The Society's annual post Annual General Meeting lectures "Leading the Way" and "Virtual Treasury 101" are now available free to all.
‘Leading the Way: Michael Leader's Transcripts of County Cork Church of Ireland Parishes’ is 2024's lecture, given by Sharon Hintze, a member of the IGRS Library committee. It explains the project to digitise the Society’s extensive collection of transcripts of parish records for Co. Cork compiled by the late Michael Leader, a former Vice President of the IGRS.
Michael worked periodically over a period of 40 years transcribing Church of Ireland parish registers to support his personal family research. After his death in 1998, his papers were given to the IGRS. These have rested in storage for 25 years but now the transcriptions and accompanying pedigrees are nearing publication. Sharon will describe the detailed work that has been done to prepare these materials for publication and what has been learnt from it.
'Virtual Treasury 101 - Records, Resources and Research' was 2023's lecture, was given by Dr Ciarán Wallace, deputy-director of the Beyond 2022-Project, which is the body behind the Virtual Record Treasury (VRT), launched in June 2022.
The VRT represents a project to identify surrogates (in all their myriad forms) for original material destroyed by the fire which consumed the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922. It aims to make this material available online digitally and without charge.
Ciarán's lecture takes the form of a tour of the Virtual Treasury, showing some major collections and hidden corners; and pointing out the supporting essays and articles which explain and give context for particular groups of records. Using relevant examples, he demonstrates how to search and browse for records, filter results and how to search within a document.
Both videos can be found by clicking here
