British & Irish Genealogy: News From Everywhere

... Except Wales. But pretty much everywhere else seems to be covered, news-wise, today!

We'll begin with the Irish Genealogical Research Society. Ever thought of joining but decided against it? Well, now there might be a very good reason to give it a try, with the release of a new monthly e-bulletin of Irish news. Ordinarily available only to IGRS members, the society has made the decision to release it's launch edition to the general public to generate some interest. To secure your copy, send an email (before 29th Feb) to igrsoc2011@hotmail.co.uk with "IGRS bulletin 1" (without the quote marks) in the subject line, and they'll send you a copy. I did, and I must say the six-page effort is a rather neat affair. So get your copy, and consider joining up as a fully-fledged member.

The English Midlands are next up. Firstly, TheGenealogist has added a further 21,000 names to its Worcestershire PR Transcripts (presumably for the Malvern area?) - see here. Ancestry have added tons more stuff for the county of Warwickshire - there's a tidy summary of the details from John D.Reid, here, and the records themselves can be accessed via Ancestry's updates page (where you will also see some updated material for West Yorkshire).

Kent features in another of John D.Reid's blog posts, here. As John says, these new FamilySearch record sets are not 'casually' available, but rather are accessed via a login. The best starting point for the said records on the FamilySearch site itself is probably here (and scroll down a bit).

Off to the Scottish Hebrides next, and it's over to Chris Paton's blog for this handy piece of news.

Users of the above-mentioned FamilySearch site may also wish to digest this piece of news concerning the 'Classic FamilySearch Site'.

To archives 'HQ' now, and The National Archives have a news item concerning the launch of a project to aid the interpretation of medieval records. Sounds like just the sort of thing I and 99% of family historians need!

Issue 5 of the utterly free Warfare Magazine is now available - see the latest newsletter/announcement.

I hope you will excuse me a little bit of in-house news, now. If you are planning to go to the WDYTYA? Live Fair in London later this month, do keep an eye out for the FFHS's new Really Useful Information Leaflet which will be launched during the event - for in it you will find a sample family history quiz from my Family & Local History Quiz Book. Fame at last! If you can't wait, then you can always order your own copy of the full Quiz Book (e-version or hard copy) - see image in the right-hand column.

One further item of news from BI-Gen. Many of you will have noticed a hard copy BI-Gen Newsletter February 2012 hanging from the noticeboard of your local library or record office (I also sent copies to the country's FHSs, too). Several folk have since contacted me and asked if they could have the same sent to them direct (on a monthly basis) - and I can't see why not. Anyway, I have refrained from 'pushing' this newsletter here on the blog as it is, effectively, little more than an end of month summary of news and other stuff which has appeared on the blog in the previous weeks. However, if this is something you'd like to get your hands on, email me at micksouthwick@blueyonder.co.uk and I'll send you the first issue (Feb) free and fill you in on how to subscribe for the next year (there will be a very small fee - but the first one is free).

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