So much for getting back to blogging regularly, I keep getting distracted by other tasks. One of the more pleasant ones was attending the Celebrating the Census conference at the National Archives on Saturday.
It was an all day event with two streams of presentations. Of course, there’s always a session or two where I’m torn between two different lectures!
The ones I enjoyed the most were Sharon Hintze from Family Search giving an entertaining overview of worldwide census returns, and Helen Kelly on Irish census returns and census substitutes that made me much more optimistic about finding my Irish folk. (And that the most important thing is not trying to trace your family back to the mists of time, but actually finding the place, the land where your ancestors trod.)
Dee Williams from ScotlandsPeople gave a great background of, and searching tips for, the Scottish censuses, and TNA’s Mark Pearsall highlighted their pre-1841 censuses and listings. Humphrey Southall (University of Portsmouth) gave a geographer’s view of the censuses and showed us their wonderful website of historic geographical information, A Vision of Britain through Time: “A vision of Britain between 1801 and 2001. Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions.” Go check it out.
One of the nice things about events like this, is that you get to meet like-minded people. Thanks to everyone at TNA for a fantastic day!
Margaret
This distant Burke/Flynn cousin is happy to read this. One day I might manage to visit the village in Co Mayo from whence hails my family!!
Maggie
Margaret, I am working on tracking them down – we will find that village!