Author: John Reid

Issue 23, the Summer 2025 edition of Irish Lives Remembered, the official magazine of the Irish Family History Centre, is just out and free online.

Articles cover both historical and recent Irish lives, complemented by genealogy tips. There’s Canadian content.

Featured articles cover the legend of St. Brendan, the experiences of Irish Arctic explorers, some of whom played a crucial role in navigating the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and the significant Celtic lineage of Canadian artist Shania Twain.

There’s a feature article on the Irish background of Alexander Ector Orr, recognized as the “Father of the New York Subway.”

Further content includes an interview discussing Dublin’s AIDS crisis, a profile of Thom McGinty, an examination of historical Irish medical clans, and an account of health and fitness pioneer Kathleen Mary O’Rourke. For genealogical pursuits, articles provide guidance on managing DNA matches and tracing matrilineal ancestry.

Regular columns include a “Heritage Highlight” on Craggaunowen Castle & Crannóg, two “Dear Genie” segments addressing reader genealogy queries, and an “Emerald Roots” interview with Helen Moss, Senior Researcher at the Irish Family History Centre. Concluding the issue are reviews and a book excerpt, featuring Frontier (a series exploring early Canadian history) and Irish Nurses in the NHS: An oral history.

 

Ancestry continues to expand its Birmingham records, adding 52,407 records on June 30 for All Saints Hospital, dedicated to the care and treatment of individuals living with mental illnesses.

Sourced from the Library of Birmingham, the newly accessible collection encompasses both patient registers, which aggregate information for multiple individuals, and personal case files, detailing individual patient histories. Those provide details such as their name, occupation, marital status, and precise dates of admission, transfer, discharge, or demise. Genealogical information, including the names of parents, spouses, and other familial relationships, may be present.

Ancestry now has 12 Birmingham collections, including two added in June, as well as those for Warwickshire and of broader scope, such as the censuses, which incorporate Birmingham information.

 

 Sandwiched between walks, I spent part of Canada Day watching the following YouTube video by Canadian Mark Thompson. Recorded 3 weeks ago for FamilySearch, it makes up in part for the lack of posts to The AI Family History Show, which he shares with Steve Little.

It’s long and recommended.

The following was accidentally posted to an earlier date. It’s reposted here in case you missed it.

Do you have problems locating and understanding historical place names in Scotland? Pre-19th-century spellings were unstandardized, requiring flexible search strategies.

In June, the National Library of Scotland released a comprehensive placenames research guide that consolidates ten searchable placename databases covering 400 years of Scottish cartographic history.

The guide organizes gazetteers chronologically, from Timothy Pont’s pioneering surveys (1583-1600) through contemporary OpenStreetMap data. Notable collections include the Roy Military Survey (1747-1755) with 33,523 names, Joan Blaeu’s complete atlas of Scotland (1654) containing 28,394 entries, and the massive Ordnance Survey database (1888-1913) with 2.5 million transcriptions.

Choose from these selected free online events; there are thin pickings this week. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration may be required in advance—please check the links to avoid disappointment. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit conferencekeeper.

Today, 30 June, is the anniversary of the explosion and fire which destroyed the building and contents of The Public Record Office of Ireland during the Irish Civil War.
To mark the occasion, the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland project released over 175,000 historical documents, replacing records lost in 1922.
Read about them here, where you can try a search to see if it adds anything for the names and places in your family tree.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

The Beechwood Stroll – Tuesday 8 July 2025

A guided historical tour through Beechwood National Cemetery of Canada. This tour is rain or shine, and begins at 10:30 AM.
https://beechwoodottawa.ca/en/foundation/events/full-beechwood-stroll-8-july-2025-west-half

Why brands are embracing fantasy: The psychology behind escapist marketing in anxious times

The Real World of the Middle Ages
Helpful for people interested in how our ancestors lived; 172 videos, historically researched and easily digestible.
https://www.youtube.com/@ModernKnight

FreeBMD June Update
The FreeBMD Database was updated on Tuesday, 24 June 2025, to contain 293,415,571 unique entries, an increase from 293,193,549 the previous month. Years with more than 10,000 additions include births from 1993 to 1996, marriages from 1994 to 1996, and deaths in 1995.

The collection comprises 2,113,702 records from court proceedings from both Petty and Quarter court sessions. Petty Sessions adjudicated lesser charges not requiring a jury, such as minor theft, failure to pay train fare, public drunkenness, and paternity cases. Quarter Sessions addressed more serious criminal offences, including manslaughter and major thefts, as well as occasionally civil business matters; these sessions often involved a jury for more severe cases. Both court types operated at the county level. The records are predominantly handwritten, though some later entries are typed.

Key information within these records may include: the defendant’s name and age, the complainant’s name, the date and nature of the offence, the place and date of trial, specific charge details, and trial results, alongside the name of the presiding court official.

My Northwood family lived in Birmingham from the 1700s. I haven’t traced any of them as late as the 1890s, but was interested to see if there might have been distant cousins mentioned. There were 169 Northwood entries,. Eleven people named were classified as defendants, although in one case they were jury members. All five Northwood complainants were in entries after 1912.

 

This week, Findmypast has added three  groups of records:

1. UK Electoral Registers & Companies House Directors (2025 update)

   1,081,193 new records added. These modern entries cover all UK regions and include:

   • Name and address
   • Electoral roll details (occupancy and household members)
   • An “age guide” (broad age range)
   • An indicator of whether the person is listed as a company director

   This dataset is provided via 192.com, which compiles registers going back to 2002.

2. Cheshire Diocese of Chester Parish Registers

   These additions significantly expand coverage for Cheshire Church of England records:

   • Baptisms (1538–1925): 272,555 records
   • Marriages (1538–1935): 211,575 records
   • Burials (1538–1990): 215,879 records

   All come with both images and transcripts. In addition to the historic county of Cheshire, there’s some overlap with parts of Halton and Warrington.

   3. Newspapers

   182,850 pages added to the newspaper collection this week, with six new titles and fourteen updates.

   Norfolk researchers rejoice over the following overdue additions:

   • Norwich Argus (new title):
     Years covered: 1893–1895, 1898–1913
     Covers late Victorian and Edwardian Norwich—excellent for local news, trade notices, and social coverage.

   • Norwich Mercury (updated):
     Year covered: 1827
     Adds rare early 19th-century content for the city and surrounding area—valuable for pre-census research and insight into local affairs.

   • Yarmouth Independent (updated):
     Years covered: 1874
     Adds more from this coastal Norfolk town—shipping, fishing, and tourism stories often feature.

   • Yarmouth Mercury (updated):
     Years covered: 1890–1892, 1897, 1899
     Broadens coverage for late 19th-century Great Yarmouth. Look here for obituaries, court reports, and maritime coverage.

     Longer newspaper runs, newly available or expanded

     • Highland News (Inverness): 1963–1977, 1979–1985, 1987–1990 — a strong run ideal for Highland ancestors or local history

     • Stockport Chronicle: 1891–1892, 1894–1896, 1898–1906 — useful for Greater Manchester/Cheshire border research

     • Bolton Daily Chronicle: 1884–1895 — wide-ranging news from Lancashire.

     • Oxford Journal: 1921–1928 — local coverage from the interwar years

     • Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal: 1768–1788, 1791–1793 — rare 18th-century material for east Kent

     • Midland Reporter and Westmeath Nationalist: 1897–1910, 1916, 1920–1927, 1937–1939.

     • Newry Telegraph: 1923, 1926, 1929, 1945–1949 — Northern Ireland coverage before and after WWII

     • Louth and North Lincolnshire Advertiser: 1908, 1920–1925, 1940–1949 — extended coverage for east Lincolnshire

Ancestry’s newly published collection, London, England, University College Hospital and Middlesex Student Records, 1828–1945, offers access to over 87,000 records drawn from two of London’s leading medical institutions.

Although ‘Student Records’ is in the collection title, and there are some records for the event type ‘Education’, over 95% pertain to ‘Admission’ from Midwifery Case Registers from 1889 to 1917.

The search can be by last name, event date and gender. Although no first name is given for Admissions, the date will narrow the possibilities.

The linked register images contain a wealth of information, including address and medical details such as duration of labour, and comments, often containing obscure terminology.

If you’re a Legacy Family Tree Webinars member, you’re invited to tune in at 2 pm on Friday for Yvette Hoitink’s talk on how hand-written text recognition software can turn manuscripts into searchable transcriptions.

It’s also the last day when new Legacy Family Tree subscribers can get 50% off MyHeritage’s complete subscription!  https://www.myheritage.com/partner/legacyfamilytreejune25

Before the US Civil War, Lancashire’s cotton industry was producing more finished goods than people around the world wanted to buy. The level of production couldn’t last and was already headed for a crash.

The Civil War, and the idea that cotton would become scarce, made people panic. Speculators bought up the available cotton, which drove prices significantly higher. This made it too expensive for mills to keep running at their usual pace. The war exacerbated an existing problem.

The impact on people was harsh. Workers who had been doing relatively well suddenly became very poor because mills closed and jobs disappeared. That may have contributed to more deaths; in Manchester, deaths in 1865 were 14% higher than the decadal average, possibly due to chronic malnutrition, even with local and national help like soup kitchens. While the mills eventually resumed operations, some people relocated (with a slight increase in migration to Canada), and some towns began producing different products, marking a lasting change for Lancashire.

Based on the article A Reconsideration of the Lancashire “Cotton Famine”
Eugene A. Brady, Agricultural History, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jul., 1963), pp. 156-162