Latest news with #historicalrecords
BBC News
05-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
Genealogy: New virtual records unveil lost history of Ireland
Genealogical riches from every county of the island of Ireland feature among 175,000 new historical records which are now available the first time there are now 60,000 names on the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland from the 1821 census which was destroyed in 1922. The Four Courts blaze destroyed the Public Record Office of Ireland, and with it seven centuries of Irish of the virtual records, Dr Ciarán Wallace said handwritten copies of records have enabled the archives to expand. "What we've learned is that in the days before photocopiers and scanners, humans with pens or quills wrote tonnes and tonnes of copies of records, they could make copies for all sorts of reasons, for administrative reasons or for a court case, or for family research," he 1821 portal was compiled by hand, from transcriptions and notes preserved in the National Archives of Ireland and Public Record Office of Northern recovered transcripts of census returns revealed ordinary lives across the island of Ireland in the decades before and after the Great Famine, that were previously lost. Nine thousand new names for Co Armagh Dr Brian Gurrin, Census and Population expert, explained: "The 1821 census recorded the names of 6.8 million people and those names were contained in the public record office in 479 massive volumes. "Four volumes survived out of that and one of them is for a part of County Fermanagh, that's one of the original surviving volumes."County Armagh is one of the most documented counties across the island of Ireland. "We have introduced for some counties, a very small number of names, but for County Armagh we've introduced over 9000 names available in the Virtual Record Treasury. It is the largest number of names for any county in Ireland," Dr Gurrin said. Irish genealogy The portal has been made possible because of the personal notes made by 20th century Gurrin said: "I think it's 24 boxes of Tenison Groves' papers in Belfast. And we've worked through the Gertrude Thrift and Phillip Crossley's papers down in Dublin working page by page, by page, trying to identify census extracts that were taken by them that don't exist anymore in the originals."Dr Gurrin believes that this is the most extensive trawl that was ever conducted on these genealogical papers in order to extract "every scrap of census information". "I think we've looked at over 150,000 individual pages searching down through them to try to find the various census extracts that they would have taken."He said: "They were always available, but what we've done is we've made them available in one convenient place." The team works with 72 different archives and libraries across the UK, Ireland and the world to identify copies of material that may be of use."We make nice lists of them and where we can get digital images, we do."It's not just genealogy, but all sorts of records, local history stuff and everything there for the whole island of Ireland," Dr Wallace paved the way for census taking, as Great Britain did not start recording the names of all people until 1841, twenty years County Museum is a partner with the Barden, curator at the museum, said: "Digital platforms like this are essential tools for museums, they allow us to share rare and valuable material, such as our transcript of the 1821 Kilmore parish census fragment, with a much wider audience."He said by hosting it online, the Virtual Treasury will help researchers and shine a light on the strength and significance of the museums collections. Though many parts of Ireland at the time spoke and wrote in Irish, names and places in the census were recorded in English. Dr Gurrin said the census of the Aran Islands has been added "and even though it was 100% Irish speaking in 1821, there's not a single mention of the Irish language in the census."The enumerator doesn't say that the people here speak a different language. "And there's not a single Sean, or any sort of Irish first name recorded in it at all. "They're all recorded in English, so any anybody who is Padraig will be Patrick."Dr Wallace said: "It is just fascinating to be able to track back and find records of ancestors, in court cases or in dealing with the state in some way, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but it sort of fleshes out their lives, gives us a sense of what their lives were like."
Times
30-06-2025
- Times
The Tudor way of death — drunken tumblings and dangerous dung carts
One day in August 1565 James Johnson got drunk. By early evening he was so intoxicated that he fell asleep in a Southwark alley. When he woke up 'barely possessed of a healthy and calm mind' he decided to empty his bowels in a ditch. Feeling light-headed, he fell into the filthy water, got tangled in his breeches and drowned. Johnson's unenviable fate was documented for posterity because Tudor law required any suspicious or sudden death to be investigated by a coroner. And so after his body was discovered this official (assisted by a jury of at least 12 trustworthy local men) examined his corpse and questioned witnesses about the circumstances of his death. Once the coroner reached a verdict (in this case, of 'misfortune') his report was sent into storage at Westminster where over the course of the 16th century it was joined by records relating to nearly 9,000 similarly unfortunate individuals.
The Guardian
30-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Pioneering project releases more lost Irish records spanning 700 years
Seven centuries of lost historical records covering espionage, political corruption and the lives of ordinary people in Ireland have been recovered and are being released. A pioneering project to fill gaps in Irish history is making 175,000 more records and millions more words of searchable content freely available to researchers and members of the public. The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, a global academic collaboration led by Trinity College Dublin, deployed historians, computer scientists and other specialists to digitally recreate parts of a vast archive destroyed in Ireland's civil war. The project launched in 2022 on the centenary of the burning of the Public Record Office in Dublin in a five-day battle that began on 28 June 1922. It is now marking the 103rd anniversary of the calamity by adding freshly recovered material that takes in the Anglo-Norman conquest and the 1798 rebellion and a genealogical trove from 19th-century censuses. 'It's a very significant scale of data,' said Peter Crooks, a Trinity historian and academic director of the project. 'It's an enormous stretch of time from the 13th century up to the 19th century. The scale of what can be brought in, in terms of reconstruction, continues to amaze me.' Once the envy of scholars around the world, the six-storey Public Record Office at the Four Courts by the River Liffey contained priceless troves dating from medieval times. It was obliterated as troops of the fledgling Irish state battled former comrades hunkered in the building. It was long assumed that all was lost but the project enlisted 75 archives and libraries in Ireland, the UK and around the world to source transcripts and duplicates of documents, many of which had lain, forgotten, in storage. The latest troves to be catalogued and digitised bring the total to 350,000 records and 250m words of searchable Irish history. Patrick O'Donovan, the culture minister, said international collaboration underpinned the 'riches' that had been rediscovered. 'It offers an invaluable historical resource for people of all ages and traditions across the island of Ireland and abroad, and democratises access so that our shared history is more accessible and engaging for everyone.' The project has fused old-fashioned academic investigation, artificial intelligence and support and expertise from institutions that contain Irish records, notably the National Archives of Ireland, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the UK National Archives at Kew and the Irish Manuscripts Commission. 'The circle of collaborators has widened and deepened,' said Crooks. The latest material includes 60,000 names from the lost censuses, creating a data hoard for genealogists and Irish diaspora descendants, among others, to trace family lineage, says Ciarán Wallace, a Trinity historian and co-director of the project. 'This is only a fragment of what's missing but 60,000 is a huge improvement on a blank slate.' The project's 'age of conquest' portal contains parchments in Latin and 5m words of Anglo-Norman Irish history, spanning 1170 to 1500, that have been translated into English. Uploaded state papers, spanning 1660 to 1720, comprise 10m words, including extensive intelligence reports from the Tudor era when English monarchs tightened their grip on England's first colony. A diary that ended up at the US Library of Congress is now accessible and sheds light on dodgy deals that led to the abolition of the Irish parliament in 1800 and Ireland's incorporation into the UK. 'You find out about some of those underhanded dealings,' said Joel Herman, a research fellow who works on the project. 'One member of parliament said he can't vote for it because of the corrupt methods that have been used to win votes.' Along with the new material, a search tool called the Knowledge Graph Explorer is being introduced that can identify people, places and the links between them.
Washington Post
24-05-2025
- Climate
- Washington Post
A surprisingly cool day to happen so late in May.
On the day spring began many weeks ago, it was warmer in the District than it was Friday, a day on the doorstep of the unofficial start of summer. So Friday may have tested the patience of heat worshipers, but it also seemed in its cool, fresh and windy way a pleasant day in any season. Rather than provoke grumbling discontents, Friday in its exhilarating absence of thermal malice could be regarded as a welcome departure from deep-rooted Washington weather traditions. On March 20, the high in D.C. was 78. Against history and popular expectations, the official high temperature in the capital on Friday was only 70 degrees. On the eve of the long Memorial Day weekend, a day so free of any suggestion of sultriness or swelter might be regarded as a good will offering from nature on a day when the summer solstice was but four weeks away. It also might have been regarded as a surprise, eight degrees below average for the date, and 27 degrees below the record for May 23 in the District. That record was 97, and perhaps oddly, set exactly 100 years ago. It seemed likely that the 97 on May 23, 1925 was far more surprising and far less welcome than Friday's 70. At Dulles International Airport, Friday was even cooler with a high of 66. In the District, it was cloudy much of the time, but as of 7 p.m., at least, it had rained not at all. The clouds that dominated the city's skies thus far seemed businesslike. For the most part, they were not the fluffy, billowing white clouds that might have helped populate dreams of summertime laziness. Instead, they seemed to be constructed of many long streaks and strands of grayness, and perhaps in part they represented the windblown remainders, and reminders, of what had been a rainy week. If these could indeed be seen as remnants it was understandable. Strong breezes went to work in the District on Friday, pushing clouds about, sending them flying harmlessly across the skies. At many hours wind gusts reached a strength in the 20 and 30 mph range. Tree branches tossed and leaves fluttered. At least one gust reached 34 mph. But however dark the clouds may have looked, the air was dry, and carried not a hint of humidity or rain. Of rain, May had its share and more. Measurable rain had fallen in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, and on at least 11 days in all this month. Traces of rain, amounts too small to measure fell on five other days. The 5.47 inches that had fallen before Friday, 2.55 more than average, seemed to mark a wet reversal of Washington's previous precipitation-related fortunes. The region as a whole had ranked high in the drought category. Knowledge of all the rain that had fallen probably influenced the interpretation of Friday's gray skies, suggesting that the profusion of torn or tattered clouds seemingly scattered everywhere, represented the windswept aftermath of not merely this week's rain, but also of many other wet days in May.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Grant applications now open for historical record keeping in Pennsylvania
PENNSYLVANIA (WTAJ) — Groups who are looking to preserve, care for and survey historical records in Pennsylvania can now apply for a grant that will help fund the necessary care. The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC) and the Pennsylvania State Historical Records Advisory Board (SHRAB) announced that applications are now open for the Historical and Archival Records Care (HARC). Groups like historical societies, libraries, universities, local governments, and school districts can submit an application to potentially receive funding. Applications can be submitted until August 1, and a committee will award grants of up to $5,000 at a later date. No matching of funds is required for this grant program. 'Use it or lose it' PTO policies could change under new Pa. proposed bill Money that is awarded can be used for various projects that involve Pennsylvania records. Funding may also be used to purchase equipment that may be necessary to preserve history. The only types of work that are not eligible for funding are art, textiles, artifacts and museum objects. Here are the requirements that an organization must meet: Must be a nonprofit (must have tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service) or local government entity located in Pennsylvania; Must have been incorporated and in existence for two years prior to the submission of a grant application; Applications must be submitted through the DCED's Electronic Single Application for Assistance website. Organizations are encouraged to be registered with the Pennsylvania Department of State's Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations), as required. Other conditions that the project must meet to receive funding: All projects must relate directly to some aspect of Pennsylvania's history. An organization must be engaged in the preservation of original historical records for public access. Proposals must adhere to professional archival standards for the care, preparation and storage of materials. Digitization projects must follow the Pennsylvania State Archives' Digitization Guidelines. Work cannot begin until the successful applicant has received a fully executed Grant Agreement. Work that starts prior to the disbursement of funds cannot be reimbursed. Funding may be requested for surveying, inventorying, preserving, arranging, and describing historical records relevant to Pennsylvania. Funding may also be requested for reformatting or the purchase of supplies and equipment. More information about applying for the grant can be found on the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission website. Get the latest news, weather forecasts and sports stories delivered straight to your inbox! Sign up for our newsletters. Two webinars will also be held to provide an overview of the criteria, guidelines, and tips for the application process and organizations that may be interested in applying are encouraged to attend. The webinars will take place on May 13 at 10 a.m. and June 17 and 1 p.m. You can register for a webinar here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTAJ -
