Well Autumn 2016 has arrived and I am back determined to take up regular blogging again. I just was so busy researching and tracing ancestors all Summer that as a result my blogs took a back seat.  As well as that, a number of clients for whom I had completed  research on their Kerry families over the past year, visited County Kerry  and I was able to meet with them and share their excitement at finding the townlands and even the land that their great and great-great ancestors had left in the 19th century.  I will share some of these stories with my readers over the next couple of weeks.

mka-blog-irish-genealogyAs well as my own research, we have had an abundance of online records released from both the National Archves and Dept of Socal Protection.   The latter include not just the Civil Indexes but images (in most cases) of the actual records of births over 100 years ago, Marriages over 75 years ago and Deaths over 50 years ago of the General Register Office (GRO).

Online records available now from the National Archives:

From 15 September 2016, you can access six major new record series on this site:

Prerogative and diocesan copies of some wills and indexes to others, 1596 – 1858

Diocesan and Prerogative Marriage Licence Bonds Indexes, 1623 – 1866

Catholic qualification & convert rolls, 1700 – 1845

Valuation Office house, field, tenure and quarto books 1824 – 1856

Shipping agreements and crew lists, 1863 – 1921

Will Registers 1858 – 1900

All of these records are free to access, through searchable databases and linked images of relevant pages. Eventually, we hope that the site will contain all of the important and easily accessible genealogical material in the custody of the National Archives.