Below is a summary of newly released and updated family history record collections for England, Scotland and Wales from the major genealogy databases. (Previous summary, 10 March.) My regular summary of releases and updates relating to British collections is designed to help family historians whose Irish ancestors migrated, temporarily or permanently, to England, Scotland or Wales.By default, it ..read more

The latest paper to join the online BritishNewspaperArchive (BNA) and its sister company FindMyPast is The Donegal Vindicator. The title was founded in Ballyshannon in 1889 when John McAdam was invited by the Land League and supporters of Charles Stewart Parnell to set up a newspaper. His daughter, Eily McAdam, took over as editor in 1921. The premises was subsequently raided several times by the ..read more

A new edition of Irish Genealogy Matters, the newsletter of the Irish Family History Foundation that co-ordinates the island-wide network of local genealogy centres, has been published. You can view/download it here.  Full Text Search is available only from a county search page. It brings news of a handy new function on the RootsIreland.ie database. It's a Full Text Search, and allows ..read more

Monday 20 March: Daughter of Laharna, a hybrid meeting with Patricia McNeill. Hosted by North of Ireland FHS, Larne Branch. In-person venue: Larne Museum & Arts Centre, 2 Victoria Rd, Larne. 7:15pm–8:45pm. Free. All welcome. For online link, email Larne@nifhs.org by 18 March. Monday 20 March: Traditional Architecture in Offaly – history, materials and furtniture, from 1800, with Rachel McKenna ..read more

To mark St Patrick's Day on 17 March, MyHeritage has opened up its Irish collection to free access. MyHeritage wouldn't ordinarily be my first stop for Irish research because most of its 14million Irish records are available free all year round on other sites such as the National Archives of Ireland's Genealogy database and FamilySearch. However, having some of them in just one database AND ..read more

If you have apothecaries among your Irish ancestors you should be able to find them in this new collection on Ancestry. It's the Ireland, Apothecary Records, 1736-1920 collection and it's been sourced from the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland's Heritage Centre. It's an all-island record-set, with all 32 historical counties covered in its 42,000 record, and it's a beauty! From the List of ..read more

Monday 13 March: Finding Grace, an online event with Maurice Gleeson. Hosted by North of Ireland Family History Society, Newtownabbey Branch. All welcome. 7:00pm–8:30pm. Free. Details. Monday 13 March: Family History Research at the National Library of Ireland, with Steven Skeldon. An online presentation on using the library’s services and collections . Hosted by the NLI. 3pm to 4pm. Free. All ..read more

Below is a summary of newly released and updated family history record collections for England, Scotland and Wales from the major genealogy databases. (Previous summary, 24 February.) My regular summary of releases and updates relating to British collections is designed to help family historians whose Irish ancestors migrated, temporarily or permanently, to England, Scotland or Wales.By default ..read more

RootsIreland has served up a mixed feast of more than 36,000 church records, gravestone inscriptions, will indexes, lists of freeholders, electoral registers, 18th-century lists of Catholic and Protestant heads of households, all for County Limerick.And that's not all. There's more for dessert, as you'll see from the list below. Heads of Catholic and Protestant households in various County ..read more

The National Library of Ireland's website – nli.ie – has been overhauled and redesigned. The result is a bold reincarnation with lots of white space, big images and fonts, and a fresh, modern vibe. The site receives more than one million views a year It's certainly very different. Take a look around. I'm not wild about having to scroll past the supersized pics and text that present in desktop ..read more