The 14th Annual Historic Houses of Ireland Conference will take place on the 9-10 May 2016 at Maynooth University.

The theme of the conference is The Country House and Landed Estate in Time of Revolution and the conference will also include the launch of the CSHIHE and Maynooth University Library exhibition ‘1916 and the Irish Country House: Rebellion and War’. (http://historicirishhouses.ie/news-and-events/14th-annual-historic-houses-ireland-conference)

The Programme and Booking Form are now available at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1WSkAvkaV4jNEFPSFBVUWdrRGs

Niall and the Stone of Destiny

Niall and the Stone of Destiny is the first fully-illustrated children’s book about legendary Celtic High King, Niall of the Nine Hostages. Embark on an exciting journey, following Niall through his boyhood adventures and quest to become High King of Ireland. This well-researched historical fiction is designed to engage a younger generation of Niall’s descendants in their Irish heritage and ancestry. Niall and the Stone of Destiny is a heroic tale with more than a dozen vivid-color, full-page illustrations. This story is sure to capture the interest and imagination of all readers, especially children ages 6 – 11.

Who is Niall?

Niall Noígíallach, translated in English as Niall of the Nine Hostages, was the renowned High King of Ireland during the late 4th and early 5th centuries, AD. Niall and the Stone of Destiny is a historical fiction inspired by the 2006 DNA discovery made by Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland that gives evidence of Niall’s nearly 3 million descendants worldwide.

The author has a Kickstarter Campaign to help raise funds to print the first edition of the book. Here is the link to the campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1195848313/niall-and-the-stone-of-destiny

The ALLEN y-DNA Project & The ALLEN Guild of One Name Studies

The Allen DNA Project is partnering with the Allen Guild of One Name Studies in an exciting new Research Endeavor. The Allen DNA Project is a USA based group, but is very interested in expanding our membership to a world-wide audience by actively seeking out Allens from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Mainland Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or anywhere else on the planet.

Additionally, any spelling variation of the Allen surname is welcome: Allan, Allyn, Allin, etc.
To this point, FREE yDNA 37 marker tests will be made available to any males carrying the Allen surname and residing outside the United States who are willing to join the project and participate in the testing. The only requirement for a free yDNA test is a known Allen/Allan (any spelling) lineage to at least the participant’s Great Grandfather Allen/Allan (any spelling) in any country. Additionally, The Allen DNA Project is setting aside a specific Sub-group within the Project with a full commitment of assistance from Allen Project Co-Administrator Dr. Eric Allen who will be overseeing this specific International Sub-group.

Guild of One Name Studies: http://one-name.org/name_profile/allen/
Allen DNA Project: https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/allan/about/background

Direct Contacts:
Mr. Chris Allen: cdpallen@gmail.com
Dr. Eric Allen: ericallen@alton.k12.mo.us

Westmeath Genealogy has added 36,000 new records to its online database at www.westmeath.rootsireland.ie. The new records include Mullingar death records, Westmeath Gravestone inscriptions and various baptisms and marriages between the years 1900 to 1920.

The full list of available sources for the Westmeath Genealogy Centre can be viewed at http://westmeath.rootsireland.ie/generic.php?filename=sources.tpl&selectedMenu=sources

Rootsireland.ie is the highest ranked Irish website in the annual Genealogy in Time Top 100 Genealogy Websites survey. Rootsireland.ie listed at No. 56. This is great news for our service which is run by county genealogy centres, family histories societies and volunteers throughout Ireland.

According to Genealogy in Time “Since we began this list five years, it has become the gold standard for genealogy lists. Part of the reason is the care and attention we put into the process to create an independent, objective list. We start by compiling an extensive list of genealogy websites from around the world. We then used the services of Alexa (the internet traffic people) to help us rank actual internet traffic to each website.

Internet traffic can be a tricky thing to measure. It is more than just the number of visitors to a website. Other important considerations include the amount of content consumed by a typical visitor to the website and the amount of time spent at the website. Thus, our rankings are based on a combination of three factors: visitors, content and time. The result is an objective and independent ranking of the top 100 genealogy websites.”

See more at: http://www.genealogyintime.com/articles/top-100-genealogy-websites-of-2016-page01.html#sthash.nsaM5mwI.dpuf

You are invited to The Genealogy Event in Limerick on Friday, 2 September and Saturday, 3 September 2016, sponsored by www.RootsIreland.ie

For more information and tickets please see www.TheGenealogyEvent.com

Operating as a writer and sometime market gardener from his ancestral base, Maidenhall, Bennettsbridge, Hubert Butler worked as a teacher while exploring Eastern Europe and the Balkans. His essays established him as “Ireland’s Orwell”, our greatest essayist since Jonathan Swift – another noted Kilkenny man. In the first documentary on Butler’s work, Bandit Film’s Johnny Gogan traces the writer’s journey through Stalinist Russia of the early 1930s, through pre-war Vienna – where Butler worked to smuggle Jews into Ireland – to his exposure of the hidden genocide of half a million Orthodox Serbs in World War II.

An inaugural Kilkenny Gala Screening of this documentary will take place in the Set Theatre on Saturday April 16. It is a central element of the golden jubilee celebrations that weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of Rothe House being opened to the public for the first time.

Having purchased the property in the early 1960s, Kilkenny Archaeological Society renovated the 16th century townhouse and opened its doors on the 17 April 1966. ‘A group of very motivated people showed remarkable foresight and ensured the protection of this unique building’ says Grace Fegan, Executive Manager of Rothe House Trust. ‘Fifty years later we have so many people to thank and Hubert Butler is one of them.’

Using recently declassified documents, this highly visual and expansive film explores and adds creditable substance to the assertion that Butler “was fifty years ahead of his time” and “one of the great Irish writers”.

A red carpet reception will begin at 7.00 p.m. with the screening beginning at 7.30 p.m. Introduced by the film maker, the documentary will be followed by a brief discussion featuring special guests. Tickets are €25 each and are available from Rothe House. tel. 056 7722893 and Langton’s.

Armagh Ancestry has been computerising more Church records over the past year. These have not yet been added to the RootsIreland.ie website but Armagh Ancestry’s researchers can manually search these offline records on your behalf for a fee.

You need to contact Armagh.Ancestry@armaghbanbridgecraigavon.gov.uk about this service.

The fee for the manual research service of these records is £10.00 GBP for each specific individual research request across all the new records. The new Church records (approximately 10,000) which can be searched via Armagh Ancestry are:

Church of Ireland
Loughgall Parish – Baptisms 1779-1864; Marriages 1779-1845; Deaths 1779-1815 & 1829-1839
Eglish Parish – Deaths 1803-1865
Armagh Parish – Baptisms 1823-1827
Annaghmore Parish – Baptisms 1856-1864
Milltown (Tartaraghan) Parish – Baptisms 1840-1865; Marriages 1840-1845; Deaths 1845-1889
Charlemont Parish – Baptisms 1828-1830
Derrynoose Parish – Marriages 1825-1829
Montiaghs Parish – Marriages 1823-1845

Presbyterian
Newtownhamilton 2nd – Baptisms 1823-1863; Marriages 1823-1844
Keady 2nd – Baptisms 1855-1865
Poyntzpass – Baptisms 1866-1936
Ahorey – Marriages 1834-1841
Miscellaneous Marriages – 1819-1829
Markethill 2nd – Marriages 1821-1845

Quaker
Grange/Charlemont – Deaths 1689-1823

If a search proves successful Armagh Ancestry will provide a scanned copy of the relevant record. For further information on this service please contact Armagh.Ancestry@armaghbanbridgecraigavon.gov.uk

UCD Digital Library is delighted to present a fascinating collection of large scale 19th century Irish town and city maps. This visual resource has been made possible due to a long-standing and successful partnership with Ordnance Survey Ireland. The OSI provided the UCD Digital Library with scanned images of the five foot and ten foot to one mile scale maps chiefly surveyed between 1837 and 1896.

The Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI) 19th Century Historical Maps collection contains maps for almost 150 cities, towns and villages in the Republic of Ireland. Significantly, the large scale at which they were surveyed means that wonderful details such as the ground floor interior plans of public buildings from churches and banks to hospitals and railway terminals can be viewed on the maps. Find the maps by date and place and then zoom in on the beautiful cartographic detail.

These maps provide an invaluable source of information for anyone tracing the history of their family or local area. Researchers can compare the past to the present and find former street names, discover which industries formerly occupied sites, study transformations in the landscape to see how an urban site has emerged from a rural area. At street level features include benchmarks, pillar boxes, public water pumps, gas plugs, hydrants and lamp posts. Other useful information includes the parish, barony, townland, ward and municipal boundaries which are all clearly marked. With building types such as mills, foundries, dye works, barracks shown not only is architectural history visualised but clues to working life in the past are revealed. Interested in 19th century forms of recreation – then locate places of culture and entertainment such as billiard rooms, galleries, tea houses, bull rings and Turkish baths.

The Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI) 19th Century Historical Maps provide a fantastic wealth of detail to explore.

The collection can be viewed in the UCD Digital Library at: http://digital.ucd.ie/view/ucdlib:40377

The UCD Digital Library is an institutionally supported, preservation-oriented digital repository that holds a heterogeneous collection of resources from UCD’s cultural heritage repositories and an increasing number of data assets captured or produced by UCD research activities. It is accessible at http://digital.ucd.ie.

The Foundation’s North American Lecture tour is now under way having begun last Saturday in Toronto, Canada. The turn out for the first dates on this tour have been incredible and as Fintan and Gillian are speaking to crowds of enthusiastic genealogists the Foundation is delighted to offer superb savings on the following titles.

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Somme: A Guide for Family Historians
Now only £10.00! (RRP £12.99)

If you want to find out about an ancestor who served on the Somme during the First World War – during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 or at any time during the fighting in this sector of the Western Front – this book is the ideal guide. It provides practical information and advice on how to conduct your research. It will help you to discover when and where your ancestors served and give you an insight into his experience of the war. It is also a fascinating introduction to researching the Great War as a whole.

Writing your Family History: A guide for Family Historians
Now only £10.00! (RRP £12.90)

Writing your Family History: A Guide for Family Historians is a practical step-by-step guide to writing a family history is designed for anyone who wants to bring their ancestors’ stories to life. This publication looks at ways of overcoming the particular problems family historians face when writing a family history — how to deal with gaps in knowledge, how to describe generations of people who did the same jobs or lived in the same area, how to cover the numerous births, marriages and deaths that occur, and when to stop researching and start writing. Writing your Family History provides examples to help readers find their own writing style, deal with family stories, missing pieces of information and anomalies.

Threads from an Irish Backcloth: Applying particularly to the district of Lisburn
Now only £8.00! (RRP £9.99)

Threads from an Irish backcloth applying particularly to the district of Lisburn is a delightfully esoteric exploration of one family’s history drawn together from the many threads that spread out from the district of Lisburn to the rest of the world. This is no work of fancy but like any Irish family history it is the assemblage of information concerning four small groups that inter-married and each of which were settled in Ireland and quite certainly came with Scottish roots.

Kith and Kin: The continuing legacy of the Scotch-Irish in America AND Robert Dinsmoor’s Scotch Irish Poems
For only £13.99! (RRP £20.00)

In Kith and Kin: The Continuing Legacy of the Scotch-Irish in America author Alister McReynolds presents a collection of life stories that serves to highlight that the Scotch-Irish contribution to life in America was, and is, more valuable and less of a cliche than the images of rascality, motor sports and corn liquor suggest.

Robert Dinsmoor’s poetry is perhaps the greatest achievement of Scotch-Irish writing in the nineteenth century. His work frames a vibrant culture whose ties of faith, family and friendship crisscrossed the Atlantic. He records people, places and events with humour and compassion, and was rightfully accorded the status of the’Rustic Bard’ of New Hampshire.

Both these publications offer a fascinating and unique view into the experience of the Scots-Irish in the New World.

Available from http://www.booksireland.org.uk/