Irish Military Archives Online

The Irish Defence Forces (@defenceforces) tweeted the other day about the launch of their Military Archives web site and the release of a digitized collection of maps, plans, and drawings of military barracks in Ireland. This seems to be the first in a series of records to be released online. The physical archives are located in Cathal Brugha barracks in Rathmines in Dublin, so it's great to see online information becoming available to those that can't make the journey. Perhaps of more interest to the family historian will be the release of records of the Bureau of Military History (1913 to 1921), which contains records of the War of Independence, including many witness statements taken from the men and women that participated. The web site also has information about an upcoming project to ask members of the public to help in the identification of family members in photographs contained within the archive.

Androinica » Ancestry releases beta app to keep up with your genealogy

I haven't myself taken the plunge and signed up for a subscription to Ancestry.com, but for those that have and that use Android, Ben Crawford over at the Google Android Blog Androinica has good news. A beta version of an Ancestry app for Android phones is now available for download. As you might expect, it lacks the features of a full product, but includes the ability to view your family tree and photographs. The screenshots look good, so hopefully functionality will improve soon. The app is available for download at the Android Market.


Androinica » Ancestry releases beta app to keep up with your genealogy:

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Oral History Podcasts

Oral History Podcasts:

Thanks to a link on The Irish Archives, a great directory of Irish Genealogy web sites (you can follow them on Twitter: @irisharchives), I came across a nice collection of Oral History Podcasts put together by Wexford County Council. More than 130 people from many parts of the county have been interviewed over the last three years. This is a great resource for those of us who are trying to get a glimpse of what life might have been like in Wexford many years ago, when some of the interviewees were just children. The web site gives information for those wishing to get involved, and you can nominate people to be interviewed. It would be interesting to see whether other counties have similar initiatives.

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New Parish Records Already Online

I played around with the Irish Genealogy web site on Saturday afternoon and found to my surprise that the new Roman Catholic parish records for Dublin city (and Cork) that were not supposed to be released until Tuesday had already arrived. Apparently, I wasn't the only one. I've found that the site and search results are not completely stable; sometimes running exactly the same search gives different sets of results. Moving your mouse over an entry is supposed to bring up a pop-up with more details about that record, but this was a bit hit-and-miss too. Sometimes I had to reload the page to get it to work. I imagine that these problems are due to the new records not being fully ready for prime time yet; the site hasn't officially announced that the new records are available, so perhaps they were just testing things out? However, these minor irritations weren't enough to dampen my enthusiasm. I found some new information on family members and confirmed previous suspicions, and all in just a few short hours compared to the many long hours I used to put in going through microfilms at the National Library. It will be great when images from the registers themselves are available; this will be especially useful for those records with dodgy handwriting. The sooner more records become available the better, but those responsible for the site have done a great job in releasing what's currently available. This site is a great resource that can only improve over time.

Irish Genealogy News: New date for IrishGenealogy's long overdue update

So, next Tuesday (October 4th) is the day when Dublin City Roman Catholic parish records will finally get updated on the Irish Genealogy web site. Have been waiting for this for a very long time. Hope it lives up to my expectations...

Irish Genealogy News: New date for IrishGenealogy's long overdue update:

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José Carlos Mariátegui :: Monthly Review Press

Looking forward to getting my hands on this.

José Carlos Mariátegui :: Monthly Review Press:

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Using Gmail, Calendar and Docs without an Internet connection - Official Gmail Blog

Nice addition for Chromebooks. Should be handy while I travel early next week. Really looking forward to this capability for Google Docs.

Using Gmail, Calendar and Docs without an Internet connection - Official Gmail Blog

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