To celebrate the end of another great National Family History Week, I attended the Irish seminar organised by the Genealogy Society of Victoria’s Irish Special Interest Group.
Key speaker was Gregory O’Connor the higher archivist at the National Archives of Ireland and he gave two talks. The first was on An Overview of Genealogical Sources at the National Archives of Ireland and a very useful handout summarised these while Gregory showed illustrations highlighting the usefulness of the sources. His second talk was on Research in Ireland prior to 1800 and again a list of possible sources was contained in the handout while his illustrations showed what type of information might be found.
Kevin Molloy, manuscripts librarian at State Library of Victoria, spoke on Irish Treasures in the State Library of Victoria Collection and how some of these treasures came to be there, mainly from noted Irish families in Victoria.
The final speaker was Linley Hooper, resources manager at the Genealogical Society of Victoria, who spoke about Irish Resources at the Genealogical Society of Victoria. I really must get into the GSV Library more often to do research, rather than just attend meetings like I usually do. I am constantly amazed at what is in the Library and how easy the library catalogue is to search and find things. There was a Q&A session at the end with all speakers participating and Linley pulling up relevant items in the GSV library catalogue.
It was a full day session so there was lots of conversation over morning and afternoon teas as well as lunch. It was held in Melbourne’s Celtic Club so it was good to have a look at the old building which provided a nice, historic and suitable setting for the seminar.
I have Irish families from Armagh, Cavan and Wicklow and they are not that further back than when I first started tracing them in 1977. My tendency to let them continue to sit in the too hard basket is no longer valid – there are lots of new resources and tools for Irish genealogy. I am going to find my Irish families, so with all fingers crossed, wish me luck!
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