PRONI - where everybody knows your name!

Having missed the PRONI user forum meeting last week due to the hectic general election the day before, I visited Belfast yesterday to do a bit of research at PRONI (www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni), which is rapidly competing with the bar from Cheers as the place to bump into folk!

I first bumped into Tunji Lees, who regular readers may remember flagged up the existence of the Scottish WW1 Pension Appeals Tribunal records at the National Records of Scotland a few years back, as catalogued under PT6, and which are now being indexed thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust (see http://britishgenes.blogspot.com/2018/01/scottish-ww1-pensions-appeal-records.html). Tunji is carrying out a surname study of the Lees surname in the north, and was having a lot of fun with the records yesterday!

I also caught up with Martin McDowell from the North of Ireland Family History Society, who is currently working on a Ballycarry DNA project in County Antrim (see https://www.nifhs.org/dna/ballycarry-dna-project/), and putting together the talks strand for the next Back To Our Past event in Belfast next February.

The big find for me was discovering a map from 1859 of the northern part of Islandmagee in County Antrim, detailing the townlands there where my lot were based, and making me as happy as the proverbial whatsit...!

A final visit to the Christmas market was enough to recharge my batteries for a few more months.

Happy Christmas to all at PRONI!

Chris

Order Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Irish-Family-History-on-the-Internet-Paperback/p/16483. and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Scottish-Ancestry-through-Church-and-State-Records-Paperback/p/16848. Further news published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.