Calendar

IFHS Back to School Course Series: Palaeography

Sep 29 @ 19:30 – 21:00

Speaker: Dr Caroline Adams

Topic: Palaeography

Dr. Caroline Adams is a freelance archivist, palaeographer and historian. Presently she teaches palaeography online, including Manuscript Mondays once a month with Mandy Geary. Until 2014 she was Senior Archivist at West Sussex Record Office, and after that ran her own research business, Key to the Past. She holds a professional archives diploma, and undergraduate and masters degrees in local and landscape history, and her PhD was on the progresses of Elizabeth I. Her current research is on Elizabethan Sussex.

This class will be a practical demonstration of palaeography utilising 16th century examples. It will be interactive and will be of great value to anyone researching in older documents trying to decipher the scripts.

Note that this class is scheduled for 90 minutes.

Attendance for members is free, just mail info@ifhs.ie to register, non-members can buy tickets in the Shop.

The Family History Show – London

Oct 3 all-day

The IFHS will have a stand at The Family History Show in Kempton Park Racecourse, London. This is a chance to meet up with any members in the area and to attract new members to join us!

Fri

IFHS OUTING: Registry of Deeds & 14 Henrietta Street

Oct 9 @ 10:00 – 14:00

A tour of 14 Henrietta Street. at 10am, followed by a visit to the Registry of Deeds at 12.30pm.

IFHS Talk: DNA Projects

Oct 20 @ 19:30 – 20:30

Speaker: Anne Johnston, NIFHS

Anne is a DNA Project Administrator in the North of Ireland Family History Society, where her lead project is the Islandmagee DNA Project. She has recruited over 250 DNA testers with at least one grandparent from Islandmagee, a peninsula and parish on the east coast of County Antrim. She and her team are analysing the DNA matches from autosomal, Y and mitochondrial DNA to build up a picture of the ancestry of the area going back in time. She is also involved in the overarching North of Ireland DNA Project and other local Projects being taken forward by the Society, such as the Belfast City Cemetery and Ballycarry DNA Projects. Anne is also the Data Protection Officer for the Society which includes monitoring compliance with data protection legislation, an important aspect of processing personal information in the DNA Projects. Anne has been researching her own family tree, on and off, for over 60 years but nowadays spends most of her time helping others with their family history research.

In her presentation Anne will outline the objectives of the Islandmagee DNA Project and her approach to it. The project is still ongoing but she will report on progress, the benefits of a project-based approach and some of the issues faced.

IFHS Members’ Interests Meet-Ups

Oct 24 all-day

There will be 2 sessions during the day to try and suit as many of of members as possible re time zones.

Session 1: 10am Dublin time

Session 2: 4pm Dublin time

The purpose of the meet ups is to discuss members’ queries regarding their research so do please send in any queries in advance so we can prep some answers to help get the discussion started.

Nov

IFHS: Conference: The Story Of The Irish Diaspora – Emigration and Immigration

Nov 21 all-day

The theme of this year’s conference is Emigration. We will hosted at The Fumbally in Dublin. The day will include 5 talks plus lunch and will be available to attend both in person or via Zoom.

9.30am Registration

10 am Mel Howes, Chairperson Opening Remarks
10.10 Raymond Keogh
11.15 Brian Donovan
12.30 Mel Howes
1-2 Lunch
2pm Gerard Moran
3.15 Cathy Scuffil
4.30 Mel Howes Conclusion

Cathy Scuffil: Reverse Emigration – Residents of Dublin’s South Circular Road before the First World War

Cathy Scuffil’s work on the South Circular Road is one of the most detailed social histories of the area. Her book, The South Circular Road, Dublin, on the Eve of the First World War, is based primarily on the 1911 census, which combined street directories, parish records, valuation records and other archival sources to reconstruct who lived along the road and how the neighbourhood functioned. One of the most interesting findings was that the South Circular Road was far less “local” than many people assume, the road attracted migrants from across Ireland and much further afield. Among the many Dublin-born residents, large sections of the population had been born elsewhere. The road acted as a transition zone between the city centre and the suburbs, attracting people who had moved to Dublin for work and education purposes reflecting the city’s role as the country’s administrative and commercial centre in the decades before independence.

Brian Donovan: Title: Finding the Irish in Australia and New Zealand

Brian Donovan is an academic historian and digital heritage leader with more than 25 years’ experience in family history, archives and historical publishing. He has worked with local and national cultural institutions to initiate and manage major digitisation projects that helped bring millions of Irish records and newspaper pages online. He is currently Strategic Growth Lead for the History division of DC Thomson (owners of Findmypast). He holds a PhD in History and is passionate about creating user-focused, sustainable historical products and resources.

Talk description: Discover how Irish migrants settled in Australia and New Zealand, and how different records can help you rebuild their stories across generations.

Mel Howes: UK records and Irish immigration

Mel is Chairperson of the IFHS and works with technology in her day job. She first became interested in genealogy 20 years ago and has been compiling an ever-growing family tree with roots spread across England, Ireland and Scotland. More recently she has completed the Intermediate and Advanced Family History Skills and Strategies certificates from Pharos Tutors and the Society of Genealogists.

Talk description: This short talk will provide a quick overview of key resources in England & Wales and Scotland that are of use to the Irish researcher following families who emigrated from Ireland.

Gerard Moran: ‘In Search of the Promised Land’: Family Emigration to North America in the Nineteenth Century.

Gerard lectured in the History Department at NUI Galway and Maynooth University. He has published extensively on 19th-century Ireland, including Sending Out Ireland’s Poor: Assisted Emigration to North America in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2004), Fleeing from Famine in Connemara: James Hack Tuke and his Assisted Emigration Scheme in the 1880s (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2018) and joint editor of Mayo: History and Society (Dublin, Geography Publication, 2015); and the Famine Heroes of Ireland’s Great Hunger series with Christine Kinealy. His most recent publication is Children in the Workhouse: Following the footsteps of Mary Fielding (Galway County Council, 2026).

Talk description: Throughout the nineteenth century Ireland’s greatest export was her people with an estimated eight million leaving the country between 1815 and 1914. The majority leaving during this period were young and single, primarily aged between 16 and 24 years emigrating in search of a better life for economic and societal reasons. Between 1847 and 1848, 45 per cent of those leaving were in this age cohort and in 1881 the figure was 57 per cent. North America was the main destination for the Irish emigrant with 5.3 million leaving between 1845 and 1914. Families who wanted to leave found it difficult pay for the passage fares across the Atlantic and large numbers depended on friends and relations already settled in North America to provide the money. However, there was another group who did not have this option and were assisted by the government, the Poor Law, landlords and philanthropists. There is a great contrast between those assisted by landlords and the families helped by philanthropists. Landowners saw families with small holdings as a deadweight and while they paid for their passage, made little or no provision for when the families arrived in North America. Those assisted by philanthropists like James Hack Tuke and Fr. John Nugent planned and provided help from the time they left Ireland till they reached their destinations in North America. These tended to have a better life in their new homes.

Raymond M. Keogh: Cognidem & Complementarity of Men & Women in Emigration.

Raymond is the director of Our Own Identity. His approach to family history combines his scientific background with decades of work in international forestry and developmental organisations. He has engaged with family history and identity research societies and spent more than 50 years researching his own complex family story. He is author of Shelter & Shadows (2016).
Talk description: In his presentation, he dives into the relationship between cognition and identity (i.e., ‘Cognidem’) through the ground-breaking Southeast Ireland & Newfoundland Identity Project (SINIP), which uses Big Y-DNA-700 testing to uncover remarkable links between families in southeast Ireland and Newfoundland.

Timeslots to be confirmed. Both members and non-members must buy tickets for this event in the Shop.

Jan

Fri

IFHS Workshop: How To Use your DNA Results – Session 1

Jan 15 all-day

Facilitator: Claire Bradley, assisted by Frances Daly

Claire Bradley is a professional Irish genealogist working with both paper records and genetic genealogy. She holds a Certificate in Genealogy from University College Dublin and a Masters in History of the Family from the University of Limerick. Claire is passionate about teaching people how to research their own ancestry. She teaches a beginners’ adult education course now running for over 15 years covering all the Irish major sources in Malahide and regularly lectures both in person and online to a wide range of family history and historical societies in Ireland and countries with Irish diasporas. Her website is www.cbgenealogy.ie

Frances Daly is a professional Irish genealogist who founded The Irish Genie. Frances is based in Dublin and specialises in Irish Genealogy. She has been researching her own family tree for over 18 years. Using traditional methodologies including civic records, church records, census substitutes, travel records and newspaper archives her family tree has 2,500 verified relatives and continues to grow. She has also incorporated DNA methodologies that have enhanced research opportunities. Frances completed her Certificate in Genealogy from University College Dublin in 2013 and in 2021, graduated from University of Limerick with an MA in History of the Family.

This day will cover:

1. An overview of DNA tests, the difference between the various testing companies pros and cons.

2. How to use your test results to maximize your family history research.

3. Hands on guidance through your own results.

This is day 1 of 2 separate days, in-person only, in Dublin. The sessions will be hands-on and limited in numbers.

The time between the 2 days is to allow for you to get familiar with the basic tools before progressing to the more advanced tools.

Registration and pre-payment is essential.

This is a Members Only event but please register by mailing info@ifhs.ie, and paying in the Shop. There are payment options for in full or in 2 installments.

Jan

IFHS Talk: Use cases for AI in genealogy

Jan 19 @ 19:30 – 20:30

Speaker: Mel Howes

Mel is Chairperson of the IFHS and works with technology in her day job. She first became interested in genealogy 20 years ago and has been compiling an ever-growing family tree with roots spread across England, Ireland and Scotland. More recently she has been instrumental in launching an AI Genealogy Assistant for IFHS members to use.

This talk will range widely to include types of AI, what they are really good at undertaking and where they spectacularly fail.

As with all talks, it will be delivered over Zoom and is free to all members, but please drop us a message to info@ifhs.ie to register.

Jan

IFHS Members’ Interests Meet Ups

Jan 23 all-day

There will be 2 sessions during the day to try and suit as many of of members as possible re time zones.

Session 1: 10am Dublin time

Session 2: 4pm Dublin time

The purpose of the meet ups is to discuss members’ queries regarding their research so do please send in any queries in advance so we can prep some answers to help get the discussion started.

Feb

IFHS Talk: The Custom House Fire Brigade