This year I took part in the CollabArchive project with PRONI and RNIB making a video about music. Afterwards we were given the opportunity of doing some voluntary work for PRONI.
I was asked to transcribe five How-to Guide videos so that closed captions could be created for them. The captions will be added to the videos in the coming months.
The e-Catalogue Guide is a record of the documents PRONI has in its archives and it explains how to navigate the site to find certain papers and documents. It will show you a reference which you can then ask for at PRONI for further research, some can also be found on the PRONI site.
The Guide for the 1901 and 1911 Census shows what was recorded by each household. In the 1901 census the names of each occupant were recorded and their address, gender, age and relationship to the head of the family. It also recorded where they were born, their religion, whether they spoke English or Irish, their marital status, whether they could read or write and any specified illnesses.
The 1911 census has the same information, plus how many years they are married and how many children they had. The video helps explain how to find people on the census by the information provided.
The Guide for the Valuation Books covers the years from about 1860 to 1930 for all of Ireland. Each parish is recorded showing the name of the head of the household and the owner of the house. It also records what there is included with each property i.e. house, land, garden and outhouses. how much land if any, the value of the property or the rent paid.
The Irish Genealogy Guide has a record of births, marriages and deaths. The births are from 1864-1922, the marriages are from 1845-1922 and the deaths are from 1864-1922. The records are divided into counties and then parishes.
The Historical Map Viewer Guide is the longest and most involved. It might be a good idea to have a hard copy of the transcript when using it. It covers the time period from 1833 to1986, so it has different periods of time where you can see how the country looked through the years. It marks out the counties, parishes and townlands with different colour bands to make it easy to see. It also shows different sites like churches and monuments.
I have really enjoyed doing this work for PRONI especially as I am involved in family research myself and I have found out some useful information I hadn’t picked up on before.
Being able to take part along with others to update PRONI’s records, meeting others doing the same work and spending time with them has been very rewarding for me. As someone with sight impairment, it has been really good in boosting my confidence.
Thumbs up and big smiles from Liam Clarke and Carol Bennett, our two Music Tales volunteers.
The Getting Started With Your Research blog by Carol Bennett is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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