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Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Dublin => Topic started by: dermo on Monday 04 October 10 16:23 BST (UK)
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My great grandfather Andrew O'Brien and his brother Robert were gunmakers in Dublin in the 19th century. Can anyone with copies of Thom's find any reference to them? They lived in the Harold's Cross, Ranelagh, South Circular Road areas at various times. Any help would be appreciated.
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do you have approximate years or any specific addresses ?
it helps the search a great deal to have a starting point - as not everyone is in the index in the directories
Shane
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On the 1901 Census there's a Robert O'Brien (age 72), retired gunmaker listed on Oakley Road, Ranelagh.
So possibly in business from the 1850s onward.. does that sound right ?
Shane
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Shane
Thanks for the interest. Andrew died at 16 Upper Camden St in 1881, aged 62 and I think he may have lived on Harold's Cross Road earlier. His brother Robert lived at 41 Oakley Road (formerly known as 41 Cullenswood Avenue) in Ranelagh. He died there in 1903 aged 74. He is the man you found in the 1901 census.
In a copy of Thom's Directory for 1861 that I found online, I came across a Patrick O'Brien, gunmaker, of 11 Charlemont St Upr. Whether he is a relation or not I haver no idea. That directory also had an Andrew O'Brien living at 5 Harold's Cross Road who might be my great grandfather though no profession is listed. The address fits with some other family information I have.
Regards
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Thom's 1894 - no O'Brien gunmakers listed in the trades index.
11 Charlemont street is Joseph Peake, slater and general
contractor
Thom's 1884 - no O'Brien gunmakers listed in the trades index.
(same details for 11 Charlemont street as 1894)
Thom's 1879
Robert O'Brien, 11 Charlemont St (Trades Index under Gunmakers)
No sign of a listing for Andrew, or a number 16 Upr Camden Street (the numbers jump from 13 to 17)
Thom's 1872
same details for Robert as for 1879
Number 11 is Charlemont St listed as a single building between junction between Camden st and Elm Cottages and Charlemont Row.
No. 16 Upr. Camden Street is listed as Tenements... so no details of occupants included.
In 1863 there's the same listing for Robert, and also a listing in the index for a Mr. Andrew O'Brien at 5 Harolds Cross Rd (no occupation given). In the street listing for Harold Cross he is listed as a gunmaker.
In 1852 there's an Andrew O'Brien, gunmaker at Harold's cross Rd
There's no O'Brien gunsmiths or gunmakers listed in the 1848 edition.
Shane
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Shane
Thanks so much for the trouble you have taken. The references you found are most interesting. The Andrew of Harold's Cross looks very like my great grandfather. Whether Robert at Charlemont St and Patrick at that address before him are related remains to be seen though the odds must favour it. At the very least it means the address is worth pursuing. Thanks again for your help.
Dermo
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I'll keep an eye out for any other details - residences etc
Shane
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Shane
I would appreciate that. Thanks again
Dermo
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Dermo
From my source work on the Irish Times newspaper 1859-1901 I have recorded the following:
On 11/3/1874 on Page there is a reference to Mr P.O'Brien as a prizewinner at No.11 Charlemont Street
At No.41 Oakley Road
On 2/2/1884 Page 1 (Deaths) William J O'Brien
On 13/8/1894 Page 1 (Marriage) Thomas Alphonsus (son of Robert O'Brien
On 10/1/1896 Page 1 (Death) Alicia (wife of Robert O'Brien
Regards Quaxer (due credit to Shane)
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Quaxer
That's very useful information. Thanks for your trouble. Not sure yet if Patrick O'Brien of 11 Charlemont St is related but think he probably is, given Shane's earlier reply. The Oakley Rd O'Briens definitely are related. I have the record of William's burial and that of Alicia O'Brien from the Glasnevin Trust website, which is excellent, but I do not know the maiden name of Thomas Alphonsus's wife. I know her christian names were Mary Gertrude. Does the Irish Times notice give her surname?
Dermo
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Dermo
For possible copyright complications ,I regret that I cannot go beyond the details that I have already supplied to you.
Regards Quaxer
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Quaxer
Understood. Thanks for the information in any event.
Dermo
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Quaxer
Further to your recent post, I discovered one can take out a 24 hour subscription to the Irish Times digital archive and found a number of relatives' death notices. However, my experience prompts a couple of questions you might be able to answer. The quality of the images for some of the older editions of the IT is poor, especially on the left-hand side of page 1 where the birth, marriage and death notices are. Do you know if it is possible to consult original copies and, if so, where?
The other thing I found was that browsing by date was more successful than searching by keyword. There doesn't seem to be a way of searching for an exact match on, e.g. a name. Normally to do this you put quotes around the search words. Doing this on the IT site still produced a lot of results based on part of the search terms not the exact phrase (e.g. searching for O'Brien produced results based on the "O'" with lots of references to "o'clock"). Have you any tips to offer on achieving a better result?
Regards
Dermo
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The National Library in Dublin have many newspapers on microfilm and binder format, including the Irish Times
I suspect the poor image quality at some of the edges is due to scan being done while in binders.
Shane
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On the search issues... I believe that the search engine on the Irish Times archives website only allows for keyword searches, so phrase searches are not allowed for. That may explain why your O'Brien search gave the results you mentioned as it was treated at two keywords O and Brien. I would try just Brien, without the O'.
I have found the best way to look for references in the BMD section is just to use the surname and the word Deaths. If you know an occupation or house/street name try adding that also. The index used by the search is based on OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processing of the images, so is not always accurate or complete. If you know approximate dates it always a good idea to manual scan the BMD section to double check.
Shane
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Shane
Many thanks. Will bear your advice in mind.
Dermo
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Dermo
When Shane mentioned that Last December the Irish Times was available on line gratis for a limited period I had a look and checked some of the entries I made . Suffice it to say that I felt more than justified in doing the 42 years manually. Firstly having suffered computers for nearly 40 years unlike so many others I am not a member of the cult of worshipers. I started my project in 1994 and somehow knew that the computer was not always the giant leap forward but often sideways. The problems of reading the BMDs are not surprising as the guttering would distort the text and frequently I had to use a magnifying loupe turned at an angle to decipher the text, aided by other clues.
I freely admit that I have but alimited knowledge of computers but am suspicious about the quality of the search engine.My searches last December made me believe that the fault does not lie only with the image but I do not wish to appear as adamant on this. Regards Quaxer
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Quaxer
I understand your reservations about search engines. Whatever about the technicalities underlying them, the front ends often seem designed with no appreciation of the fact that users mostly come to the search with clues and hints and need plenty of search options in ferreting out the information. On the plus side though, online access to information is a massive boon for someone, like me, who is more remote from the physical records.
Regards
Dermo
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The OCR process used to digitize the Irish Times (and other online sources) is carried out automatically, and is never 100% accurate. This is used as it is far less labour intensive than a full manual transcription. Since the search engine uses this transcription to gather key-words used for a search there are going to be omissions and inaccuracies in searches. Also as the process is carried out by computer little context or importance can be derived for an article or phrase during the process.
In an ideal world a manual index would be created using human input, as in Quaxer's work, and this would be combined with the images and OCR data. Scanning the data by hand means that useful information is collected for the index based on human input.
Shane
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Dermo, even as one who could not be listed as a computer lover, I am in complete agreement with you about the convenience being in the same position as regards access. Your comment about the front end is very true. Often, have I examined surrounding material to my target and this has set my mind in another direction to greater profit, especially when I have hit the legendary brick wall.
Shane, perhaps you could oblige me by telling me (PM?) what the imperfection is in OCR in layman's language. Almost total mayhem was revealed last December ,so much so that I wondered why anybody bothered. It cannot be blamed entirely upon the poor microfilm as I have proof of that. Addresses could not be found None of the 40 odd entries I have for No.51 Dawson Street turned up and an entrybfor No.53 High Street (SDU Dispensary) told me that Prince Napoleon had a relapse!!
Regards Quaxer
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OCR is a system for converting images into text to allow searching by text or key words. The process attempts to replicate the human processes involved in reading - both the optical system and the brain processing with regard to interpreting the images as letters and then words. The actual process generally works by first breaking down an image into lines and individual cells - each containing a single character, and then attempting to match the cell image with an individual letter, number or punctuation mark etc.
The process has good success with with standard print fonts and good quality images.. but does not always cope very well with changing fonts mid-document, poor quality images and varying layouts (as in a newspaper with multiple columns).
An example of an every day OCR process which generally works well is the line of code at the bottom of your cheques and lodgement slips in the 1970s style computer writing. This is read automatically by a small scanner on the clerks desk in the bank and saves retyping your account details. The style of text was deliberately chosen as being the easiest to read by the OCR technology available at the time, and as a result is very reliable.
Reliable OCR requires considerable 'intelligence' and it, along with speech recognition, are considered challenging in computer terms. The technology is improving all the time but will probably never quite match the skill of a human eye and brain in terms of deciphering difficult to read images, due to the background knowledge and context details which a person can apply to the problem.
edit : In smaller projects (e.g. a document of several pages, or a few pages from a book) an initial proof conversion is provided to the user to cross-check. Any sections which were considered suspect by the OCR process are highlighted for operator to examine and correct if nessecary. In addition the usual spell checking tools may be used to highlight any other issues. Due to the large scale of the Irish Times project and the labour intensive nature of the work, I suspect that this Quality Assurance (QA) stage was probably limited by budget.
Shane
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Shane
Many thanks
Quaxer
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My mother's maiden name was O'Brien and we lived for a considerable number of years at 41 Oakley Road. Her father was Thomas O'Brien - son of Robert, I believe. Thomas was married to Mary Gertrude Gerrard.
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Thomas O'Brien 14 Oakley Road married Mary Gerrard on the 8 Aug 1894 but his father was Robert a gunmaker
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1894/10571/5851066.pdf
This is also posted on the other thread
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=773616.0
Best to stick to one thread.
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Already another thread running on same subject!!
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=773616.0
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Sorry hallmark,
My wifi is acting up cos I'm in the garden I had to post before I'd finished or lose what I was writing, that's why the link to the other thread wasn't there when you were posting it, than I didn't see your post when I was adding it.
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No problem, it just saves people looking for stuff that has already been posted elsewhere.....