed to be occupied by a family also. There were some families listed by townland, their tenancy acerage and the family members showing their ages. One of the households noted 101.5 yr old lady.

srmf5

Thank you! It turns out that the parish did not provide a list of householders' names, as was required by the resolution of the House of Lords, but gave numbers only. The map made me sure that they did but, anyway, at least I know. I'll have a look at the 1749 Diocese of Elphin census next but that only recorded heads of household so if there are two men recorded with my surname in the same townland, I won't know which of the men would have been my ancestor. I'll continue trawling through the Virtual Treasury to see if I can find anything.

pinkypinky

Yes, Brian Gurrin gave a lecture to the IGRS in May and he talked about the 1766 census - many parishes only returned numbers, some have names. It's hit and miss.

Lime Tree Farm

Anybody know whether you can order copies of these records?

hblock21

The 1766 census is definately hit and miss (more miss). If you have ancesters from Newchapel in Tipperary, which I do, then you should be very happy!

There is also a 1821 census of the Irishtown area of Clonmel up, hundreds of names.

55Gem

I was getting no where trying to figure out if any thing useful was in the 1766 census, just trying to see if there was even a parish listed that would be worth looking out was sending me around in circles so I did a bit of googling and found Clare Santry has a list, obviously she wrote this some time ago but it may prove useful to someone. The list is on the right.

The 1766 religious census of Ireland was state sanctioned (irish-genealogy-toolkit.com)

srmf5

The map doesn't seem to be very accurate regarding coverage. The map makes it look like Kilcorkey and Kilkeevan parish in Roscommon returned householders' names but, when searching, both parishes 'did not provide a list of householders' names, as was required by the resolution of the House of Lords, but gave numbers only.'

This is the link to the map: https://virtualtreasury.ie/backend/cms/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Map-1-1766-coverage.png

Rmulvany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119272649#Comment_119272649

What is the significance of the green area? It is not described on the legend

srmf5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119274651#Comment_119274651

I have no idea. Admittedly, I hadn't even noticed since I was focused on the areas where my ancestors were from. This

map has is it that there is no surviving information so it might have been area that gave no returns.

Mick Tator

So........... has anyone had a major discovery in VT so far?

KildareFan

It's taking some time getting used to the search function; I've been looking at the Registry Office Memorials of Deeds & wanted to browse through a full Volume; I accidentally managed to find all of Volume 10, but now I can't find out how I did it. Nice to see the full colour reproduction though, compared with the murky images on Family Search.

Mick Tator

Still feeling my way also…. I’m using keyword search on my family name, and searching local landlord family and village names.. No major geno discoveries so far, just a few confirmations on what I already had from old research. One relates to an early 1700’s family member who was linked to a plantation on a Caribbean island. Found a deed, interesting names in the recital, his interest came from his second marriage & an ‘infant’ stepson. The recital confirms (again) several relationships. Curiously Mrs. Tator has taken a sudden interest in genealogy and is strongly advocating a joint visit to explore this bit of family history!

BrianFG

Actually, the two parishes were numbers-only returns as stated in the VRTI, and are displayed as such on the map. I popped parish names onto this section to show the location of the two parishes (within their parochial unions) in the north Roscommon area. The map is, in fact, quite accurate.

BrianFG

Yes. Valid point; the green area is not properly explained. The parish returns for all dioceses except Meath were arranged by diocese by the clerk's in the House of Lords and were filed among the Parliamentary Records. The Meath returns were filed within the Meath Diocesan collection in the Public Records Office. When we located the Index to the Parliamentary Records we were able to reconstruct the arrangement of the records in the PRO for all areas but Meath diocese. The original coverage within Meath Diocese remains unknown.