Genealogy Centres around Ireland

[Bills]

Hello Jaylay

Family history centres (FHCs) are part of the Mormon church and provide access to transcriptions of genealogical records from around the world including Ireland.  They are not the same as genealogy centres (GCs) that are found in most counties around Ireland.  There are drawbacks with both.

GCs search records/copies/transcriptions of selected material relating to the county or specific area in which they are situated.  They are operated as a business and charge disproportionate fees.  They do not provide access to material for visitors and have attracted much controversy.  The fact that they have differing names also causes confusion.

The South Mayo Family Research Centre, in Main St. Ballinrobe is a genealogy centre  but is particularly helpful and efficient as you discovered.  Unfortunately, not all centres are like this and family historians are advised to consider all options available to them.

I hope this helps you

Good Luck

Bills

[mcmoran]

Who (or what body) owns and operates the Irish Family History Foundation, and where does it get its funding? 

In its "History of the Irish Family History Foundation" ("About Us" page at the IFHF site), the IFHF is quite upfront about its goal of marketing genealogy as a "tourism product".  Is this an entirely commercial, private sector operation? or is it associated/affiliated with the Irish government's Department of Art, Sports and Tourism? 

In any case, I think the fees for its online research system are exorbitant.  10 euro to view a record, which may or may not be relevant to one's search, but you can't really know until you've paid to view it, because they don't supply enough information (e.g., name of parents in the case of a baptism, name of spouse in the case of a marriage) before you pay up.  Is this a for-profit operation? or do they have to charge these fees just to run the system because the operation is underfunded? 

[Christopher]

Hello Bills,

I've just sent this message to a RootsChatter who received a reasonably detailed reply from the South Mayo Centre ... 

"I'm interested to note that the South Mayo Family Research Center (Centre) have given you details of the baptisms but have omitted to tell you where the children were baptized. I wonder if that is a common practice adopted by Research Centres in Ireland."
I've just been looking at "Genealogy and the economic drain on Ireland: Unintended consequences" by Emily Heinlen. www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_1/heinlen

Exorbitant charges for searches and lengthy delays result in genealogists looking for cheaper and more efficient means of finding the needed information so they turn to ...

1. Fellow internet genealogists
2. Online databases
3. Microfilm records at FHCs and the like.

However there are drawbacks which include dates which are not accurate and placenames which are not correct. Many place names appear in more than one county which makes it all too easy to search for your ancestors in the wrong county. People who know absolutely nothing about Ireland can post you what they may regard as a helpful message which can easily lead you up the garden path. 

Christopher

[Christopher]

There's a poll on the Using Irish Heritage Centres thread which is a discussion along much the same lines as this thread.

[lizziedrek]

i have phoned lds in hollywwod belfast many times, robin could not have been more helpful and found me lots of info. my your a busy man christopher on all those sites your a mine of info. lizzie from scotland.

[ladybird]

I contacted the library in the area of Kerry I was interested in and was just told, bluntly, the the "Historian had died"

I was left thinking to myself that if that "Historian" died with all the knowledge in his head that's such a shame! Surely it's all written down somewhere???

[lizziedrek]

hi ladybird im from bannockburn  about 2 miles from stirling and know quite a few jaffrays and jeffreys if you need info from stirling let me know. lizzie

[lizziedrek]

christopher i need to find a marriage of an agnes fulton or nessie as she was called in the 1940s her father was robert fulton her mother nargaret jane maiden name thompson. do any of the sites give up to date marriages or will i have to come to belfast and pay for an assisted search at the registrar office. she was born 1921/22 and could still be living

[ladybird]

Hi Lizzie
Thanks for that 
I'm at work at the moment...yes some of us have to work over Easter ...drats!
Can I PM you later?
Sylvia