TheGenealogist expands Irish coverage…

TheGenealogist has added more than 327,300 individuals to its Irish Catholic Parish Record Collection, along with a suite of Thom’s Official Directories covering Great Britain and Ireland.

These new Catholic parish registers have links to the original images. They cover the county of Carlow in the southeast region of Ireland.

Before civil registration was introduced in two stages into Ireland, first in 1845 for non Roman Catholic marriages and then in 1864 for all births, marriages and deaths, the parish registers of the various denominations were the main records in which Irish ancestors’ vital events would have been recorded. The Roman Catholic church was far the largest denomination in Ireland and so it is these records that the majority of Irish forebears will mostly appear within.

Also released are Thom’s Official Directories covering the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from Victorian times up to the 20th century. These records are great for discovering more about the towns and areas, finding the names of people who held official municipal or government offices, or were professionals such as doctors, clergy, etc.

You can use these books to find Irish businesses from manufacturers of ales and agricultural implements to makers of woollens and yarns. Thom’s directories allow you to find business advertisements as well as search for tradespeople from Auctioneers and Blacksmiths to Watchmakers and Wine & Spirit Dealers for all parts of Ireland.

The directories released in this package include:

• Thom’s Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1859
• Thom’s Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1898
• Thom’s Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1913

These expand the Irish directories already in the collection and join sets of Irish wills at the site.

Read the article Alexander Thom – Publisher and The Queen’s Printer for Ireland .

…and adds the Scottish censuses 1841–1901

TheGenealogist launched the complete census for Scotland (1841-1901) at The Family History Show Online on Saturday 19 June. For the first time you can now use their renowned brick wall-busting search tools on these records. You can find a person using keywords such as occupation, birthplace, year of birth and more, search for a family using their forenames or search for an address.

This release adds over 24 million records from the Census of Scotland 1841-1901 to their already substantial data offering. TheGenealogist provides an extremely strong package for family historians researching British Isles ancestors with its wide range of data that also includes the advantage of its unique land records (tithe and land tax) that give ownership and occupiers down to property level.

This is the first time that TheGenealogist has released such a large number of Scottish records and it now means that this important data for the most northerly part of the British Isles can now be searched using the comprehensive search features for which the site is renowned. Appreciated by family historians researching their ancestors for the ease of use of its powerful Master Search, TheGenealogist gives researchers the ability to select phonetic, exact or standard search filters.

The comprehensive search facilities that are already available when using TheGenealogist’s English and Welsh census records will make this Scottish census release a welcome addition to the family history researcher’s toolkit.

Read TheGenealogist’s feature article here .