Latest news from PRONI's stakeholder forum meeting

On Friday 7 December 2018 I had the pleasure to attend the final Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni) stakeholders meeting in Belfast, after a fairly dodgy ferry crossing on the Irish Sea! It was a fairly packed session, with lots to report on.

We started the meeting with a lengthy briefing about the Prisons Memory Archive project, which deals with the legacy of imprisonment at two major Northern Irish prisons, in Armagh and Long Kesh/the Maze. I won't discuss the project here, but will do so in a separate blog post in the next day or two.

Elsewhere in the meeting we also had an update on the archive's recent cataloguing efforts. Work continues on the Londonderry Papers, with recent additions for papers held by the 7th Marquess, under D3099/11. Also catalogued now are the papers of the Augher Co-operative Agricultural and Dairy Society, from 1887-1955, under D3057, with papers such as minutes and accounts included.

With regards to new accessions, new collections currently being processed are photos from the Steeple Community Association, covering the Steeple estate in Antrim, and dating back to the 1960s, which are being digitised for catalogue access. Papers from the Cairnshill Residents Association from the 1980s onwards have also been deposited.

Of family history interest are the recently deposted papers of genealogist John McCabe, which have been donated by his brother, and which cover a period from the 1950s-2016. These are not available yet, but will be under D4692. I believe that this includes lots of work on the United Irishmen.

Other accessions include the papers of the Northern Irish Council for Ethnic Minorities from the 1990s onwards (under D4697) and the Ulster Society of Organists and Choirmasters dating back to 1918.

On PRONI's church records digitisation project, in the last year 73 volumes have been digitised, bringing the total up to 386. These comprise the records of 30 churches, from three denominations, and can be accessed via the onsite catalogue (called CALM). The full list of holdings is now available in the search room and on the website at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/digitised-church-records-available-proni. I believe the list is also being integrated into PRONI's Guide to Church Records at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/proni-guide-church-records.

New records for digitisation next year are already being gathered, with material from Dundonald and Aghadowey Presbyterian Churches, and Ballyrashane Church of Ireland already sourced. Some non-subscribing presbyterianm churches are also now showing an interest in participation.

We then had apresentation from janet hancock on the new Absentee Voters Lists from 1918 for Armagh and Derry/Londonderry. Janet highlighted that there are published indexes to these, but also original manuscripts held, and that it is worth consulting both, as the manuscript volumes occasionally have slight differences with updates. Further information is available at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/absent-voters-lists-0.

Some work is happening soon to rearrange access for some items on the PRONI website, with a new resources page that will be created for materials currently available in areas such as the Decade of Centenaries section, for example on Suffragette resources. Digitised copies of recent exhibitions will also be added. PRONI's YouTube channel is also being restructured shortly.

Finally, some quick headlines:

• PRONI is launching a new maritime lecture series of talks on Wrecks and Rescues in the new year, and next year projects will also commemorate the 400th anniversary of Derry's walls, the 80th anniversary of the Second World War, and 50 years on from Civil Rights.
• The Land Registry Service, currently available in PRONI's search room, is moving in February to new premises. 
• The recent suspension of Freedom of Information enquiries in PRONI, caused by the ongoing political stalemate at Stormont, has a few knock-on casualties for genealogists, not least for access to the 1939 National Identity Register.
• Next year, Back to our Past in Belfast will be held at the Waterfront Hall.

And finally...! If you haven't had a chance yet, do get yourselves along to the Christmas Market at City Hall - it's brilliant! :)

Chris

For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

Developments at PRONI, Northern Ireland's national archive

I was unable to attend the recent user forum meeting at PRONI (www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni) in Belfast on March 2nd, so am grateful to Gavin McMahon for a copy of the minutes. The following are the key developments at Northern Ireland's national archive just now...

Anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1918:

There will be a number of activities on this in 2018, being organised by NI's Department for Communities -

· NI Direct has a web page which pulls together activities of key stake holders,
· An information pack is being developed and an interactive learning packages for schools.
· An Exhibition which will be launched on 2 July


Steps to Partition:

Two PRONI facsimile packs are being updated for next year, one on the Plantation which is being revised and updated by the Ulster Historical Foundation, to be launched in May 2018.

PRONI is working with Dr Timothy Bowman and Jim McBride CCEA in revamping an educational resource (Steps to Partition) that will be aimed at A Level students and which anyone can use. Approximately 30 documents will be added into the pack which will be a PDF document and should be released in May.


Archive Accreditation:

PRONI is continuing its efforts towards Archive Accreditation.


Cataloguing:

Cataloguing of the papers of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club (D4614) is now complete, and will be published shortly.

Work continues on cataloguing papers relating to the Women’s Legion in the 1930s/1940s within D3099/14/2/1/2. This includes correspondence (organised by correspondent) and correspondence (organised by theme) and correspondence relating to the Mechanical Transport Section. Work has also started on papers relating to the Air Section. There are approx. 6 boxes still to be catalogued including papers relating to the Land Army, the Mount Stewart canteen, the Red Cross and the War Service Legion.

There are improved catalogue descriptions and updated access decisions for D4403 (Bangor Union masonic Lodge).

Work is ongoing with the Harland and Wolff Drawing Office Papers deposited by Titanic Quarter. Specifically carrying out cataloguing on ships plans at D4413/5/14. There are about 30 boxes of plans dating from 1930’s to 1970’s. Ship numbers and names will be included in catalogue descriptions.


New accessions:

Shaw and Moat Family Papers (D4654) – Papers of Richard Humphreys Shaw (c.1808-1888) of Dunmurry, Belfast and Tobermesson, Co. Tyrone comprising personal correspondence, including letters from his sisters who immigrated to Mississippi; accounts, including bills, receipts and handwritten lists mainly relating to his farm at Tobermesson, and a small amount of printed material and newspaper cuttings (c.1841-1919).

Hugh Alexander Papers (D4655) – Papers relating to Major Hugh Moore Alexander comprising two annotated albums containing photographs by Major Alexander during his service with the Royal Army Medical Corp and depicting scenes of army and civilian life in Mesopotamia and Northern Russia during the First World War. Major Alexander was born in County Cavan in 1892. (c.1917-1944).

Royal Belfast Golf Club (D4650) – Minute books relating to the Royal Belfast Golf Club, the oldest golf club in Ireland. Four additional volumes were received, 2 each for the men’s and lady’s branches of the club. We now have 8 volumes of minutes for the club, 1888-1922.

Islandreagh Beetling Mill (D4656) - Lorraine and Liam visited Islandreagh Dyeing and Finishing Company in Dunadry on Wednesday 21st February to appraise and bring back records. There were five or six sacks of binders with business records dating back to c.1930 as well as several boxes of records in the manager’s office. Three boxes of material were taken including sample thread book; an order book; a day book; a sales ledger; an account book and samples of correspondence demonstrating the international dealings of the company. C.1930-1992. Unfortunately earlier material for the mill was reportedly destroyed by the previous owner. The mill has probably been in operation since the late 18th century.


Church records digitisation:

The PRONI Reprographics Team has now completed digitisation and QA on 46 volumes for this year’s Church Records digitisation scheme. This is out of a total of 73 volumes it hopes to digitise this year, leaving up to 27 volumes to go. The original records will be returned to the participating churches and the digital copies made available in the PRONI search room later this year.


Volunteering:

PRONI is rolling out a pilot volunteering scheme for which 30 people submitted applications. The project will involve bringing in three volunteers for six months. Training will be included as part of the scheme. Projects will be based in Private Records, Reprographics and Public Services. In Private Records, it is hoped that the volunteer will contribute to work around indexing and cleaning documents from the Young and Mackenzie (architects) archive. The terms for volunteers being able to claim for expenses etc. were outlined. The volunteer in Public Service will be name indexing absentee voters.


Beyond 2022:

PRONI is particpating in the Beyond 2022 project, which is aiming to create a virtual repository of the Public Record Office (Four Courts, Dublin). The virtual repository layout has been created but not populated. The proposal is to create links to surrogate archives held elsewhere eg PRONI. Further details can be found on the Beyond 2022 website at https://beyond2022.ie.

(With thanks to Gavin and all at PRONI)

Chris

For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

Latest developments at PRONI in Belfast

Yesterday I attended the quarterly stakeholder meeting at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni). It was a cold but beautiful day in Belfast, and
a great ferry crossing from Cairnryan, despite the 4.30am start to get there! It was also a slight odd experience for me as my wife was also heading to Ireland, to Kilkenny, at about the same time, so I had to give her a quick wave from the other end of the island!

The following were some of the items discussed:

i) On cataloguing, the following records are currently being worked on:

• Belfast Natural Field Club D4614
  
• As part of the Londonderry Papers from Mount Stewart, records concerning the Women's Legion, and the fight for suffrage, are being made available via D3099/14.

ii) Acquisition strategy – PRONI's last collection policy was created in 2013, and so the archive is currently working on a follow up, to update some aspects. Amongst the issues it will cover will be the types of records that the archive will accept, the records it won't accept, and discussions on digital accessions, a massively changing and ever increasingly important area.

iii) Annual records release - the next batch of government records to be released under the now 20 year rule will take place in a few weeks, with records mainly from 1992, some of them on political issues from the day, but not all. As usual, there will be an event tying into this in a couple of weeks time at PRONI.

iv) The digitisation of church records was deemed a success this year, and new collections are already being identified for next year. 51 Belfast churches have been identified as on a wish list to work on, for records up to 1900, with some a re-recording of previously poorly filmed microfilm records, but others completely new. They are from a variety of denominations – Church of Ireland, Non-Subcribing Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. The archive has also contacted some external bodies with holdings to see if they might be willing to participate, including a further 64 Church of Ireland parish churches in County Antrim,, and the Methodist Historical Society of Ireland.

v) PRONI volunteer policy – PRONI is hoping to take on 3 volunteers for a 6 month period to assist with efforts at the archive, for which expenses will be paid. If you are interested, application forms are on the PRONI site at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/information-and-services/your-research/volunteering-proni – but get in quick, as December 8th is the closing date!

vi) Strategic vision – PRONI is intending to start work on a new strategic vision document. A key anniversary is coming up for the archive in 2023, which will be the 100th anniversary since the Public Records Act which created the body. The archive will look at various issues, such as the role of digital records, collaboration, and statutory goals. There will be three themes, based on trust, memory and engagement. Since opening at Titanic Quarter, PRONI has evolved dramatically in terms of its popularity, its ambition, its collaborations, and knows that this evolution will continue in the years ahead. As one staff members stated, "The days of us just being a place where you come and look at records are over!"

vii) PRONI is planning to commemorate People's Representation Act 1918 with an event on 6th Feb, and intends to turn its Suffrage resources online into an interactive experience. There will also be an exhibition on the theme of suffrage next year.

viii) Archive accreditation – no Northern Irish institution has yet gone through the process of archive accreditation, and so PRONI hopes to be the one of the first, submitting its application next March 2018. A visitor from the English based National Archives will be at PRONI next Friday 8th December to speak to bodies which might be interested in doing likewise. For more on this, visit https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/uk-archive-service-accreditation-information-seminar-policy-writing-workshop.

ix) PRONI has just launched a fantastic new exhibition on site, entitled Medieval to the Modern: Reformation, Transformation and Continuity, produced in collaboration with Libraries NI. The exhibition will be at PRONI for another week, will then move onto Belfast Central Library for a month, before travelling around libraries across the Province. I managed to grab a few snaps of the exhibition, and although I was only able to spend a few minutes looking at, it definitely looks worth the effort to make a trip into the archive or the city centre to see it.

Finally, after completing some client work yesterday, I managed to briefly explore some of the new digitised repositories at PRONI yesterday. First, the church records that the archive has digitised are accessible through its on-site catalogue (not from home), and once located, are accessed in the form of full colour PDF documents which must be browsed. For the most part the quality was quite good, although I did notice that there seemed to be quite a bit of compression on the quality, which I presume may present some potential issues with smaller text and handwriting. I'm not sure if a higher resolution version is available to staff if this were to happen (there will clearly be a high quality archive standards digital version for conservation somewhere on site).

Secondly, I spent some time on the one of the computers providing access to GRONI's GENI platform, for civil registration records of births, marriages and deaths. The provision at PRONI (and at GRONI itself) allow you to access records to the present day, unlike the online platform at https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk. An emotional find for me considering it was the fourth anniversary of my mother's death a few days ago was a copy of her birth registration, which I had never actually looked at before (Whit?! What kind of genie are you?!). I also discovered for the first time some of the names of my granny's siblings who had not survived infancy. The set up is the same as that you use at home, and you will need your log-in details – do remember to do so, PRONI can't help you if you don't, as they are merely hosting GRONI's system. I can actually envisage a trip to Belfast in the near future just to use this again – the indexes are so detailed that you can achieve a lot before paying a penny, but of course you can also see the original records there for £2.50 each. Note though that even if you access the recent records at PRONI, they will not be available to see on your account when you return home if they are within the closure period, even if you have paid for them.

Overall, another great visit to my favourite archive on Earth, and it was great to catch up with people including Ann Robinson from NIFHS, Stephen Scarth, Tom Gribben, and Gillian Hunt from the Ulster Historical Foundation (pictured right).

A quick word to end with on how to get there from Scotland by ferry if you choose to do so! Right now, Stena is offering a midweek deal for Tuesday to Thursday of a return trip to Belfast for foot passengers from Cairnryan at just £5. If you don't book in advance, it is still possible to get a midweek deal for £10 return. For Fridays to Mondays, the cost goes up for foot passengers to £26 return. See https://www.stenaline.co.uk/ferries-to-ireland/day-trips for details. The 7.30am ferry gets you to PRONI or to Belfast city centre for 10am, and you can do a full day's work before heading back home on the 7.30pm ferry, getting in to Cairnryan just before 10pm (and you'll have tme to quickly visit the German market at City Hall - see below!). If taking a car to Cairnryan, parking is £5 for the day. It will never be cheaper, so why not treat yourself to a wee research trip before Christmas?! But if you do, remember that there will be no productions available from December 11th-15th, with access only available to self-service microfilms, the catalogue and digital collections - and do remember your visitor card. Heck, I might even try and get back again before Christmas!

(Thanks to all at the meeting, and to all the wonderful staff at PRONI for another great year's work!)

Chris

Needing a Christmas present for a family history obsessed love one (or for yourself)?! For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

September's PRONI stakeholder forum meeting - latest developments

I was unable to make the September meeting of the stakeholder forum at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni) in Belfast, so am grateful to Gavin McMahon for a copy of the minutes. Some headlines:

1) Digitised church records have been available to view on PRONI's on-site computer system (CALM) from 25/08/2017. See https://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/details-of-new-digitised-church-records.html for further details of what has been digitised.

2) New Accessions recently brought into PRONI and catalogued:

D4343 – Sam Hanna Bell Papers
D4642 – Michael J Murphy Papers
D4644 – Donaghadee free schools
D4645 - Augher Co-op Society papers

3) Campbell College has been awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of almost £90,000 for a digitisation and education project, in partnership with PRONI. As part of the project, photographs of the 126 Campbell College students who served and died in the First World War will transfer to PRONI and be digitised, with copies returned to the college. Campbell College will work with schools throughout East Belfast for the education element of the project.

4) In Summer 2018 PRONI will host 10 interns, each on 2-week placements, where they will be given hands-on experience with cataloguing, digitisation, etc.

5) The first 14 audio recordings for the new Prisons Memory Archive will hopefully be going online by the end of this year.

6) The PRONI Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/publicrecordofficeni/) now has over 1600 followers. [Update - they are well past 2100 followers now!]

I'm hoping to make it to next week's meeting in Belfast, and will provide further updates from then.

(With thanks to Gavin)

Chris

My next 5 week long Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the OPRs course commences Nov 6th 2017 - details at https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=302. For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

PRONI stakeholder forum report from Belfast

Yesterday (Friday June 2nd) I attended the regular stakeholder forum for the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni) in beautiful Belfast. The following is a quick summary of recent developments at the archive.

We first heard from Lorraine Bourke on cataloguing. Work continues on the papers of the Brabazon Sharpe family of Galway and Mayo, which are being catalogued under D4523, and also on the Northern Ireland Women's Football Association records from 1973-1993. Another major new accession is a series of posters collected by Northern Ireland civil rights activist, and amateur historian and archivist, Fred Heatley, who died earlier this year. These document a range of political issues over the years on everything from elections in the province to the hunger strikes, and are being catalogued under D4629. Papers from the Belfast Co-Op Society's former York Street premises, including admin records, photos, etc. have been acquired, and these are being catalogued under D3895.

Another interesting project is work in progress to preserve the Prisons Memory Archive of about 175 walk and talk oral history interviews of from people who were at the Maze/Long Kesh, and Armagh prisons, including staff, chaplains, prisoners. This is a collaboration between PRONI, Queen's University and the Prisons Management Group, which as  Heritage Lottery Funded project was formally launched on March 29th. Posts are currently being filled to get this underway, but the plan is to work on 12 recordings a month, and to have them available for consultation in due course at the archive, and posisbly at relevant access hubs across the country.

We had a brief update also on plans to update the catalogue inside the archive (not the online version), with regards to accessing digitised holdings, such as some church records. One of the key points made about the length of time it takes to catalogue and make materials available for consultation was the lack of metadata that is supplied by those making deposits to the archive, which the archive has to address. Metadata is 'data about data' - e.g, you might gift a photograph to PRONI, but who is depcited within the photograph? That's the metadata bit!

Janet Hancock then gave us an overview of PRONI's plans to seek UK archive accreditation during 2017/18. This involves aspiring to reach key standards of work practice in three areas, namely  longevity, collections care, and stakeholder engagement, and essentially helps the archive to focus on which areas it needs to perhaps concentrate more on, and to recognise which areas it is already making good progress in. If PRONI achieves this accreditation, its standards would then be re-evaluated again every three years, to keep pushing for better practice. Anyone who holds an archive can apply for such accreditation.

We were informed that there is a possibility that the archive might seek to install library editions of some of the more popular genealogy websites. I asked how popular the usage of the four GENI (https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk) platforms at PRONI have been since they were made available - the system that allows you to search for the GRONI's birth, marriage and death events from Northern Ireland. The terminals (see below for a pic of the area where they are located) have been quite popular, particularly for those seeking post-Partition Northern Ireland records, which are not available on the free Irish Genealogy (www.irishgenealogy.ie) site, as well earlier pre-1922 records not yet available on the southern hosted platform. There are no plans to increase the number of terminals - not only has the IrishGenealogy site making many records available for free taken some pressure off expected demand, the new GRONI search room at Stranmillis is also now up and running. Four seems to be a good number at PRONI, so everyone's happy!

Stephen Scarth also updated us on the latest communications developments, the biggest development being PRONI's new Facebook site (see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/proni-is-now-on-facebook.html). The plan is to try to put out posts at least a couple of times a day, on a range of things from news to interesting features from the archive. One other change which some may already have been advised of by email is that those who subscribe to the PRONI Express, the archive's newsletter, will have to re-subscribe, due to an update of the system. The plan is for this to become a monthly newsletter, and not so ad hoc - though Janet also advised that they weren't averse to still throwing in the occasional ad hoc edition!

Some other changes include a desire to try to produce four main 'headline events' per year at the archive, such as the current series of lectures commemorating the Messines in the First World War. If attending events at the archive, from now on you will need to book via Eventbrite.

Finally, we were taken on a tour behind the scenes of the archive's reprographics department, where we were told how some items were digitally enhanced or restored (and catalogued as a new item), as well as some of the work the department does to produce promotional materials for exhibitions, and projects such as the then and now photographic image mixes of key locations across time.

And below is a wee sneaky glimpse of the conservation area, which I snapped as I passed it...!

A great day in Belfast - topped off by my finally finding a record in the Registry of Deeds that actually concerns my family!

Visit Belfast - ye'll love it! :)

(With thanks to Stephen and the staff at PRONI)

Chris

My next 5 week Scottish Research Online course commences Sept 11th 2017 - details at https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=102.
For details on my Scottish & Irish genealogy guide books, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.
For my genealogy research service, please visit http://www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk.

PRONI user forum March 2015 proceedings

Yesterday I had the great pleasure to attend the latest stakeholders meeting at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (www.proni.gov.uk) in Belfast, where as usual, there is a lot happening! The following is a brief summary of the proceedings.

The first speaker at the forum was Joy Carey, who discussed the reprographic unit's recent project to merge some of the archive's historic streetscape and landscape photos with contemporary images of the same view. This has a similar aim to the History Pin project (www.historypin.org), but with two big differences - specially commissioned photographs of the modern scene are used, and the integration between the two is just beautiful! The project's results can be viewed at PRONI's Flickr page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/proni. Of particular note for me are the two taken from Carrickfergus, where I grew up - one depicts the North Gate at the top of North Street (https://www.flickr.com/photos/proni/16192653380/), which I regularly used to walk through to get to the train station shop, where I used to do a newspaper delivery run from, the other with a view of the castle from the harbour (https://www.flickr.com/photos/proni/16192309048/). Another wonderful effort sees two views of the Shankill Road Mission (https://www.flickr.com/photos/proni/15848166848/), and a wonderfully effective merge between an old tram and a modern bus. Only 17 images were created, the purpose behind the project being to highlight the photographic holdings of PRONI, which successfully gained a lot of press attention in Northern Ireland and beyond. It was so successful that more images will be created soon in collaboration with Strabane and District Camera Club.

Click to visit PRONI's Flickr page

The current big digitisation project still ongoing at the moment is the ED/1 National Education Commisioners Grant Aid Application forms for school across the north of Ireland. The following is th catalogue description:

In September 1831, the Commissioners of National Education were established to administer a fund of 30,000 per annum placed at the disposal of the Lord Lieutenant for the education of the poor in Ireland. They were empowered to make grants to local schools on condition that part of the required sum was raised locally and in addition they supervised the work of the schools, supplied textbooks and trained teachers. This class of records which bears the PRONI reference number ED/1, consists of 33 volumes of applications made to the Commissioners for grants for building schools, payment of teachers, provision of textbooks, equipment etc. The applications were made on printed questionnaire forms (occasionally accompanied by correspondence), which were filed and bound together in date order and arranged county by county. They cover the period 1832-1889. ED/1/1 to ED1/28, are available on microfilm and bear the reference number MIC/548, Reels 1 to 52. The National Archives in Dublin hold a few unbound applications from Counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh and Meath, as well as a volume of Rejected Applications from Ulster schools for the period 1868-72.

So far the records for counties Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone have been completed, and work is now ongoing with County Antrim. I recently looked at these records for Islandmagee to try to find one of my schoolteacher ancestors, and although unsuccessful (he taught just before the period in question), I can see how they will be very useful for those wishing to understand more about the creation of the National Schools movement. Elsewhere on the digitisation front, various private records have been worked on, including church records for Ballynahinch Congregation Church and a project to digitise the registers from St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast. These will not go online but will be made accessible instead within the search rooms.

On the cataloguing front, we heard from Jayne Hutchinson about the ongoing work to prepare government papers for release from 1987/88, and then more importantly on the family history front, on efforts to further catalogue the 1939 National Identity Register holdings - at present PRONI receives just 10-15 look up requests a month for these. This has been something of a nightmare collection to access, in that there are no original finding aids for the collection which follows no rhyme nor reason in the way that they have been collated (I apologised to Jayne for having made the first FOI application on these five years ago! See http://scottishancestry.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/1939-northern-irish-foi-request.html). The good news is that these are now being catalogued by address, with all of Belfast now completed, and with just 90 of the total 751 volumes still to go. Once this has been completed, PRONI intends to make a big song and dance about them, so watch this space. I did flag up that the online news story about their access has disappeared from the PRONI news site, this is because there was a recent switch to a new news delivery platform, and it seems to have been lost in the move, but the records are accessible via a Freedom of Information request to the facility at no cost. I did also ask for clarification about the 1937 Northern Irish census, following the recent news that the 1926 census for the north no longer exists, and have had it confirmed that the 1937 census DOES still exist, but that it won't be available until 2037. This therefore means that the National Identity Register from 1939 is going to be an immensely important census substitute for some time to come - something I can certainly testify to as the record obtained from my original FOI request confirmed my grandfather's date of birth in Belgium, for which there had previously been a bit of a question mark.

Elsewhere on the cataloguing front, work continues on the Robert Hunter papers, the papers of Sean Murray who was a local Communist of note, the family papers of Dr Andrew Johnston (1929-49), Thomas Dobson's diaries at D4390 (Dobson was key in the development of a process to freeze Irish milk for worldwide export), the Londonderry papers (including photo albums from Mount Stewart under D3099), papers from the Royal Victoria Hospital, and more.

On the exhibitions front, PRONI will be hosting a Derry diaspora exhibition soon, and has also created its own First World War pop-up exhibition on various themes from the home front and women, to 1916, the Somme and the Easter Rising. This will be hosted at PRONI and then at selected venues across the countries. From June 6th an exhibition on the Connaught Rangers will also be on display at PRONI, which has previously been travelling around the country also.

Television series Who Do You Think You Are is currently preparing for a new run, and as a part of this the production company has been back to Belfast to film with well known celebrity XXXXXXX...! When they're good and ready to announce who it is, I'll update you - but it's certainly an individual I'll be interested to watch! :) Suffice to say that the filming went well, and it will be great to see PRONI given a UK wide platform on screen to show off its wares yet again.

On the talks front, a series of ten talks entitled 'Your Family Tree' will be kicking off from March 11th right through to May 13th. These will be filmed for inclusion on PRONI's YouTube channel at a later stage. A new hands on monthly training session for PRONI newbies is also proving extremely popular, offering a 2 hour session for 14 people maximum, with one hour on the facility's online offerings, and the other the searchroom (as well as orientation around the facility). Sessions for March and April are already fully booked, with more to come. (For all forthcoming talks and events, keep an eye on the PRONI website and this blog!). PRONI will also be participating again in European Heritage weekend later this year in September.

On other developments from key partners to PRONI, Libraries NI has an interesting digitisation project on the go just now, digitising the letters of library staff who went to war from 1914-1918. This will be promoted in June and the results will be accessible from the Libraries NI website (www.librariesni.org.uk).

That's about it for now! As usual I was able to do a few hours client research after the meeting, before getting a quick session in at the end of the day for my own research, before getting the late ferry back to Scotland. I was able to call up five productions, including two financial accounts for the Scottish army in my home town of Carrickfergus and Islandmagee in 1643 (the brother of one of my Islandmagee ancestors was in the Scottish army and was based there), a rental roll for Islandmagee in 1819, and two other productions. I was able to obtain all of these records, scan them on the large self-service scanner, and check out of the building within the space of 20 minutes - and the scans only cost £3 in total (30p an image). THAT is how to run an archive service! (Useful tip - the self-service scanner is for USB thumb drives only, so always worth carrying one if making a visit.)

(With thanks to the staff at PRONI)

Chris

For details on my range of genealogy guide books please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. To commission me for genealogical research, please visit my research site at www.scotlandsgreateststory.co.uk.

PRONI user forum meeting December 2012 - report

I was very privileged to be invited over to Belfast yesterday to take part in the new user forum for the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (www.proni.gov.uk). The event was the first to take place in the new PRONI building. The ferry from Cairnryan got into Belfast at 9.45am and at 10.30am I was drinking coffee and eating scones (where did they get those scones?! - A+!), and ready to get going.

The meeting was scheduled for an hour and half, but actually ran closer to two and half hours, with so much to discuss. The session started with an overview of where PRONI is currently at following its move last year to its fantastic new premises at Titanic Quarter (honestly, compared to the old building it's the difference between night and day!). Some interesting statistics were quoted. Despite an overall drop in tourism in Northern Ireland of 12%, there was a whopping increase in cultural tourism of 62%, and PRONI has clearly been reaping some of the benefits. 39% of new visitors in 2011-12 were not from Northern Ireland - 10% were from England and Wales, 9% from the USA, 6% from the Republic of Ireland, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly to me, 2% from Scotland. (It's £15 day return on the ferry just now, a doddle!). The main reason for new registrations was overwhelming family history, at 73%. (Full specs on all of this are included in the PRONI Digest released a few days ago - see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/pronis-year-2011-2012.html)

There were many individuals at the meeting from various walks of life, ranging from the professional genealogists, the North of Ireland Family History Society, the BBC and others. I was invited to PRONI as a 'remote user', in other words as someone who uses the web offerings from the facility. I was hugely encouraged by the discussions on PRONI's approach to placing material online, it sees it as one of several key priorities. In the last year their website had 10,213,338 hits, with the most popular holding being its wills calendars collections - something I tend to use mostly myself when using the site. There are many major developments happening soon with the PRONI site (some of which I have previously mentioned on the blog, but now have some firmer detail on) - here's a taster:

1) The Revision Books from Griffith's Valuation, catalogued under VAL12B at PRONI, have all been digitised in partnership with Family Search, and will be tested in February 2013 and hopefully going online circa March 2013. The Revision Books are essentially the next bit after the Primary Valuation recorded by Richard Griffith in the mid-19th Century - they record changes of ownership and valuation right up to 1930 for each property in Northern Ireland. PRONI fully expects this to be as popular, if not more, than its wills calendars collections. (We'll be getting a preview of this at the next user group meeting).

2) The PRONI website is to be integrated into the Northern Ireland Direct website next year - it's not something that anyone appeared too keen on, but it is happening. How or even if that will have any affect on current URLs is unclear, but it seems likely. It was emphasised that none of the content would be disappearing, its simply a migration to a new platform. The same thing recently happened with the GRO website in Belfast. (With that site, the easiest way to find GRO pages at present is to actually go to the NI Direct page that tells you everything has moved, at www.nidirect.gov.uk/gro-content-has-moved!)

3) Drum roll please....! PRONI has redeveloped its Street Directories interface, and we were treated to a sneak preview. If you're a regular user of the site, this is going to be quite an emotional moment...

To set some context: the PRONI website in virtually all respects is brilliant, and is one of the easiest to use of all UK archives, with one exception - its Street Directories page at www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives/street_directories.htm. I'd say that the reason why the Wills Calendars pages are the most popular is simply because the user experience on the current directories page is horrendous - performing searches on it is like looking for your granny in a vat of treacle. Fortunately, it's also been winding up PRONI staff, so much so that they've rebuilt it. Janet Hancock has been working hard to get the thing turned around, and showed us yesterday how the new screen will work. In performing a search now, any search term will be returned on a page within a highlighted box - not only that, but if you do a search for a term such as 'John Smith', the two words will be highlighted on the page in different colours - it makes looking for the thing on the page a heck of a lot easier than at present. There is also a new filtering system integrated, so you can narrow down to a directory section on a particular village, considerably improving browsing options beyond stepping ahead or back a page at a time. You can also download pages in PDF format, and much more. Expect this to go online early 2013 - and your happiness levels to rise accordingly.

4) I mentioned some time ago that I successfully made a Freedom of Information  request for access to information held in the 1939 National Identity Register for Northern Ireland, on the back of similar information having been made publicly available in Britain (see http://scottishancestry.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/1939-northern-irish-foi-request.html). For those not in the know, this was an emergency wartime census carried out in September 1939, a couple of weeks into the war. What I had not appreciated was that I clearly had the luck of the Devil in obtaining this - not through any intransigence from PRONI, but through the simple fact that there was no index. It turns out that the request I made was successfully dealt with simply because the second box that was opened with the books just happened to have the right entry - it was a pure fluke. Not only that, but there was no clarity as to who was actually responsible for the records, which also had to be resolved (my request was the first they had received).

I apologised profusely to Ian Montgomery about my FOI request, when I saw the look of pain on his face as he described what they had to do to resolve this for further enquiries! The good news is that PRONI has created an index for the collection as part of its cataloguing activities. This is not online, and there was no discussion about it going online - I'm also unclear as yet as to how it was catalogued (i.e. by name or district etc), but the upshot of the exercise is that it will be considerably easier for now for PRONI to handle FOI enquiries on the collection. I caught up with Ian after the meeting, and he mentioned that one of the real frustrations was that there also appeared to be no logic as to how the records were compiled, which also caused issues. My apologies to all at PRONI for any agony I may have caused - but thanks, as a resource it certainly helped me with my own research, as it undoubtedly will for others.

5) PRONI will be creating a World War 1 sources guide next year.

There was also some discussion on forthcoming events.

1) On January 23rd there will be a Holocaust Memorial event at PRONI about the Jewish Community in the North of Ireland.

2) From February 18th to March 15th there will be a temporary exhibition at PRONI entitled Exploring Your Roots.

3) PRONI will be at Who Do You Think You Are? Live from February 22nd-24th.

4) There are further lecture series planned from the Linen Hall Library and with the Open University.

5) The World Police and Fire games are being held in Northern Ireland next year, and to tie in PRONI will be hosting a Family History Fair from August 3rd-4th 2013.

6) Next year sees the 400th anniversary of the granting of charters for the foundation of several major towns and cities in the north, including Belfast, Derry, Newtonards, Bangor, Coleraine, Killyleagh and Limavaday. PRONI plans to hold two 2 day Plantations conferences on this next year, details to be forthcoming.

Finally it looks like PRONI will also be trying to find ways to engage with The Gathering in the Republic of Ireland next year, it seems the Government is keen to get involved to some extent. One of the things that was discussed was the fact that PRONI actually has a lot of archival materials for lots of border counties on the Republic side, such as Mongahan, Donegal and Cavan, which some down south may not be aware of. So do have a look at the catalogue if you are from there, there is a tonne of good stuff there also!

(With thanks to PRONI)

Chris

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