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Thank you for visiting janelyons2000.wordpress.com. All posts have been transferred to from-ireland.net/blog. From-Ireland.net features 54,644 Gravestone records, 43,120 Griffith’s Primary Valuation entries, 19,609 1901 Census entries, 18,945 Birth records, 16,770 Gravestone Photographs uploaded, 16,407 Marriage records, 13,053 1931 Trade Directory entries 11,353 Death records, 7,721 1820 Dublin Directory entries, and 2,091 Lewis Topographical Dictionary entries. ALL CONTENT IS FREE.
From-Ireland.net Content: Gravestone records, gravestone photographs, Griffith’s Primary Valuation, 1901 Census, Birth records, Marriage records, Death records, 1931 Trade Directory, 1820 Dublin Directory, Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary.
Dr. Jane Lyons,
From-Ireland.net
Irish Graveyard place...... 
Jane. ask the Y-irl group. they will help you.
Lyn
Lyn, I’m sure they would, but do you remember various times I’ve asked for help with a,b, or c over the years. I got offers, but we ended up all over the place with nothing being finished. I need help on the ground – I do have a plan and I’m working on it, and, like I said to Joe Buggy, it just depends on whether or not they think these photos to be as important as I do. Thank you for this advice and any other comments you’ve made in reply to things I say.
Hope you and yours are well and may 2011 bring you much that you’d like.
Jane
Jane,
I think the best way forward is this. Setup a framework. You just need to decide min-max alpha-numerics for each field and standardize the photos, horizontal x vertical pixcels, scaled down photos for index. Decide on format for lines. I particularly like the slash to denote new line, like example below:
In Loving Memory of/Annie McNamara/Knockbeha/Died 27 Sep 1958/Aged 78 Years/Also Her Husband John/Died 12 Dec 1958 Aged 73 Years/Erected By Their Family/
[Notice that is only 3 lines, about 150 characters, so would recommend 5 lines of similar length, or find longest one you have 🙂 ]
I would suggest this framework (or similar):
Fields for surname, forename, DOB-DOD, Placename (80 characters one line. e.g. Townland, Co, Cemetery and/or Parish name, denomination if any, GPS coordinates),
a field having 5 lines of 40 characters (for transcribed inscription as above), a JPG reduced to about 5KB, a link to enlarged photo just underneath photo.
I could set up a small example in Excel of the few transcriptions I did at Feakle, though not right away and send you an example disk. You can also set up a form to speed up data entry for either Excel or Access. You might even want to go Open Source but I would not recommend as future version may causes incompatibility and lost data.
Just a few ideas. Hope that helps.
Jim McNamara
Jane,
Just thinking I overly complicated this. You just wanted an index. Instead of previous outline, you could set up to da a whole solution, but start with index and see how it goes. It could become CDs you sell even, or a fee per view site.
Index like this:
– Surname, forename, year of birth, year of death, small photo used as link to large photo and transcription
And you can still have a form tool to enter data, browse select photo
All that in a folder or cascade structure. Will have to play with it until you like it, then ask for help so you get what you want.
All the best,
Jim
I’ve read both your replies Jim, thank you 🙂
The only complicated bit was what you said about the actual photos themselves, the rest of what you said is easy peasy and what I already do. Some of the graveyards, I’ve written up transcriptions for – mostly the older transcriptions I did and I’d love to have them properly written up for all the gravestones I have, and yes, the / indicating a new line on the transcription is the form I prefer also. Whenever anyone contacts me to ask what the inscription says, I write it up that way and save the file cos one of the days I’ll get back to the full graveyard.
Then, as regards the photos and an index to the names. I follow pretty much as you suggest here. First of all I go through the photos and change the image name to the surnames on the stone. Then, when I’ve finished the full set of photos, I create the excel file and I use Name, Surname, Year, Age, Place/from as my main headings, I add in Note and usually a column for nee, the maiden name of any woman where given. I tag the odd things into the note column like if their profession is given or if they were soldiers. If interred somewhere else I put that in the from column.
So, I now have a good few files created for folders, now, I’ll go back through these and create an overall file, I’ll copy what I have from each of the original files and tag in two more columns Graveyard and County. I’ll probably remove my ‘note’ columns in this main index.
From Ireland is currently being re-designed, the new design is nice, simple, easy to use and it’s got lots of different search boxes. This new graveyard index is going to be added to it and will hopefully make things easier for people to find what they are looking for on my site.
The funding for everything, we’ll continue to look for ideas on what to do. I don’t think I’ll ever stop throwing my frustration at it all out there on the web, but, at least now, I’m building up a collection of people here on the ground and it helps lots and I can bring ideas given me on the web to other people to talk about
Thanks again
Jane 🙂
Jane,
I do understand your frustration. I am just starting the next project and last weekend took 180+ images from the film to my flash-drive. Yesterday, I started transcribing and finished 1852, 1853, & 1854 (Scariff RC Baptisms). I think it will be more than a year to complete. I calculated that Feakle was at least 300 hours for around 1,300 records. Scariff will be harder as there are up to three place names per record, usually two. The townland names are usually scrunched into the edge of the page. All the images were made at 300 DPI from 35 mm film. Once I am done, will need to review with film to see the missing data.
I will take a WAG at your memorials collection and bet you are looking at 5 or more years for one person to do this. You definitely need some help. I would break it into manageable chunks. Don’t make any file more than a single cemetery. You will probably be able to do one to two a month that way and not feel swamped and still have time to do other things.
Don’t lose hope, plan the work, work the plan, organize help.
Jim
Hi Jane:
I’m new to this and having a problem, is this the best way to reach you?
Just want to congratulate you for your work, I have admiration for your goals and I hope you hang-in-there. I have been to a number of graveyards myself, but none in Ireland. In the coming May it will be my good fortune to visit Ireland where all of my great great grandparents (Fogarty, Duffy, Foley, Lahey, Neary, Dooley, Nolan and Devine), immigrated from. Most left from different areas (Tullemore, Wexford, Kilkenny, Galway). I’ll be traveling with two of my nieces; it isn’t likely we will find many tombs because of time restrants. I’m hoping this will be a “starter” voyage; possibly on a return I would have a longer stay and could help you with work on the ground?
High Regards,
Fogarty
Dear Jane,
I have just found your site so do not know my way around-basically fumbling around in the dark but might as well get on with what I want to know-
I am looking for where my great great grandfather came from in Ireland when he left for South Australia in 1840 and have just found a grave on the internet with the names of his parents on the same grave-of course the names are very common so it may be no connection but it is grave 34 in Rahavannagh graveyard for Patrick and Mary McEvoy. Do you know if there is a gravestone for the site and any dates? Do you have a picture? However frustrated you may feel, it can’t be as bad as the degree of frustration my family feels in having no knowledge at all about where the family came from beyond Queen’s County in Ireland. I have made web pages and have also scanned in hundreds of photos on the family for another relative for his family history book-I try to give back too, not just take information! Thanks for any help you can give.
Dear Jane Lyons, we are collaborating with community groups and individuals who have the historic graveyard ‘bug’. We have built an online system which can handle large and complex datasets including images. If you were interested in chatting about common aims I can email you our phone number.
We are especially interested in working with pioneers like yourself to build a national resource.
Yours sincerely
John Tierney
(based in Ardmore, Waterford)
Thank you, for doing this. I am looking for Irish ancestors on husbands’ side and on my side. I live in Canada. I have started a family tree on ancestry.com I have a lot done on this side but anything before Canada is impossible to find. Eventually stones erode and are not visible and then lost.