Irish Catholic parish registers - which is the best site to search?

It's St Patrick's Day on the 17th, so it's probably not surprising that FindMyPast Ireland chose this month to release its collection of Irish Catholic parish registers. With the same records available on Ancestry, that brings the number of sites - and ways - to search these records to three, which is a giant bonus to those of us researching Catholic ancestors from Ireland.

Free Irish records

In July last year, the National Library of Ireland first released these records, which were warmly welcomed by genealogists all round the world. It's not just that they help us trace our Irish ancestors, a notoriously tricky thing to do (but not as hard as I thought when I started out). The other wonderful thing is that they're free to access.

At the time, I posted on Worldwide Genealogy about my first impressions of using this wonderful resource, which the NLI provided without an index. I wasn't going to look such a ground-breaking gift horse in the gob. But now, with FMP and Ancestry both providing access to the parish registers, it's possible to search them using the methods that many genealogists are used to on these two sites.

So this month I'm going to conduct a genexperiment and try all three out, looking for the same person, and see if any of them will become my favourite for Irish Catholic parish register research. I also want to know if I can search all three for free.

Catholic parish register search

I'll start with the first publishers of the Irish Catholic parish registers, the NLI's own website. Because you need to know which parish you want to search, I'm going to look for Daniel Delaney of the parish of Tomacork (Carnew). He may be related to my ancestor Nicholas Delaney, who was from the same parish. It's a fairly unusual surname in the area.

Shane Wilson has a useful tool on his excellent website for finding RC parishes.

NLI

Going to the home page, I entered the parish name (Tomacork, in this case). This took me to a page offering three microfilms. I needed the earliest:

Selecting any of the categories or the image all took me to the same page, the first image in this collection:

And from then on it was a case of scrolling through the records, looking out for the name Carnew (usually at the right-hand side of the page).

This took a while, and I found Daniel only as a father, here with his wife Mary as parents to Anne in February 1794:

The display's fairly small and I recommend switching to full screen view using the button on the top right. You can also adjust brightness using the buttons, but here I'm just giving you the image as is, for comparison.

Daniel's baptism and marriage must have taken place before these records were compiled, or else he moved to Carnew from another parish.

Ancestry

Next I searched for Daniel in the Catholic parish registers on Ancestry. I've got a subscription, but I wanted to see whether I could find Daniel without logging in. From the Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish screen I selected Ireland as my collection focus and opened the card catalogue. Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers 1655-1915 is the last collection on the second page, so I hope I've saved you some time!

If you want to just browse, you'll need to know which diocese you're searching for to use Ancestry. I'm looking for Ferns. You then have the option to enter the parish name and year range - for me, it's Tomacork and 1785-1845. However if you just hit the year range it takes you to a page asking you to sign up for a free trial, which I don't need. I still wanted to see how far I could go in searching records which are available free elsewhere. So don't browse if you haven't got an Ancestry sub, you need to actively search.

So going back to the screen above I entered my search. I found that entering the exact diocese brought up a few results but not the one I wanted - but if I didn't enter the diocese I got 240 results and none of them were the one I wanted. That told me that I couldn't search baptisms by parents. So if I hadn't known that I was looking for the father of Anne, I'd have had to browse, just as with the NLI records. So I searched for Anne, and...

The first record! But to check, I hovered over View Record, and...

The right record (though Mary's name in the original is Costolough, not Cossolough). And that's as far as you can go without signing in. I don't know if you can go further by opening a free account because I don't need one. But I wanted to check the quality of the image, so I signed in, and here it is:

It's a slightly lighter image that the NLI's, but (peering at the screen) I think it's not quite such good quality. While using Ancestry, I found it fairly easy to navigate around the record set, so that will save me time researching these records in the future. If I hadn't got an Ancestry sub, I could use it as an index and get the images from the NLI. Or is there an easier way?

FindMyPast

FMP offers its Irish Catholic parish registers for free. Again without signing in, I went to the Ireland Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records screen. But when selecting the record set, I found that FMP has separated the baptisms, marriages and deaths into three different record sets, so unlike with the other two sites, I had to choose.

Luckily, I knew I was looking for a baptism. But this time I got zero results. Once again, it was lucky I knew Daniel and Mary's daughter's name. Searching for Anne, I got zero results again. Was this because I'd gone straight to the record set, which is a method of searching FMP recommended by several genealogists with much more experience than me?

Back to the Search screen, and selecting only Births & Baptisms as a subcategory, no record set:

And there was Anne, the first record.

Clicking on the image icon brought me to a register/sign in dialogue box. I know that FMP Ireland has promised that the registers will be 'free to search, forever', but there's no mention of whether the images are free to view. Again, I don't want to open a new account just to check this because I already have a subscription to FMP. (How do I afford these subs, you may ask? I grab the special offers.) So I signed in, and here's the image:

It looks very similar to the NLI one. You can navigate using the < and > arrows, but there's no jumping to a page as there is with Ancestry.

So there you have it - three ways of accessing the NLI's Irish Catholic parish registers. Which will I use in the future? Obviously, it's a huge help to be able to search, though you need to know who you're looking for first (eg the daughter's name, not the mother's or father's, in this case).

I think I prefer the NLI site for scrolling through the images, though, as I said, I'll be using full screen. But for jumping around the records, Ancestry's the easiest. I suppose, in the end, it's a very personal choice.

And I'm hugely grateful to all three providers for making these superb records accessible.

It's a long post, so thanks for staying with me. There's so much more to say about these records! 

 

I'd love to know your thoughts if you've used the Irish Catholic parish registers via any of these sites. Have you got any favourites, or tips? Is there a clever shortcut I've missed?

Irish genealogy webinars

PS: There are some free Irish genealogy webinars taking place this week:

Family Search is hosting two sessions a day on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th. Full details over at Claire Santry's unmissable Irish Genealogy News blog.

FMP is holding its webinar tomorrow (Tuesday 15th) at 1600 GMT and the link is available here (this works for the UK; please check for your own area).

Thursday 17 March: Where is That? Finding and Understanding Places in Ireland. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Thursday 17 March: Ireland & Census and Census Substitutes. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Ireland Catholic Church Records. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Irish Protestant Records. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT. - See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/03/family-search-four-irish-genealogy.html#sthash.f3itwe7R.dpuf

Thursday 17 March: Where is That? Finding and Understanding Places in Ireland. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Thursday 17 March: Ireland & Census and Census Substitutes. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Ireland Catholic Church Records. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Irish Protestant Records. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT. - See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/03/family-search-four-irish-genealogy.html#sthash.f3itwe7R.dpuf

Reading Irish parish registers

Have you got Irish people in your family tree?

If you have, and they were Catholics, you may have been spending the last few days the same way as I have, scrolling through the newly-released images of parish registers from the National Library of Ireland.

And going cross-eyed deciphering the handwriting, the abbreviated first names and the just plain odd-looking ones.

National Library of Ireland, CC by YvonneM

These records are pure gold dust for those of us with Irish ancestors. And they’re free to view, print and download. I’m very grateful to the NLI for putting them online for those of us who can’t visit their (wonderful) building in Dublin to look through the microfiches there. It would be petty to grumble about the fact that they’re not indexed. But just to make the job of scrolling through all those pages easier, I thought I’d pass on some tips I’ve found useful during my search for my ancestors, the Delanys or Delaneys in the parish of Tomacork (also called Carnew), on the border of counties Wicklow and Wexford.

I’m going to use these Tomacork documents to illustrate my points, because I’ve become familiar with many of their quirks. I hope this will be a helpful starting point for your reading of similar resources.

The first tip is – keep going. I found that, as my eyes got used to the handwriting of the various priests and the names which came up again and again, reading the records grew easier. So don’t give up. Like so many worthwhile things, reading these records can get easier when you practise.

Patt (Patrick) Rossiter, with a long s

If you’re new to reading old documents, you might be confused by the unusual shapes of many letters. The records I’ve been looking at date from 1785 onwards, so they’re not from too long ago, but they’re still old enough to take some deciphering if you don’t know how to mentally transcribe them. Long or ‘leading’ s, for example – the one that looks like an f without a cross-bar.

Or the very curly capital letters that don’t look at all like print ones. Here are a few:

Two examples of Anne (top L, bottom R)

A curly H in Hugh

Two examples of capital K in Kelly

A capital B that looks like an M in Brislawn

The capital A in Anne, with no cross-bar, takes a bit of getting used to, and capital H and K look similar. In fact the second Kelly takes some deciphering.

There are a few websites with old handwriting alphabets which can help with reading records. This one is a good place to start, and I've listed more at the end of this post.

Luckily, when we read old records we’re not just reading a sequence of letters. Though that is often the best way of deciphering words. It takes me back to school... C, A, T, cat...

You may need to just write down the letters you’re sure of and go back later once you’re more used to the writer’s hand or have identified the letter somewhere else in the document. That's how I was sure of the examples above.

Repeated words or phrases can be helpful here, because we know what the letters are and can work out quirky variations from them. And you can often work out what a letter is by its context.

What's Judy's surname here? Byron? I happen to know, and reading these parish registers confirms, that Byrne was a very widespread name in Tomacork. In fact it's in the old clan territory of the O'Byrnes. So I can work out that she's most likely a Byrne by comparing this word with many others on the same pages, written by the same person.

But beware of doing what we all do – reading what we think, or hope,

we see, and not what’s actually there. It’s important to check against other examples of the (supposed) letter written by the same person.

Is this crossed out sponsor a new relative, James Delany? I'd love to think so. But there's a Darcy on the same page.

And the descender from Lucy on the line above in the first image may or may not have merged with the l of Delany. In addition, the registers are full of people called Demsey (a variation on Dempsey), another local name. Though this priest usually writes it Dempsey.

 I can't just assume the name here is what I'd like it to be.

What do you think? Delany, Darcy, Demsey or... impossible to decide?

And then there’s image quality.The NLI registers are images from microfiche, so some pen strokes are hard to read or invisible. These entries look like a bad photocopy.

You can find some good tips on reading photocopied records here.

Sometimes you’ll have all the letters worked out, but they don’t look like any name you’ve heard of. There are two possible solutions: the name could be an abbreviation, or it could be written as it sounded to the scribe.

Abbreviations first. In these Catholic parish registers they’re only used for first names and a few stock phrases. There are lists of name abbreviations on the web and I’ve put links at the bottom, but here are a few of the most common found in genealogy records. A good rule of thumb is that the last letter of the abbreviation is the last letter of the name. Except for Jno.

Edwd = Edward

Elizth = Elizabeth

Jno = John (not Jonathan)

Margt = Margaret 

Thos - Thomas

Wm = William

And some from the Tomacork records which may be helpful to Irish research:

Anty = Anthony

Batt = Bartholomew

Catt = Catherine

Lau - Laurence

Mattw = Matthew

Michl = Michael

Patt - Patrick

I've used a smaller font to show letters which are usually written superscript (above the base line).

There are some other abbreviations in these registers, like SS for Sponsors (godparents), and Latin ones like Ills or Illa for Illegitimus/a (illegitimate), usually followed by (ut dixit), or 'it is said', referring to the father.

Plenty of names in these registers are written as they sounded to the priest. That can be confusing. Some are easier to read, like Onor for Hono[u]r, Annistice for Anastasia, Kavinaugh for Kavanagh.

Then there are ones which ask more from us. One of my Delanys, Daniel, was married to Mary Costolough.

That’s a fun one, with a long s and no cross to the t. I only found two other Costoloughs after a lot of genea-searching, and it seemed to be a variant of Costello. Then the light bulb came on. Reading it out loud, remembering that Irish names tend to be stressed on the first syllable, and knowing that the priest used a silent gh in several names, it became clear that, yes, /’kɒstələʊ/ (using the IPA transcription) worked for Costolough and Costello.

I'll be posting about my Delaney/Delany finds over on A Rebel Hand soon. In the meantime, good luck with your old records! And finally – the genealogist’s mantra – don’t assume. But you know that already...

Further online resources

Useful sites for reading old handwriting:

Family Search

The National Archives palaeography online course

Cyndi's List

Alphabets:

University of Cambridge

Early Modern Palaeography

Reading bad scans/photocopies:

FreeBMD 

Name abbreviations:

Boyd's

FreeREG

Genealogy in Time

Roots Ireland - Irish abbreviations

Irish surnames:

Irish Identity

A Little Irish Fun

Since it is March and I am posting close to St. Patrick’s Day, I will talk about the search for my Irish family ancestry.

My mother's father and grandmother had died by the time my mother was two months old.  Her mom, a mother of 13, had her hands full raising the six left at home, so there wasn't much sharing of family history. Because of the dire circumstances her mom had to contend with, she had never known any of her father’s family.

I started my research on her father’s mother with just the fact his mother's maiden name was Magill. I was intrigued.  I easily found the book Magill Family Record written by Robert Magill, but could not find a tangible connection to my Magill family.  A cousin of my mother, a Ralph Magill, let me know that Elizabeth Jane Magill was married to Joseph Lester Magill.  He also sent me a copy of a letter he had received from a Magill saying he was related.  I studied the Dear Caleb letter.  I believe every Magill in America has read it. I was sent in all directions to research from the letter, but Caleb was not directly related to my Joseph L Magill in Clark County, Illinois. By process of elimination and places, and times, I finally decided upon the parents for my ancestor Joseph Lester Magill who had died in the 1840's.  

1. I knew he was born in Tennessee from the census's that I found Elizabeth in.  I found a Charles Magill married an Elizabeth Lester in Oct 24 1796.  This became my logical focus. Then I began the search for proofs I needed to have to make it so.  

2. I went to Ancient Irish naming patterns. Irish Naming Patterns, gives a basic pattern as listed below, although depending on circumstances these would sometimes vary. 

Oldest son named after the Father's father

2nd son named after the Mother's father

3rd son named after the Father

4th son named after the Father's oldest brother

Oldest daughter named after the Mother's mother

2nd daughter named after the Father's mother

3rd daughter named after the Mother

4th daughter named after the Mother's oldest sister

3. Joseph Lester Magill's apparent oldest son who appeared on the 1850 census was named after him.  The Daughter Elizabeth Jane could be after either the mother of John or Sarah.  They were both Elizabeth.

The apparent second son was John Davidson Magill which was the  name of Sarah's oldest brother.  Joseph Lester was also the name of Elizabeth Lester Magill's oldest brother.    Still, to prove this, I needed a Charles and an Archibald. As Joseph’s father was thought to be Charles Magill and Sarah’s father was Archibald Davidson. If they were born before 1850 and died I was up a creek without a paddle unless I could find family evidence.  It was about this time my mother's cousin finally broke down and sent me copies of the family bible. 

 

Marriages Sheet from Joseph Lester Magill Jr's bible

Deaths Sheet from Joseph Lester Magill Jr.'s bible

There was a Charles Andrew Magill first born, and a William Archibald the second born.  I knew I had my family.  I had a probate of when Joseph died in 1844 that named a William Magill along with John Davidson as executors.  William turned out to be Joseph's older brother.  

Then a "distant" cousin researching Charles Magill in Sullivan, Indiana found the land records that involved the heirs of Charles Magill.  My great grandmother was named with her brothers as heirs of Joseph Lester Magill, son of Charles Magill. 

BLM-GLO Image of Charles Magill land patent

BLM-GLO summary

I still wonder what happened that the first two sons died as toddlers, and what happened to Joseph. That will be a different search.

Now you have the story of the method I used to pull my Irish family together… I know, I know, I have not really crossed the pond, but it is known that the father of Charles Magill goes back to William Magill who is spoken of the Chronicles of the Scots-Irish Settlement in Virginia.  So, I claim Irish heritage even if it was only for a 100 years between Scotland and America. J  

Happy Belated St Patrick’s Day!