Thursday 16 January 2014

Current PRONI developments in Belfast

Due to my mother's death at the end of November I was unable to attend the PRONI (www.proni.gov.uk) user forum meeting in Belfast on December 6th. I have now received the minutes from the meeting, and would first like to express my thanks to those there for their kind condolences concerning my mother.

The meeting discussed some of the forthcoming projects currently under way concerning the First World War. In addition to various talks, a new exhibition and possible contributions to the Imperial War Museum's Lives of the Great War project, the archive is also hoping to produce some relevant online databases, with one of those earmarked being an indexed database of military personnel treated in the Royal Victoria Hospital, 1914-16.

Of good news is the fact that PRONI is also exploring various means of communicating further with the public via social media (thumbs up!), as well as means to promote PRONI's services beyond Belfast, particularly in the north-west of Ulster.

The updated wills index and database will go online in March, and as reported before, will contain the currently missing entries from 1918-1921 and an extension of coverage from 1858-1943 up to 1858-1965. The new version of the catalogue was also due to go online at the end of December.

(With thanks to Gavin McMahon)

Chris

My latest genealogy books are Tracing Your Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), Discover Scottish Civil Registration Records, and Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet. My next Pharos course is Scottish Research Online, which commences Feb 27th 2014, 5 weeks, price £45.99.

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