rootsireland.ie

Genealogy, Archaeology, History, Heritage & Folklore

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pwaldron
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rootsireland.ie

Post by pwaldron » Wed Jul 21, 2010 11:47 am

I recently received the e-mail below from info@rootsireland.ie and thought that some readers of this forum might find it of interest. I will resist the temptation to make any further comment.
Our online database research system is a facility for those wishing to research their own family ancestry using Irish Family History Foundation centre databases. These unique databases have been compiled by the individual centres at their own expense and many have taken over 20 years to complete. This service is for those wishing to conduct their own family history online research and it is not intended to replace the services offered by centres.

Our security procedures have highlighted the high volume of searches that you have done without purchasing any records. If you cannot locate the ancestors that you seek we would advise you that we also offer a full professional research service at our centres and we offer a fixed fee for a single birth, death or marriage search from the database. Our researchers can determine which, if any, of the records relates to your ancestor as they have access to the full details. Perhaps this is a way for you to consider tracing your ancestors. If we locate an ancestor we can also check for siblings and make further research proposals.

We have disabled your account in order to protect the data we hold on behalf of the IFHF centres. We have already expanded the search parameters on the site and hope this will assist people in finding the correct records. You do have the facility to narrow the search by entering the first name and surname of the father of the birth/baptismal record that you are searching for which will reduce the number of records returned in any search. On the individual county sites you also have the ability to narrow your search by parish. The list of available parishes now also shows the denomination of the parish. An Advanced search facility is also available on some centres.

Please let us know if we can be of any assistance to you with your family history search.

Yours sincerely
IFHF

mcreed
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by mcreed » Wed Jul 21, 2010 8:43 pm

Paddy,
you're not alone. The same thing happened to someone on RootsChat last December
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.ph ... 870.0.html

And of course the statement from IFHF that "These unique databases have been compiled by the individual centres at their own expense" is completely inaccurate - the Irish government has spent millions through FÁS over the years in creating these databases.

What they don't seem to realise is that information is one thing you can give away - and still keep!
Regards,
Mike

Paddy Casey
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by Paddy Casey » Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:17 pm

mcreed wrote:And of course the statement from IFHF that "These unique databases have been compiled by the individual centres at their own expense" is completely inaccurate - the Irish government has spent millions through FÁS over the years in creating these databases........
Regards,
Mike
Those who don't suffer from high blood pressure or borderline depression can browse the numerous Government debates ( http://www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie ) and reports on this subject on the Goverment website. For a little taste make sure you are sitting comfortably and fasten your safety belt and fire up http://tinyurl.com/32zqrhl where you will read, among other things, with reference to the Irish Genealogy Project that "......the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism has supported the project, with funding of €2.5 million from 1998 to 2005. In addition, FÁS contributed €32.2 million in the period to 31 December 2004 through the payment of wages to staff inputting records into the databases".

There is also reference to "..........following a value-for-money report from the Comptroller and Auditor General and the project’s transfer to the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, a full review was undertaken by an officer of the Department. That review was completed in early 1999". I won't abuse the hospitality of this Clare-oriented forum by continuing to write about this general issue but suffice it to say that if you don't yet suffer from cardiac arrhythmias the Comptroller and Auditor General's value-for-money reports* will make sure you do.

So much for "....compiled by the individual centres at their own expense".

Paddy

* Start at http://www.audgen.gov.ie/documents/vfmr ... roject.pdf and take it from there. This report alone will leave you weeping over your keyboard but there are more of them if you are masochistic and want to persist (e.g. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/spe ... ol1Eng.pdf and http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.as ... All&Page=2 ). See also Sean Murphy's remarks at http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/dir/intro.htm (27-Dec-2009) where he writes "The longest running government-funded project has been the Irish Genealogical Project, which was severely criticised by the Comptroller and Auditor General in 1996 for poor management and standards and is now apparently in abeyance, its grand scheme to computerise Irish records unfinished. A rump of the project survives as the Irish Family History Foundation, which boasts a total of 16 million records online, but which it insists on doling out at a cost of €5 per individual piece of information. The Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism has surprisingly entered the fray as a genealogical player in apparent competition to the IFHF, recently releasing on free access on its Irish Genealogy website over a million Kerry and Dublin church records, with more records promised next year". And so it goes on.
Last edited by Paddy Casey on Thu Jul 22, 2010 3:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.

pwaldron
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by pwaldron » Thu Jul 22, 2010 2:13 pm

Many thanks, Paddy eile, for your typically detailed research. I momentarily thought on receipt of the above e-mail yesterday that my long-held belief that I had already paid for the IFHF databases through my taxes was just a figment of my imagination. I am glad to learn that my mental faculties have not yet deteriorated to that extent.

Even if I had not helped to fund the compilation of the indexes, I would still not understand why I am expected to pay 5 euro online for a trainee's transcription of a record of which I can, in most cases, purchase a photocopy for 4 euro in the GRO. And my recollection is that 5 euro is a temporary special offer for a so-called service originally priced at 10 euro.

\pw

jkane13
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by jkane13 » Mon Jul 26, 2010 5:01 pm

What keeps someone from creating another account? Seems like a cat and mouse shell game to me!
- Jeff

pwaldron
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by pwaldron » Fri Aug 13, 2010 1:54 am

Several weeks have passed and I have now calmed down slightly and revisited http://www.rootsireland.ie/

This is after all a Clare forum, so I am surprised that there has been no mention on this thread of the absence of Clare records on the above website. It shows that there is apparently no `County Genealogy Centre' in Clare and that Clare is neither `currently available' nor `available soon'.

So how can one locate a Clare baptismal or marriage record? And how much does it cost? Or what years are available?

Were any of the vast sums of government money mentioned by the other Paddy above spent on indexing Clare records?

mcreed
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by mcreed » Fri Aug 13, 2010 10:12 am

On http://www.rootsireland.ie/index.php?id=31 it says:
"Some counties in Ireland do not have an IFHF county genealogy centre, are not yet participating in the online service or do not offer a genealogy service at the present time. The IFHF is working towards the goal of all Irish county genealogy centres participating in the online service and also offering a full genealogy research service. Some counties which are not online at present will be joining the Online Research Service in the coming months. All counties continue to work on the computerization of further records." and it also says:
"Clare:
Co. Clare offers a commissioned research service only. For further information please contact
email: clareheritage@eircom.net".

This is the email address of the Clare Heritage & Genealogical Centre (http://www.clareroots.com/).

Antoinette O’Brien of the Clare Heritage & Genealogical Centre, Corofin, is scheduled to give a talk at the upcoming 'Genealogy Day' at the Clare Library - so maybe someone attending that could ask her why Clare records won't be available under Rootsireland. http://clarelibrary.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... ublic.html

The map on http://www.rootsireland.ie/ifhf/map.php shows that a number of other counties are not taking part in this project - including Kerry, Waterford, Wexford and Carlow.

pwaldron
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by pwaldron » Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:53 am

Thanks for finding that little gem buried away on rootsireland.ie

The obvious conclusion from the main menu on all the rootsireland.ie pages would be that there is no County Heritage Centre at all for Clare.

I will be at that 'Genealogy Day' and will make sure to ask the relevant question in the unlikely event that nobody else gets in first.

Parish records for Kerry and Carlow are available free of charge from irishgenealogy.ie, so the fact that one cannot buy them at exorbitant prices from rootsireland.ie is a minor irritation compared to the total absence of Clare records (other than one or two exceptions like kilmihil.com where records have been made freely available online at parish level).

ftipple
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by ftipple » Sat Sep 11, 2010 2:39 pm

One of the reasons that so many visits to the IFHF index have to be made is because the absolutely AWFUL search engine means you can't be sure that the record offered is of interest. I certainly brood long and hard before parting with my (pensioner's!) €5, and often re-visit the index several times before taking the plunge. Why can't the mother's surname be used as well? That way you might be able to identify other family members.

Another thing that really bugs me is that you don't actually buy the record, you just have a short lease - 6-months, I think - and if you're unlucky enough to mislay the print-out, you may have to pay again for another copy.

And while I'm ranting on, what about the very poor quality of many of the transcriptions, incorrect personal names, incorrect place names, inconsistent translation. I could go on, and on, and on...

mcreed
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by mcreed » Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:12 pm

Hello all. I just came across a couple of posts on Youtube about rootsireland.ie.

"Lisa Louise Cooke, host of The Genealogy Gems Podcast at http://www.GenealogyGems.TV interviews Feargal O'Donnell of the new website Roots Ireland at http://www.rootsireland.ie.

Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S484Me2MX8
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NekbUfhZlY

These were put up on Youtube in September 2008

AlStaunton
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by AlStaunton » Mon Sep 27, 2010 10:52 am

I have used this site and found some usefull records I agree €5 is a bit steep especially with the currency conversion rates it cost me more. Some I have taken a punt and got a record I was looking for others have been of no use. Being a transcript and not an original record doesn't help in some cases when you have to rely on another persons interpretation of what is written and with some writing styles it takes time to work out what is written. When people are transcribing masses of documents they probably don't spent too much time on individual documents and wouldn't be as diligent as we would transcribing records for ourselves. I have an old hand written will that I am deciphering and that in itself is an arduous task but I can do it at my leisure.

I was looking for a marriage of a John Ormsby Stenson to a Maria Webb. The transcript named him as Henson I emailed them and here is the reply:

To: info@ifhf.ie
Subject: Feedback: IFHF Online Record Search - FAQ/HELP

Church marriage Record 26 Jul 1847
John Ormsby Henson to Maria Webb

I believe this is a transcription error and the name should be Stenson and not Henson

Dear Mr. Staunton,

Your below email to the Irish Family History Foundation was forwarded to me at Limerick Genealogy as we would deal with the records for this county. In addition to the Online Record Search System which allows individuals to carry out their own research, Limerick Genealogy provides a professional research service for those with ancestry in Limerick city and county. On our website http://www.limerickgenealogy.com you will find more details on the service we provide, sources employed in research and application forms for commissioned research.

With regard to your email, I have checked the below marriage record and found that because of the cursive script and faded writing it was difficult to decipher. However I would agree that the groom could and probably does read as John Ormsby Stenson. I will have this corrected online when the database is next uploaded.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to email me.
Kind regards,
Catriona Crowe

AlStaunton
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by AlStaunton » Mon Sep 27, 2010 10:55 am

Here is a site worth checking as you can download copies of original documents
http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/

I am very pleased to welcome you to http://www.irishgenealogy.ie the web site dedicated to helping you in your search for records of family history for past generations. This site will assist you in providing valuable information on the many ways of tracing your family history. You can now view over 2 million pre-1900 church records free of charge. You can also make your travelling arrangements if you wish to visit the home of your forebears.

This site is hosted by the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport. At present there are 2,030,140 Church records of Baptism, Marriage and Death available to view free of charge on this website. These records are comprised of Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland Records from Counties Carlow, Cork, Kerry and Dublin City. These Church records were computerised with funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport and through the work of the Dublin Heritage Group and Kerry Genealogical Research Centre.
This website follows on from the work achieved by Irish Genealogy Limited (IGL). The Department acknowledges the role played by IGL, its staff and the various members of the Board of Directors. The Department also acknowledges the work and dedication of the many people and voluntary groups whose input continues to support the promotion of genealogy in Ireland. Special thanks goes to Dublin City Public Library, Kerry Genealogical Research Centre, The Representative Church Body Library, The National Library of Ireland and the National Archives of Ireland. The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport continues to work on this project and a further 1 million records for Dublin City and County Cork will be added before the end of 2010. I hope that all users of this website get great benefit from using it and I know that with further records coming online in the near future that it will be a valuable source of information for the wider community and a gateway for visitors from abroad to research their family interest and visit places which they may not otherwise have visited.

AlStaunton
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by AlStaunton » Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:04 am

Here is another worth checking out and its free as well Another transcription but in the case I mention above they have his name right

http://beta.familysearch.org/

pwaldron
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by pwaldron » Mon Mar 05, 2012 12:16 pm

The much-maligned Irish Family History Foundation has finally published its so-called Fair Usage Policy at http://ifhf.rootsireland.ie/terms.php :

"There is a maximum usage limit of 800 searches of the index allowed, without a minimum purchase of 5.00 Euro. If you get close to the free search limit, (600 searches), without any purchase of a record, we will send you an email to advise you of this. When you reach the limit of free searches (800) your account will be closed automatically."

Perhaps someone out there can explain to me the logic of closing accounts, rather than just charging 5 euro per 800 searches (in addition to standard 5 euro per so-called record transcription).

I have still failed to find any details of what additional information any particular transcription might contain - the fee is the same whether the transcription contains no more information than the index, or contains full names and addresses of both parents of bride and groom; the customer has no idea how much information to expect until he or she has paid up.

Paddy Casey
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Re: rootsireland.ie

Post by Paddy Casey » Mon Mar 05, 2012 12:25 pm

pwaldron wrote:The much-maligned Irish Family History Foundation has finally published its so-called Fair Usage Policy at http://ifhf.rootsireland.ie/terms.php:...... the customer has no idea how much information to expect until he or she has paid up.
This is based on the Scratch Card business model used very successfully by commercial lottery companies: you buy a scratch card and scratch off the silver covering and you find that you have won nothing or some useless bauble for which you have to write to the lottery company. But some compulsion grips the purchaser and she/he buys another one in the hope that it will be lucky. Millions of people buy these scratch cards daily ("Hope springs eternal in the human breast"*, etc. etc.). Transferring this model to Irish genealogy was a neat bit of business-oriented lateral thinking on the part of the Irish Family History Foundation.

Paddy C
*
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733

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