GAGs - GeniAus' Gems - 6 May 2016

Dia dhaoibh, (that's hello in Gaelic). I'm practising my Gaelic as, in preparation for a forthcoming trip to Ireland. I have declared May as a month to revisit the research on my Irish line so you may find a couple of Irish themed blog posts in my list this week.

1. Top of the list for our time in Dublin. Thanks to John for the review.
http://www.johngrenham.com/blog/2016/05/02/epic-ireland/

2. I might fit this in too, thanks for the headsup Claire.
http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/05/richmond-barracks-and-goldenbridge.html

3. John shares a looooong link.
http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/longest-uk-placenames.html

4. Our ancestors were on the other side : temperance.
https://vivsancestry.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/an-ancestors-illicit-whisky-still-in-1850s-hawick/

5. The State Library of Western Australia explains Pandora archiving.
https://slwa.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/web-archiving-at-slwa/

6. The State Library of Queensland shares a beaut yarn.
http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2016/05/03/the-baby-killer-mrs-winslows-soothing-syrup-patent-medicine-in-queensland/

7. Lilian launches a new Friday theme (and some tweaks to her blog).
http://researchbylily.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/family-friday-vaughan.html

8. Pauleen's chasing up on Missing Friends.
https://cassmob.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/missing-friends-can-help/

9. And I thought this was going to be about family myths.
http://paulineconolly.com/2016/chestnuts/

10. Caitlin's tribute is brimming with love.
http://genealogically-speaking.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/one-hundred.html

11. Android buddies - not sure if I'll need this but I'll have a play.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2016/05/az-screen-recorder-create-screencasts.html

12. And some Evernote news for Android users.
https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2016/05/05/scan-annotate-evernote-android/

New to me 

Photogalaxy from Carmel  https://crgalvin.wordpress.com/
Wangiwriter's Blog from Linda   https://wangiwriter.wordpress.com/

Just in

A genimate shared his daughter's blog post on Facebook this morning and I just had to add it. What a thoughtful young woman.
http://bethericson.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/who-will-you-be.html

Eyes on Ireland

It's been a long time since I've sat down and systematically revisited my Irish ancestors. As I have a trip to Ireland planned I thought it time to become reacquainted.

I found that much of my old research is unsourced or that I have sources listed in the notes field of my software ( a result of using an unsophisticated genealogy software program years ago). So as I go through the records I am doing them over.

So what have I done? I identified my earliest ancestors and wrote their names on a piece of paper then starting at the top of the list I started researching on the free digitised  Catholic Parish Registers at The National Library of Ireland. It wasn't long before I struck gold, I identified, using the FAN principle or Cluster Genealogy, the Regiment in which my 3xGreat-Grandfather, John D'Arcy served. I knew he was a Lieutenant in the army but for over 25 years had been unable to identify his regiment. I'm indebted to the priest who recorded this information on a baptismal record of an ancestor's sibling. It found it hard sticking to one resource as my discoveries threw up tangents I wanted to pursue.

This early success fired me up. I spent seven hours on that first day going through the registers. I found baptisms for a few more family members and a marriage in 1839 for Dennis Tierney and Eliza Darcy,  I had this recorded (unsourced) as 1834. It had always bothered me how Dennis and Eliza had avoided having children in the first five years of their marriage! I was surprised to learn that Eliza's name was recorded as Elizabeth on her baptismal, now I can tell my daughter that she is named for her 2x Great-Grandmother. I scribbled on my piece of paper details of the registers I had consulted. Discovering a new sibling, Michael, for Eliza/Elizabeth has given me a whole new line to chase down.

On waking with a clear head and a mighty resolve the next morning I realised that my scrap of paper just wasn't going to work. I opened up Google Drive and created yet another geneasheet. Down the left side are names and details of the ancestors and across the top columns are listed the resources I may consult during my hunt - this has morphed into a very wide spreadsheet. As I have trouble researching down a straight and narrow path this document allows me to Zigzag and follow whims and be organised at the same time.

I remembered that there was a more efficient way to search the Registers so I took out a one month subscription to Roots Ireland. As well as offering Registers searches this resource allows me to search other indexes.

Resources at Roots Ireland

Using this resource found a record I had missed when scrolling through the microfilmed Parish Registers late at night. It was 18GBP well spent.

State Library of New South Wales

As I was meeting genimate, Lilian, at The State Library yesterday I decided to use my time chasing up the Irish. I searched the library catalogue for my Irish surnames and also the towns in which the ancestors settled. I ordered around twenty promising resources which I perused in the hope of finding snippets of information on the ancestors. I found a few more family members (remember those FANS) in cemetery registers, one line in a printed genealogy but not much more. One of the resources I found will be of great assistance with my CurryAus study but that's a story for another day. I love visiting the State Library and have resolved to do so again before I travel.

Lilian and I settle in for a day of research

I need to repeat this exercise with the catalogues of The Society of Australian Genealogists. I have a busy few weeks ahead of me. Before I set off the catalogue of the National Library of Ireland will get the same treatment.

While I was jumping all over the place I found a few mentions of the Irish ancestors in Ancestry Member Trees  (much of which appears to be copied from my website) and one of these actually sourced a book, a printed genealogy. Trove tells me that there is a copy of this in the Newcastle Region Library so I'm planning a trip up there to see if it will verify the information in that Ancestry tree.

Discovering via a hint on another Ancestry Tree that my ancestor Bridget Ryan wasn't a swimmer after all was another high spot for me. I had a newspaper reference that said Bridget had travelled to New South Wales in 1847 with her brother, Michael Harrington Ryan. I have now verified that she actually travelled to Victoria on British Empire in 1849 with her sister, Anne.

Hopefully, with the support of my new geneasheet, I'll be able to give my Irish ancestors a good doing over.

Trove Tuesday - Irish invasions

At the moment I am focusing on my Irish research and revisiting research done years ago which I  had put in the too hard basket.

I am more than 60% Irish so I wonder about my Irish ancestors and the many members of their extended families who came to New South Wales and Victoria in the nineteenth century. The convicts, of course, had no choice in the matter but the others came of their own free will.

Knowing nothing about the numbers who came I turned to Trove to find some contemporary information on the subject. I learnt that over 200,000 Irish came to Australia between 1851 and 1876 and that huge numbers went to the US and Britain - perhaps I should be looking for cousins in those places.

1877 'EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.', Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), 9 June, p. 4. , viewed 03 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article170436026

Many Irish arrived earlier than the dates covered in the article above. My Irish convict ancestors including Ellen Moore, Mariner, arrived in the 1820s and my famine orphan, Mary Criggan, on Derwent in 1850. The first three of my Tierney/D'arcy line arrived in 1839 on China.

1825 'SHIP NEWS.', The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 - 1848), 14 July, p. 3. , viewed 03 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37071634

1839 'Shipping Intelligence.', The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), 21 December, p. 2. , viewed 03 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2549634

1850 'PORT PHILLIP.', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 6 March, p. 2. , viewed 03 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12916203

Worldwide Genimates

This post was first published on The Worldwide Genealogy blog on 2 May 2016.

Last month I blogged about my rash decision to join the 2016 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. I am  pleased to report that I crossed the finish line on time last Saturday with around 1300 other bloggers.

It was a hard slog that ate into my precious time but it was worth the effort. One of the unexpected benefits was that it introduced me to a number of genealogy and history bloggers from around the world. I even discovered that one of my Surname Study contacts was a prolific blogger.

The result is that the number of feeds in my RSS reader has grown significantly.

Reading others' blog posts confirmed my bias towards reminiscing and stories hence the two standout blogs for me were from two Australians, a new contact and a social media mate. If you fancy trips down memory lane do visit Linda and Maureen.

While I saw many old friends in the challenge list some of the new to me blogs I discovered were:

GenWestUK - Ros - England
History Roundabout - ? - England
Molly's Canopy - Molly - USA
My Genealogy Challenges - Dianne - Canada
Old Scottish Genealogy and Blog - Penny and Fergus - Scotland
The Past Whispers - USA
Roots and Stuff - Mary - USA
Southern Graves - Stephanie - USA
Treetrack'n - Mary
The Writing Desk - Ros - England

But wait, there's more - Pauleen has compiled a list of geneabloggers who participated in the challenge.