New and exclusive Donegal Workhouse records available to search this Findmypast Friday
Leading Family History website, Findmypast, has today added over 400,000 Donegal records to their growing collection of Irish Workhouse records.
Digitized and published online for the first time in partnership with the Donegal County Council, Donegal Workhouses Registers and Minute Books consists of both transcripts and images of original admission and discharge registers as well as board of guardians’ minute books spanning the years 1840 to 1922.
The collection covers the unions of Ballyshannon, Donegal, Dunfanaghy, Glentis, Inishowen, Letterkenny, Milford, Stranorlar. As well as registers and minute books, users can also expect to find accounts, death registers, letters, relief registers, supplier contracts, and more.
High levels of poverty in 19th century Ireland meant that hundreds of thousands of Irish people passed through the workhouses. Irish workhouses were generally built to accommodate around 800 inmates although it soon became clear that more space was needed and programme of building took place throughout the 1840s and 50s.
Life inside was grim. At first, there was no so-called outdoor relief, as would have been common in England. Outdoor relief was when the poor could simply use the workhouse facilities as needed by undertaking a day’s work. Indoor relief was initially the only option and required the poor to prove they were destitute before they were admitted.
This new collection joins Findmypast’s existing archive of Irish Workhouse records which now contains over 3.1 million records covering Dublin, Clare, Sligo and Waterford.
Other records available to search this Findmypast Friday, include:
Scotland, Highland Poor Law 1845-1929
Find out if your Highland ancestors fell on hard times with more than 9,000 new poverty relief records. These detailed transcripts can reveal a wide range of information about your ancestors, a description of the relief they received, location, their occupation, residence, earnings, the names and earnings of their relatives, how poor they actually were and the nature of their disability (if disabled).
Scotland, Highlands and Islands Assisted Emigration 1852-1857
Search the names of those who received assistance from the Highlands and Islands Emigration Society in emigrating from the Highlands of Scotland for Australia. Each transcript will reveal when your ancestor’s dates and ports of both departure and arrival, their age and residence, the ship they sailed on, the name of their sponsor and the amount they received.
British & Irish Roots Collection
More than 1.2 million records have been added to our exclusive British and Irish Roots Collection, a vast database of nearly 100 million records, handpicked by our in-house experts, that identify a British or Irish emigrants in North America. These records have been added from existing collections making it faster and easier to trace your immigrant ancestors back across the Atlantic.
International Records Update – Luxembourg
Does your family tree have roots in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg? Find out with three new indexes of births & baptisms, marriages and deaths & burials spanning the years 1662 to 1840. Luxembourg is a small landlocked country in Western Europe bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south.
British & Irish Newspaper Update
This week we are delighted to welcome 137,896 new pages to The Archive, with new pages adding to 18 existing publications spanning 128 years from 1871 to 1999. This week’s new additions include:
- Staffordshire Sentinel: 1906-1910, 1918-1919
- Newcastle Evening Chronicle: 1894, 1913, 1919
- The People: 1946-1949
- Newcastle Chronicle: 1875-1896, 1899-1900
- Surrey Advertiser: 1909
- Limerick Chronicle: 1825
- Aberdeen Press and Journal: 1983-1984
- Walsall Observer, and South Staffordshire Chronicle: 1873-1911, 1925-1933, 1958-1969
- Pinner Observer: 1999
- Harrow Leader: 1998-1999
- Ealing Leader: 1998-1999
- Hayes & Harlington Gazette: 1998-1999
- Acton Gazette: 1871-1880, 1885, 1888-1892, 1894-1903, 1910-1917, 1921-1939
- Amersham Advertiser: 1998
- Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette: 1991
- Dumfries and Galloway Standard: 1874, 1884
- Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough: 1901-1902
- Hamilton Advertiser: 1889-1892, 1894, 1897, 1901, 1903-1904, 1906-1908
With Thanks to Findmypast