The Newest Batch of British & Irish Genealogical Records Now Online
It’s always exciting to see new genealogical records come online because they offer new hope for discoveries and brick wall busting.
Findmypast, a leader in British genealogical records, has recently added thousands of new records to existing and new collections. Among these you’ll find everything from baptism and burial records to British and Irish digitized newspapers.
Huddersfield, England Baptisms
A large market and university town in West Yorkshire, England, Huddersfield is nestled between Leeds and Manchester. It’s the 11th largest town in the United Kingdom, and is known for it’s Victorian architecture. Huddersfield railway station was described by former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom John Betjeman as “the most splendid station façade in England”, second only to St Pancras, London.
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Over 52,000 records covering 14 new parishes have been added to Findmypast’s collection of Huddersfield Baptisms. All new parishes are highlighted in the Huddersfield baptisms parish list.
Each baptismal record includes a transcript of an original parish register entry. This will reveal a combination of your ancestor’s:
- baptism date,
- parent’s names,
- father’s occupation
- and father’s address.
Click here to search the Huddersfield Baptisms
Yorkshire, England Memorial Inscriptions
If you are trying to find out when your ancestor died and was laid to rest in Yorkshire, this growing collection is worth a look. Over 5000 additional records have been added to the Yorkshire Memorial Inscriptions collection.
These newly added records cover 14 Anglican churchyards across the York area (West Riding, North Riding and Ainsty).
The bulk of the records mainly cover the years of the First and Second World Wars.
Search for your ancestors now in the Yorkshire Memorial Inscriptions
Middlesex Baptisms and Monumental Inscriptions
An historic county in southeast England, Middlesex was established in the Anglo-Saxon system from the territory of the Middle Saxons. It existed as an official administrative unit until 1965, and now mostly falls within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in other neighboring ceremonial counties.
Baptisms
Findmypast has recently added over 64,000 new records to existing parishes within the collection of Middlesex Baptisms. These transcripts of original parish register entries will reveal a combination of your ancestor’s baptism date, parent’s names, father’s occupation and address.
The collection also covers parts of London, Surrey, and Hertfordshire.
Search the Middlesex Baptisms Collection
Monumental Inscriptions
Over 5,000 additional monumental inscription records are now available to search. The new records cover two cemeteries in Teddington as well as the Parish of St Mary’s in Sunbury.
Monumental Inscriptions can reveal the names of others buried in that plot as well as more specific details regarding age, birth and death dates. This can be incredibly helpful as it can provide you with the names and dates of your ancestor’s next of kin, including their relation to one another.
Search the Middlesex Monumental Inscriptions here.
Essex Genealogical Records
Essex is a large county in the south-east of England and forms part of the Metropolitan Green Belt just beyond greater London. The original Kingdom of Essex, founded by Saxon King Aescwine in AD 527, occupied territory to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lee. In the 1640s, during the English Civil War, notorious witch hunter General Matthew Hopkins lived in the county accused 23 women in Chelmsford in 1645.
You will find five million baptism, banns, marriages, and burial records from Essex on Findmypast. These records were created from the original registers held by the Essex Record Office and other sources.
The oil on canvas The Hay Wain by John Constable shows the Essex landscape on the right bank.
Essex Baptisms
This collection covers 532 parishes and reveals:
- birth place,
- birth date,
- birth place,
- denomination,
- residence,
- baptism date,
- baptism place,
- parents’ names,
- and father’s occupation.
Search the Essex Baptism Index 1538-1920 here.
Essex Marriages and Banns
These records cover 553 parishes and provide the following information:
- residence
- occupation
- marital status
- banns year
- marriage date
- location
- spouse’s name
- spouse’s residence
- spouse’s marital status
- father’s name
- spouse’s father’s name
- names of any witnesses
Search the Essex Marriages and Banns 1537-1935
Essex Burials
This collection covers 455 parishes and provide:
- birth year
- age at death
- denomination
- birth year
- burial year
- burials date
- burial place
Search the Essex Burial Index 1530-1994
Derbyshire Genealogical Records
Derbyshire stole my heart this year during a recent trip to England where I spoke at THE Genealogy Show conference. It’s preserved historic beauty can be greatly attributed to the Peak District National Park which mostly falls within this East Midlands area county.
Photo: My recent visit to beautiful Derbyshire, England
Births and Baptisms
Just under a thousand additional records from 15 non-conformist parishes have been added to the Findmypast collection of Derbyshire Births and Baptisms.
Mainly covering Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, the full list of new additions has been highlighted in their Derbyshire parish list.
Search Derbyshire Births and Baptisms here.
Kent Burials
Over 4,500 records of burials that took place at St Martin’s church in Cheriton are now available to search here. These new additions cover two periods, 1843 to 1855 and 1907 to 1958. Search these records to discover where and when your ancestor was buried, as well as the names of their spouse and father.
These burial records constitute a valuable resource for researching ancestry in Kent and have been provided in association with:
- Canterbury Cathedral Archives
- Kent County Council
- the North West Kent Family History Society,
- Folkestone & District Family History Society
- and Val Brown.
Billion Graves Cemetery Indexes at Findmypast
You just might be able to pinpoint your ancestor’s final resting place with the new additions to Findmypast’s Billion Graves Cemetery Indexes. The latest update includes:
- Over 114,000 new additions to the England Billion Graves Cemetery Index
- Over 2,000 new additions to the Ireland Billion Graves Cemetery Index
Cemetery records like these can provide you with information regarding your ancestor’s birth and marriage dates.
According to Alex Cox of Findmypast, “With an abundance of cemeteries, it can be overwhelming trying to pinpoint the precise cemetery in which your ancestor was laid to rest, and visiting each potential location is costly. However, in partnering with BillionGraves, we aim to make available all the cemetery records held on their site for free, saving you time and money as you search for your ancestor. BillionGraves is the largest resource for GPS-tagged headstone and burial records on the web, with over 12 million headstone records.”
British and Irish Newspapers
Additions to Existing Newspaper Collections
Findmpast has added 98,602 brand new pages to eleven of their existing titles. Spanning the years 1865 to 1999, the new additions include extensive updates the Huddersfield Daily Examiner as well as titles covering the south of England (Crawley and London), the Midlands (Coventry), and the North West (Liverpool).
Further updates have also been made to the specialist publication – Field – for which they now have editions up to 1911.
Additional updates have been made to twenty-one existing titles, covering the length and breadth of Scotland, Ireland and England. These include updates to two Cornish titles – the Royal Cornwall Gazette and Lake’s Falmouth Packet and Cornwall Advertiser, as well as updates to seven Scottish titles, including the John o’Groat Journal and the Perthshire Advertiser.
There has been a significant update to the Bristol Times and Mirror, with over 33,000 pages added, covering the years 1897 to 1911.
Also updated are two early Labour publications – Clarion and the Labour Leader – as well as one of our religious titles, Witness (Edinburgh), and the sporting title, the Football Post (Nottingham). As you can see, there is a diverse range of interests represented.
New Newspaper Titles
The Queen, The Ladies’ Newspaper and Court Chronicle, a society magazine by Samuel Beeton established in 1861, and the Women’s Gazette and Weekly News have also been added. Published in Manchester, this was a ‘journal devoted to the social and political position of women.’
More historical newspapers added this summer include:
- Hawick Express covering the years 1892, 1903-1904, 1913-1914, 1919-1940, 1950-1952
- Coatbridge Express covering the years 1885-1951
- Dalkeith Advertiser covering the years 1869-1953
- Barrhead News covering the years 1897-1912
- Banffshire Herald covering the years 1893-1912
- Banffshire Advertiser covering the years 1881-1902, 1905-1912
Check out the latest British & Irish Newspaper Updates here.
RootsMagic 8
Show Notes: Bruce Buzbee, CEO of RootsMagic, the leading genealogy software program joins Lisa Louise Cooke for an update on what’s new at RootsMagic.
Video and show notes
You’ll learn:
- why you need a genealogy software database rather than just an online family tree,
- Bruce’s 3 favorite features of RootsMagic 8,
- and what’s new at the RootsMagic website.
Watch the Video
Resources
Download the ad-free Show Notes handout (Premium Members exclusive)
Show Notes
One of the best and most popular software programs for genealogy is RootsMagic. Here to give us the latest on RootsMagic and RootsMagic. 8, which is the newest version, is the developer and the CEO of RootsMagic, Bruce Buzbee.
Genealogy Software versus Online Family Tree
Lisa: One of the questions I get a lot is how is having your genealogy on a software database, like RootsMagic, different or preferable to having just an online family tree?
Bruce: We get we get asked that a lot, why should I do this when I can keep my tree on Ancestry or FamilySearch, or MyHeritage?
No one can change your data
The biggest thing is having your data on your computer, on your own computer. That way you have complete control over it. You don’t have to be connected to the internet in order to access your data, and you don’t have to worry about somebody else coming in and changing your data. Some of the places you can put your data are global trees (where all users contribute to one shared tree). This means that other people can go in and change your information.
Control over your data without a subscription
Some of the online trees are not global, and you do have your own tree. But you have to pay per year to do that. And if you stop paying, all of a sudden, you’ve kind of lost some of that control over your over your data and linked records.
Backups
If you have your genealogy database on your own computer – the pictures, scanned documents, all of those things are on your computer – you can make backups of them, so they’re safe.
Protection from website changes
The other advantage to having it on your own computer is just the peace of mind that if that website has problems or goes down or something happens, you’ve still got your own copy. So, you don’t have to worry about that.
Reporting
Another advantage of having your data on your own computer is the fact that there are unique things you can do in a desktop program that there just isn’t the computational power to do on a website. Things like doing massive merges and generating large reports. Those are things that if your data is up on website, the only way you can get all of the data, for example, for your whole database in a report is to download all of that data into a report or have the website actually have the computational power to generate that report, and then send you that report over the internet. Both of those are very difficult to do, transporting that data back and forth or being able to generate enough computational power for each individual user. If you have thousands or millions of users you can’t, as a website, dedicate that much power to each one of those users. Whereas on your own personal computer, that computer is only working on your what you’re doing.
Lisa: That’s a great point. I mean, I’m a huge advocate of having what I call it my master family tree in my software on my computer for all the security reasons you mentioned.
You also talked about, which I think is so important, that ability to slice and dice and have so many layers of data that we can analyze. And I think the more ways we can look at our data the better so that we can learn more from it.
The Origins of RootsMagic
When did RootsMagic begin? I feel like it’s been out there forever.
Bruce: The actual RootsMagic program was released in 2003. I actually had written a program called Family Origins before that, which was kind of a predecessor to it. It was sold through another company. I did all the development and everything and they did the sales and marketing. That was release in about 1991. So, we went about 10 years as Family Origins, and probably about almost about 20 years as RootsMagic.
RootsMagic 8
Lisa: that’s amazing. And it’s gone through many different versions. Of course, the most recent release was RootsMagic. Eight. Tell us about that. When did that come out? And what are what are we getting now?
Bruce: RootsMagic 8 came out October 2021. In January 2021 we released a kind of public community preview. So, we did about 10 months of just letting users pound on it and complain about it and give us opinions – you should change this, this doesn’t work right, or I like this, or I don’t like that. We were able to use a lot of that information.
We released it in October 2021 and it’s by far our biggest update. It was a total rewrite. We basically started from scratch, because there were a lot of things in the earlier versions that could really bog you down. You’d go into the older versions of RootsMagic, and you’d be looking at a screen with people, and if you wanted to see your places you’d have to pop up another screen. If you wanted to see your sources, you’d have to pop up a separate screen to see your sources. And so, you had to go into these multiple levels of depth, screen after screen. to get to things. Then, when you were ready to get back to your people, you’d have to close each pop-up screen to get back. So that was one of the things that we really wanted to fix with version 8.
In version 8 one of the big things is kind of the overall workflow to doing things. Instead of always being on a person screen, and then hopping to sources, or hopping to places or hopping to tasks or hopping to something else, and then going into that, and then when you’re done backing out, and then to go to something else, you have to go back, what we did is we created multiple views in the program. So, there’s the person view. You can be looking at any person, and if you want to see the places, you just change your view to the place view. It’s not a separate pop-up window. You can switch to that view and switch right back. And you can switch from the person view to a place view, and then switch directly from that to source view, and then directly to a task view or the address view. You can switch between these views without having to always come back to that person view. So, it really speeds up getting things done.
Another great thing about these views is since they’re not a pop-up, whatever you’re looking at on that view stays on that view. So, if I’m looking at the places and I select a particular place, I see all the information about it. If I want to look at a source, I can switch to the sources. And when I switch back to that place view, I’m still working with the same place as I was before, I’m not having to go back into a place pop-up and then search for that place again to get back to where I was. It just it basically keeps in its’ memory a lot more things. You’re not having to search over and over for that same thing. When you’re on it, you’re on it.
Lisa: That makes a lot of sense. What you offer over an online tree is all of these different ways to look at our data.
Why Does RootsMagic Need Changing?
Is it that over the years with all the different updates those layers kind of accumulated and then it brings you to a place where it needs updating?
Bruce: Exactly!
And every time you come up with an update, we think ‘oh, we’re going to add this new feature.’ So, for example, in the past we added to do lists, and then we added research logs and then we added the ability to do more stuff with sources. Every time we added something it was like, ‘Oh, well, the best way to do that is to pop-up a new screen and put everything there.’ And every time you added a new feature, it just added another thing you had to, like going back and forth.
Now if we were to add a new type of feature, we don’t necessarily have to make a pop-up. We can create another view and make it always available so that you can switch in and out of it without losing your place within that view.
Lisa: So, it was a complete rewrite, and I know that it synchronizes with some of the online family trees websites. It had to have been an arduous process. You said that you went through months and months of user testing, which I think is fantastic. So many times, you look at a website, and you think they must never have run this past anybody who ever used it, because it doesn’t look like it runs the way a user would use it. How was that process for you? Was that a difficult decision to invest the time upfront, and have people wait until it can be launched the way you felt like it needed to be?
Bruce: We were still fixing bugs too. So, it wasn’t like we took a completely bug free program and asked users to try it out. They were finding bugs and reporting bugs, and they were also reporting this is overly complicated here to do. And so, there were places where we would tear something out and change it a little bit, or we would leave something the way it was working because we liked it.
Some of the users found it was harder than what they were used to. So, we went back and added functionality that was more similar to what they maybe were used to. Probably our biggest challenge even now is users that are coming from RootsMagic 6 or 7 that have been using it forever. All of a sudden 8 works different. It’s not the same, and they feel like ‘oh, this is harder to use’ when in reality, it really isn’t, it’s just different. We have new users that are coming over from other programs or from no program at all, and they overwhelmingly love the way it works. They love the way they can get around and switch to any view. They overwhelmingly love it.
It’s our own existing longtime users that seem to have the most issues with it, which is unfortunate. A lot of that is just because it doesn’t work the same as it used to. I’m the same way. I understand completely! For example, with my programming tool suite, if a new version of my programming tools come out, and they work quite a bit different than it was, I almost immediately hate it! But after I use it for a while, I’m like, ‘Okay, I guess I can see why they did this.’ But I had my I had my groove, and now my groove was disrupted. The hotkeys are not the same, for example. I used to be able to do all this, this, and this and something was done. Now it’s like, I have to do different alt keys, I have to click twice instead of hitting four Alt keys. And so, for them it feels like it takes longer, when in reality, there are fewer steps. It’s just not what somebody is used to.
Lisa: Right, change is always a little challenging!
Bruce: I understand it completely because I’m the same way.
Can RootsMagic Run on a Mac?
Lisa: Can we use this on a PC and a Mac?
Bruce: Yes. With version 8, we now have a native Mac version and a native Windows version. They both work exactly the same.
If you use one and then switch to the other, it looks exactly the same except it’s got little red, yellow and green dots instead of x’s. But yes, they have the same file format. They have the same set of commands.
Many times, you’ll have a software product that the Mac version and the Windows version are quite a bit different. That’s because they’re completely separate sets of code. You have one team developing Mac, and one team developing Windows. They look and work differently and maybe sometimes even have different file formats.
With this, they’re the same. They look and feel the same. The command structures are the same, the screens are the same, the file format is the same. In fact, when we sell the program, you get a key, and it’s good for both the Windows and the Mac version. So, if you have a Windows computer and a Mac computer, when you buy the program, you’re entitled to use both versions. You can install one on your Mac and one on your Windows computer.
Top Features of RootsMagic 8
Lisa: That’s terrific. So, we’ve talked about all the new great views, and that it works on both PC and Mac. That’s two great features. What’s your third favorite thing about the new program?
Bruce: Well, it’s a tie. It’s a tie between tasks, which are new, and our new report engine.
Reports
We rewrote our reporting engine. In the older version our reports were using a word processor control that we licensed. It had some limitations. It couldn’t create really large reports. And there was a bunch of things with it that we didn’t like, but we couldn’t fix because it was a third-party product.
When we switched to going both Windows and Mac, the product was only available for Windows, so we had to rewrite the report engine from scratch. It’s giving us a lot more flexibility to do things on reports in the future.
One of the things we can do in reports is instead of saving as a rich text file, we can save report as actual Word .docx files, an actual Word document. It comes into your word processor, whether it’s Word, or whether it’s Libre, or whatever you use. They can all read a .docx file. It’s a lot more structured. It’s not quite as rolling the dice that it will work as RTF as RTF was.
Tasks
Then with tasks, we kind of combined things in RootsMagic 7. We had to do lists. We had research logs, we had correspondence logs, we had all these things, which all were very similar. What we did is we kind of replaced those all with what we call tasks.
Tasks are super flexible. You just create a task, and that task in RootsMagic can link to almost anything. It can link to people, places, sources, citations, addresses, and media. What’s nice is, instead of having like a hardwired Research Log, where you go in and say I want to create a research log, and this is what it’s, and going in and manually adding items to that research, you can just create a task. You attach it to whatever people or families or events or sources or places you want. Then when it comes time to generate a report, you just say give me all the tasks that are attached to this group of people that are within 50 miles of this place. You end up with customized research logs. So, instead of having to create a fixed research log, and then adding individual items to it that only belong to that, you take these tasks that are attached to any number of things. Then you just tell it, give me a list of all the tasks for whatever criteria you want. The result is a completely customized Research Log, customized to do list, whatever you want to use it for.
That’s one of my favorites. It’s super flexible. It can be a little confusing to work with at the beginning. But once you kind of see what’s going on and the simplicity – that all you have to do is create a task and attach it to whatever you want – it’s great.
RootsMagic Help and Website Features
Lisa: Tell folks a little bit about the website. You guys have always been in the forefront of providing support and education for being able to use your program to its fullest capability.
Bruce: From the website, you can access, basically everything we have.
Help Chat
When you go to the website, down on the bottom corner, there’s a chat feature. You can chat with our tech support if you need help. They can answer questions and help you out.
RootsMagic Wiki
We also have a wiki. We’ve moved away from the online help of the past. You’ll find it on our website in the menu under Learn. It’s nice because it’s much better than help, for several reasons. One, we can keep it updated. With the old Help feature, if we change or add something, you don’t know about it unless we remember to update the Help file. Now, as soon as we add something, we can stick it on the wiki.
The other thing that’s nice about the wiki is that we can put videos and more graphics and links in there to other topics. Everything you could possibly want to know about how to use RootsMagic is there in the wiki.
Videos and YouTube Channel
We have tutorial videos and our YouTube channel. We have a bunch of YouTube videos on how to use the program.
Webinars
We also have the videos of webinars we’ve done. We’ve been slacking a little bit, the last few months, and we haven’t had a webinar recently. We need to get back on that. But all of the webinars that we’ve had, and we’ve recorded, they’re available up there to watch as well.
Online Community
We have an online community, a message board, that’s very active. We of course have a blog with articles on all kinds of help topics. And we have our email newsletter. That’s kind of where we notify people when there are updates or if there are things we need to contact them about. We do that mainly through our email newsletter. So, all of those things are available through the website.
New Website
We redid the website at the same time that we released RootsMagic 8. The old website was kind of clunky. It wasn’t mobile responsive. So, we redid it all.
User Groups
Oh, I guess we also have a list of user groups on our website, too. There are user groups all over the country, in fact they are worldwide. It also includes a list of people who want to start a user group. So, if somebody wants to start a user group in their area because there isn’t one, they can give us their name and contact information. We can put that up so people can connect easily and quickly.
Lisa: There is certainly a lot that’s new this year at RootsMagic. Bruce, thank you so much for stopping by. It’s been terrific talking with you!
Resources
Download the ad-free Show Notes handout (Premium Members exclusive)
Gathering Genealogical Evidence to Prove a Theory – Irish Genealogy
Episode 19 Video and Show Notes
Join me for Elevenses with Lisa, the online video series where we take a break, visit and learn about genealogy and family history. (scroll down to watch the video)
Genealogy Consultation Provides a Strong Hypothesis
My 45-minute consultation with a genealogy expert Kate Eakman at Legacy Tree Genealogists broke things wide open on my Irish family lines and gave me the information and resources I needed to make all of the progress I shared in this episode. It’s the best investment I’ve made in my genealogy in a long time. They have experts in all areas. Learn more about how easy it is to book a consultation here.
After my consultation I needed to update my research plan and get to work collecting more genealogical evidence.
Let’s quickly recap what happened when I started working on my brick wall last week in episode 18:
- Margaret Lynch’s death certificate said her parents were James Scully and Bridget Madigan.
- Her obituary said she was born in Limerick Ireland.
- There was one couple by those names in Limerick, having children and the right time. There is a gap in the records where Margaret should be.
- Her husband Michael Lynch dies in Stillwater MN. St. Michael’s Catholic church. Found their marriage record in Stillwater. It was a large booming town, and a good place to focus. The Lynch family had a farm across the river in Farmington, Wisconsin.
My research question: Was this couple we found, James Scully and Bridget Madigan, who married in Kilcolman, Limerick, Ireland in 1830, the parents of Margaret Scully?
What Kate Eakman of Legacy Tree Genealogists helped me do in my 45-minute consultation:
- Become acquainted with a variety of excellent Irish research websites
- Located the indexed marriage record for James and Bridget
- Located the original marriage record for James and Bridget
- Located the indexed baptismal records for all of the children who had James and Bridget listed as their parents.
A Genealogy Research Plan for Collecting Evidence
After the consultation I developed a new research question: Are the children that we found records for in Ireland the siblings of my Margaret Lynch?
My research plan included:
- Verify if there were any other couples by the names James Scully and Bridget Madigan married in Ireland, particularly in the time from of circa 1830. (Location of source: RootsIreland.ie)
- Search in the U.S., starting in the area where Margaret lived, for each child. I’m looking for records that name these same parents, and show the child at an age that correlates with the baptismal date.
I identified several sources I believed would help me accomplish my goals.
Marriage Records – I conducted a search for James in Bridget in all counties in Ireland. I discovered that the couple Kate found during my consultation is the only couple in the RootsIreland database with those names married in Ireland. This gives me more confidence that I have the correct couple.
U.S. Records – Armed with the names and ages of the children of James and Bridget, it was time to return to America. I needed to search U.S. records to see if any of the children came to America (perhaps living near Margaret) and if these parents were named.
Records to look for:
- U.S. Federal Census (Ancestry, FamilySearch), and State Census (Minnesota Historical Society, Ancestry, FamilySearch)
- Death records (Minnesota Historical Society, FamilySearch.)
- Newspapers, particularly obituaries possibly naming parents or Limerick. (Minnesota Historical Society, Newspapers.com)
Before I began my search I created an excel spreadsheet to capture the information. I included columns for what their ages should be in each census.
Using a spreadsheet to track my findings.
Now I was ready to start the genealogical hunt!
U.S. Census
Search each sibling one at a time in the census.
- Focus on Washington Co., Minnesota (marriage and death location for Margaret & Michael Lynch)
- Move on to Polk County Wisconsin, and greater Wisconsin.
- Search both U.S. Federal Census & State Census
- Top locations identified for this search: Ancestry.com, Familysearch.org, Minnesota Historical Society
Results:
- Found individuals matching the sons in Stillwater and Baytown (Washington County)
- Found Bridget Scully (Mother) living with various sons in various census records.
- Immigration years listed for some of Margaret’s siblings.
Found in the 1870 U.S. Federal Census: James, Thomas, Daniel and Bridget.
I created folders for each sibling marked MAYBE and collected the records on my hard drive.
Learn more about hard drive organization in Elevenses with Lisa episode 8.
Searched FamilySearch and the Minnesota Historical Society for a death record for each son.
- Found Thomas and James.
- James Scully and Bridget Madigan listed as parents
- Ages matched
- Next step: order the death certificates
Newspapers
Next I searched the Minnesota Historical Society website for newspapers.
Results:
- 170+ articles
- Two obituaries for Bridget Scully! (8 children, immigration year, husband died in Ireland implied)
- Found James Scully working with his brother and his obituary
Research Tip: Look at a map and identify nearby towns and larger cities. Expand your search to these areas.
I found a James Scully in the 1860 census with Bridget and his brothers, and working with Thomas in many newspaper articles.
Bridget’s obituary said she came to America with 8 children. 7 had baptismal records in Ireland. James and Margaret were not found in the baptismal records but were confirmed in U.S. records to have the same parents. That would be a total of 9 children. It’s possible one of the daughters that have not yet been found in U.S. records may have died in Ireland prior to their leaving for America.
I then combed back through my Lynch binder – I might spot something that I marked as unsure, or that might jump out at me now that didn’t 20 years ago.
- Found History of the St. Croix Valley I had photocopied a section. Names Daniel Scully (who I have since found in the census, newspapers and death records) and says his parents are James Scully and Bridget Madigan!
- Looked the book up in Google Books. It’s fully digitized. Now I can extensively read and search it.
Tech Tip: Clip and combine newspaper clippings with SnagIt software
Clipping and saving newspapers poses a unique challenge for genealogists:
- Clipping a small portion of a very large digital newspaper page can result in a low resolution file.
- If you clip an article you don’t always capture which newspaper and issue it came from
- Articles often continue in different locations on the page or pages, making it impossible to capture the entire article in one image.
I use SnagIt software to clip my newspaper finds. I can then save them to Evernote or archive them on my hard drive. SnagIt can save your clippings in wide range of file types and can even clip video. You can get your copy of SnagIt here. It’s a one time fee and download – no subscription! (Thank you for using my link – it financially supports this free without any added expense to you.)
How to combine multiple clippings with Snagit:
- Clip the paper title and date
- Clip the article
- Clip any additional applicable sections of the article
- In the SnagIt menu under Image click Combine Images
- Drag and drop the clippings into the desired order
- Click the Combine button
- Save the combined image: In the menu File > Save As (you can select from a wide variety of file types)
Use SnagIt to combine newspaper clippings – https://tinyurl.com/snaggems
Research Tip: Using Street Addresses in Google Earth
When you find a street address, whether in a newspaper, city directory, census or other genealogical record, use it to find the location in the free Google Earth software program. You can then save an HD quality image of the location.
How to find a location in Google Earth (on a computer):
- Type the address into the search field in the upper left corner
- Click the Search button
- The map will automatically “fly to” the location and a pin will mark the general spot.
- Hover your mouse pointer in the upper right corner of the to reveal the navigation tools. Click the plus sign to zoom in closer.
How to view the location with Street View:
- Zoom in relatively close so that the street and buildings are distinctly visible.
- Just above the zoom tool you will find the Street View icon (the yellow “peg man”). Click on the icon and drag it over the street in front of the building / location. Don’t release your mouse. It may take a second or two for the blue line to appear indicating that Street View is available in that location. If no blue line appears street view is not available.
- When the blue line is visible, drop the Street View icon directly onto the blue line in front of the location you want to view. by releasing your mouse. If you miss the line and the picture looks distorted, click the Exit button in the upper right corner and try again.
- Once on Street View, you can use your keyboard arrow keys to navigate. You can also click on further down the street to move forward that direction.
How to save an image of a street view location:
- Position yourself in the best view of the desired location using your mouse and keyboard arrow keys as described above.
- In the toolbar at the top of the screen, click the Image icon (it looks like a portrait-oriented page, near the printer icon)
- A Title and Description box will appear at the top of the screen beneath the toolbar. Click it and type in a title and description for your image if desired.
- You can adjust the size (resolution) of the image you will be saving by clicking the Resolution button above the title box.
- When you’re ready to save the image to your hard drive, click the Save Image
Learn more about using Google Earth for genealogy in Elevenses with Lisa episode 12.
Order the video training series at the Genealogy Gems Store featuring 14 exclusive step-by-step video tutorials. The perfect companion to the book The Genealogists’s Google Toolbox by Lisa Louise Cooke.
After a week of post-consultation research:
Question: Who were the parents of Margaret Scully born in Limerick Ireland on approximately July 9, 1840?
Answer: James Scully and Bridget Madigan, married in Limerick, Ireland June 13, 1830. (Though I feel confident about this, I still have additional records I want to find in order to further solidify this conclusion.)
Question: In what Parish was Margaret Lynch born?
Answer: Most likely Kilcolman based on the baptismal locations of her siblings.
My Next Research Steps:
- Browse search through the baptismal parish records at NLI 1839-1842 for Margaret, and 1834-1836 for James Scully.
- Look for marriages of Margaret’s female siblings, and family burials.
(Contact St. Michael’s church, Stillwater, MN.) - Go through newspapers.com – there are several Minneapolis and St. Paul papers running articles from Stillwater.
- Resume my search of passenger list records with the newly revised date of c. 1851.
- Search for the death record of Bridget’s husband James at RootsIreland and NLI.
How to Book a Genealogy Consultation
My 45-minute consultation with a genealogy expert Kate Eakman at Legacy Tree Genealogists broke things wide open on my Irish family lines and gave me the information and resources I needed to make all of the progress I shared in this episode. It’s the best investment I’ve made in my genealogy in a long time. They have experts in all areas. Learn more about how easy it is to book a consultation here.
Learn More:
For more step-by-step instructions for using Google Earth read my book The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox available at the Genealogy Gems Store.
Recommended Genealogy Gems Premium Member Videos with downloadable handouts:
- Records > Getting the Scoop from Old Newspapers (newly updated)
- Geography > Google Earth for Genealogy
- Geography > Time Travel with Google Earth
- Methodology > Genealogical Cold Cases
Learn more about Genealogy Gems Premium membership here.
Genealogy News: Free Webinar
Watch the free video recording of my session on the MyHeritage Collection Catalog here.
Resources:
Live Chat PDF– Click here to download the live Chat from episode 19 which includes my answers to your questions.
Genealogy Gems Premium Members:
- Show Notes PDF – Genealogy Gems Premium Members can click here to download the show notes PDF for this episode. (Log in required.)
- My simple spreadsheet for tracking baptisms.
- Cheat Sheet: How to Decipher an Irish Catholic Baptismal Record Entry.
Become a Premium Member here.