July 30th was my 17th Blogiversary. I started blogging in 2007 and up until this year, I wrote a blog just about every Monday (and every day when in Ireland). I’m currently on my third platform. I began with iWeb from Apple and used the Domain, moughty.com. As it goes with Apple products, it was easy to learn, but unfortunately, Apple moves on and you have an end of life scenario. For me, that was in 2011. But, Apple also has a substantial developer community which jumps into the breach…so enter Sandvox.
There was a lot of copy and paste to bring over the previous years and Sandvox wasn’t quite as easy as iWeb, but I learned what I could and couldn’t do and found some work arounds. That went well until 2018 when Sandvox stopped responding to issues and went dark. It was time to change again. I researched a number of platforms and finally decided on Wix. The new website went live in January of 2019 and since there was no way to port the old website to Wix, I made the decision to copy only the blogs from 2018 (a years worth). There were some exceptions for older blogs referred to in some of the post-2019 blogs, as well as my very first blog on July 30, 2007, “How I got Here.” When I made the switch, l was concerned about losing my previous work, so I obtained a new Domain, IrishFamilyRoots.com.
The next big hurdle became apparent when I discovered there was no way to link my personal family tree using Wix. My desktop software, Reunion, creates a website within their software. Everything needed to run the website is in a folder and a link to the folder Table of Contents allows everything to run. Once the folder was on my computer, all I needed to do was use FTP software to move the folder to the web server and link to the table of contents. It worked like a charm at iWeb and Sandvox, but there was no way to do this with Wix. I was still holding on to my moughty.com Domain, so I decided to use that as a personal website. I managed to get the basics of the site set up, but learning another platform, and maintaining two platforms, Wix and WordPress, was too much for me, so I haven’t done much with the second site. Now, I’m hosting my Reunion Website at moughty.com and using the external link from the personal page of the IrishFamilyRoots website. The problem so far is that some of the personal blogs also show up on this page, so just ignore those. That’s where I am today. I’m blogging at least once a month, focusing more on case studies showing how to use the various sources of information to put together your family history. If you’re planning to put your information on a website, I hope some of the information here will help!
So what about my personal research? It’s been an interesting month, with lots going on. I had foot surgery mid-month which (along with the heat here in Florida) kept me home so I've spent most of my time continuing to digitize my paper records. Lots of trips to the re-cycle bin. I didn’t get as much done as I hoped, as I was too busy re-reading what I had stuck in file folders going back to the early 90’s. Some of what I found were duplicates, or copies of records that are now online. In the 1990’s I spent hours at the Family History Library reading microfilms of Irish Civil Records, then removing the film from the reader and taking it to the copy area. Most of those records are now online and much more legible. I found a file titled “Wrong or Unidentified Families.” Those of you who have been doing this for a while will remember the days of using the original indexes which listed alphabetically by last name the registrations of births, deaths and marriages.
The indexes were divided by Year and then by Quarter beginning in 1878, with the only additional identifying information the name of the Registration District. Even if you knew the year and District, you still had to guess which record you wanted to see. If you had a common surname such as Daly, there might be (and were) multiple Michael Dalys born in the same Registration District in the same year/quarter requiring a guess...hence the “wrong” certificate. Since each copy cost €4 it was expensive, so I kept all of those wrong certificates, thinking someday I might be able to attach them somewhere in my tree. This was cluster genealogy before I even knew what that was! Today, IrishGenealogy.ie allows you to see the actual certificate for free to decide if it is the correct one. The difficulty of researching Irish ancestors is legendary, but we’ve come a long way. Today, many of the records we use are available online for free!
Since the name Moughty was unusual and only appeared in a small area of Westmeath on the border of Longford, I collected every record I could find. Early on I had documented an entire James Moughty family with no idea how it connected to my husband’s line. Here’s a blog I wrote in 2019 about finally making the connection. I encourage you to research all of the individuals of a given surname in a Townland or Parish, as you're likely to find that they are related.
There is a lot of paper in my files and I don't know how many more years it will take me to digitize all of it. My goal is to get my research into a format where I can donate it to a repository in the area where our ancestors lived. (My kids have threatened to cremate my file cabinets with me.😀) If you're just starting your genealogy journey, I'd encourage you to digitize your records as you go. If you have extensive paper files, take the time to digitize them when you're working on that family. One of the things I've found is that some formats are no longer readable, so stick to common formats such as JPG or PDF. Some of my early digital pictures were taken with an Apple QuickTime Camera, but the QuickDraw format is no longer readable. I'm going to be looking for some alternatives to see if I can get those pictures back.
One last thing, I did do an update on the "Links and Resources" section of my website, focused on the Irish County Links. If you have a resource you find helpful, let me know and I'll add it to the list. Also let me know if you find a broken link.
Happy Hunting!
The updated Irish Quick Reference Guides (Digital) are available now.
You can order them from my Store and I will email you the three PDF's.
Wow, Donna, you’ve seen so many changes in research and had to adapt as tecbology developed. Thanks for explaining your process for culling your paper files. I feel like I’ve gone through similar stages-. I started researching in SLC in 2007 and started writing my research into book form in January 2015. Now to address all those old paper files…
Anne