Priests’ openness has provided a rich reservoir of family history

The consent given by parish priests in the 1950s to allow the National Library of Ireland (NLI) to microfilm their records of births, marriages and deaths was courageous.

In the course of a voluntary, own-name study, I have combed through 80 rolls of diocesan/parish films at the NLI in search for entries and now have over 15,000 birth or baptism records.

Despite occasional bad handwriting — due to infirmity, poor working conditions and for a while, the use of the fading blue ink once fashionable — the records, nigh on two centuries in depth, are a great tribute to the curates, PPs, their clerks and parish laity who sometimes copied whole registers afresh.

The National Library’s newly-created on-line database will enable those abroad to do their preliminary research on line.

Doubtless, this will be followed up with visits to Ireland by persons wanting to smell the air of their ancestors’ pastures — or urban areas.

This has been my experience after putting on two surname days during the ‘Gathering’ and at no public expense.

I want, in the light of my experiences, to make some suggestions for improvements in all of this.

Firstly, the typical cut-off date for the 1950s’ microfilmed Catholic registers was 1880.

We are now 60 years on from 1955; I believe the next tranche of registers should be scanned directly and made available in the same manner. Often the most difficult genealogical research, eg, trying to trace living relatives of deceased heroes, including those who partook in our historic Easter rising, relates to contemporary times.

Secondly, I believe it is past time that the records of what was the ‘Established Church’ — now the Church of Ireland — should likewise be microfilmed, scanned and made available free-to-air.

In the past, as many as 20% of our population was Protestant, and there were many marriages of persons of different faiths, and changes of faith — often on grounds of expediency, for inheritance, to secure employment, or retain preferential property rights and so on.

It is also past time that the Census of Population household forms of the mid-1920s were made public; I know the National Archives is ready to do so but an outdated 100-year rule frustrated their efforts, as the Central Statistics Office imagine doing so would hinder their gathering future population data. This, of course, is pure conjecture. The USA has published its equivalent census and no harm has come of it.

John Colgan

Leixlip

Co Kildare