Today was the first day of the Celtic Connections Conference, presented in Waltham, Massachusetts by The Irish Ancestral Research Association (TIARA) and the Irish Genealogical Society International (IGSI). After the introduction and welcome, Brian Donovan spoke about http://www.findmypast.com and its resources for researching Irish family history. I then heard Kyle Betit talk about landed estate papers, and then attended Marie Daly's presentation "Researching Irish Domestic Servants." At lunchtime, Sean Ó Dúill spoke about the Irish Gaelic language. I then heard John Grenham speak about Irish church records. He mostly talked about Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland records, but he also discussed other denominations. Next, I was originally supposed to hear Dwight Radford talk about the Irish who stopped along the way before coming to the United States. I had been looking forward to this presentation, since some of my Irish ancestors lived in Scotland before going to the United States. Unfortunately, Dwight Radford was unable to be at the conference. But at least I have the lecture handout in the syllabus. Instead, I heard Janice Duffy speak about passenger lists for the port of Boston, 1848-1891. The original manifests are not the same as the ones given to the United States government. Some of them have detailed information about passengers which tells their stories. I had no idea that passenger lists could contain so much information and found this fascinating.
I am looking forward to Day 2 of the conference!
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