Source: 4:02 PM ET 6/14/10 | GlobeNewswire
4:00 PM ET 6/15/10
Symbol Last % Chg
ACOM
17.05 0.47%
-- Leading Swedish Family History website
-- 26 million pages of family history records, 16th-20th century
Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq:ACOM), the world's largest online family history resource, today announced that it has agreed to acquire the leading Swedish family history website Genline.se.
Total consideration for Genline is approximately US$6.7 million, to be paid in cash at closing. The offer has been accepted by Genline's Board of Directors but remains subject to approval of Genline Holding AB's public shareholders and other ordinary course closing conditions.
Genline expects to provide proxy materials to shareholders immediately and hold a Special Meeting of Stockholders shortly to vote on the transaction. Genline trades on the Stockholm exchange AktiTorget under the ticker symbol GENL.
Upon completion of the transaction, Genline will join Ancestry.com's family of nine web properties globally, which together serve more than 1.2 million subscribers and host over five billion historical records and 17 million family trees containing 1.7 billion profiles.
Genline currently has more than 17,000 paying members with access to 26 million pages of digitized Swedish church records spanning more than 400 years from the 16th to the 20th century.
Josh Hanna, SVP and General Manager, International, Ancestry.com Inc., comments: "The Genline.se transaction, our first international acquisition, represents an exciting opportunity for Ancestry.com to access Sweden's avid family history community and to provide Ancestry.com subscribers of Swedish heritage in the U.S. and other markets with access to important historical content.
"For Genline members, the millions of US and Canadian records with Swedish relevance will provide many new opportunities to discover North American ancestors."
Mikko Ollinen, Genline AB Managing Director, comments: "We are delighted that Ancestry.com sees the potential of Genline. Together we look forward to continuing to grow our business in Sweden and to making new and exciting historical records, both local and international, available to our members."
Ancestry.com expects to acquire all shares of Genline AB for approximately 53 million Swedish kronor with an adjustment for net working capital. Based on a June 11, 2010 exchange rate of SEK7.94 to US$1.00, the net purchase amount approximates US$6.7 million
Genline's 2009 reported revenue was $2.4 million. Ancestry.com does not expect the acquisition to have a material impact on its financial guidance as issued in connection with its first quarter earnings release on April 29, 2010.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Take time to explore this online blast from the past
From The Irish Times, Friday, June 11, 2010
We recommend the following excellent article by By KARLIN LILLINGTON
NET RESULTS: The National Archive has brought us a marvellous, virtual slice of 1901 in its online census – and there’s plenty we can learn about ourselves from it.
I LIVE in a two-up two-down house built around the turn of the last century in the north inner city. One of the features of such houses – when it has not been torn out – is a half rectangle of metal mounted into a slight indentation about six inches off the pavement next to the door.
Being a girl from Californian suburbs that came ready-made with paved streets and neat walkways, I had to be told by a neighbour that these odd bits of metal were foot scrapers to remove the dirt from the bottom of your shoes before you entered the house.
Okay, that made sense, except I could never picture why they were needed, given that many roads around here would have been cobbled and, I supposed, reasonably clean.
Thanks to a fabulous online resource – the National Archive of Ireland’s 1901 and 1911 census – I can now understand exactly why such houses have these little remnants of the past. In the fantastic photo collection included to give context for the two censuses are some striking images of Dublin’s mucky, dirt-filled streets.
Horse-drawn carts ramble up a street in the Coombe in 1913 through a sea of dirt. The road around Stephen’s Green: dirt. The upper end of what would become O’Connell Street in 1910: dirt.
The sheer grime of day-to-day life for all classes comes alive in these archived photos.
The National Archives launched the 1901 census online last week in the packed reading room of its building on Bishop Street. If the building had been struck by a meteor at the time of the launch, I’d say half of Ireland’s historians would have been wiped out in a single blow.
This was clearly an event – or rather, an Event – in the calendar of those who love history, archives and the past. The real event though, of course, is the website itself, and the fact that it is now live and – especially wonderful – available to you and me.
This is not always the case. Many national archives around the world make census information available but only to a limited audience.
A historian friend noted that this is the case with the British census, as well as census archive information in several other countries.
However thanks to this truly inspired nearly €4 million project, created with Government funding and built with the support of many museums, libraries and archives throughout the island and abroad, anyone can access this material.
It will benefit people around the world researching their Irish roots, students from the very young to those pursuing doctoral work, scholars of all sorts, writers researching books, and the person at home who wants to jump into the riches that can be found here.
There is so much to dabble in – hours and hours of exploration.
Helpfully, users are given plenty of guidance as well as context. A large section on early 20th-century Ireland breaks down into a number of chapters that give background for understanding Ireland at the time of the two census years. There is also a photographic archive which brings the period to life.
Then there is the amazing resource of the census itself.
Visitors to the site can choose to browse the census for 1901 or 1911, or can search each census for people or locations. For 1901, there are more than 4.5 million records from over 850,000 households, which completed the form on Sunday census night, March 31st, of that year.
You can locate a specific address in a specific city, town or village and see exactly who was resident on that evening in either year. You get a sense of the panoply of Irish life, from wealthy landowners out in their estates to the heaving tenements of the poor in the inner cities,where more than 100 souls might have been squeezed into a single building.
At the launch, the census return for the family of James Joyce was dissected in a fascinating way. Twelve Joyces lived in house 8.1 in Royal Terrace, Clontarf West, Dublin, according to the census.
A roster of the stairstep children born by Joyce’s mother Mary – 10 of them, nearly one a year – is listed. Only 39, she would die before long.
James Joyce (19) is listed as a student. He could speak Irish and English, the form states. The entire family, down to James’s eight-year-old sister Mabel, could read and write.
Don’t let me detain you though – I am sure you have found , or will find, someone or some place that intrigues you, somewhere in this marvellous, virtual slice of 1901.
National Archive census site: www.census.nationalarchives.ie/
We recommend the following excellent article by By KARLIN LILLINGTON
NET RESULTS: The National Archive has brought us a marvellous, virtual slice of 1901 in its online census – and there’s plenty we can learn about ourselves from it.
I LIVE in a two-up two-down house built around the turn of the last century in the north inner city. One of the features of such houses – when it has not been torn out – is a half rectangle of metal mounted into a slight indentation about six inches off the pavement next to the door.
Being a girl from Californian suburbs that came ready-made with paved streets and neat walkways, I had to be told by a neighbour that these odd bits of metal were foot scrapers to remove the dirt from the bottom of your shoes before you entered the house.
Okay, that made sense, except I could never picture why they were needed, given that many roads around here would have been cobbled and, I supposed, reasonably clean.
Thanks to a fabulous online resource – the National Archive of Ireland’s 1901 and 1911 census – I can now understand exactly why such houses have these little remnants of the past. In the fantastic photo collection included to give context for the two censuses are some striking images of Dublin’s mucky, dirt-filled streets.
Horse-drawn carts ramble up a street in the Coombe in 1913 through a sea of dirt. The road around Stephen’s Green: dirt. The upper end of what would become O’Connell Street in 1910: dirt.
The sheer grime of day-to-day life for all classes comes alive in these archived photos.
The National Archives launched the 1901 census online last week in the packed reading room of its building on Bishop Street. If the building had been struck by a meteor at the time of the launch, I’d say half of Ireland’s historians would have been wiped out in a single blow.
This was clearly an event – or rather, an Event – in the calendar of those who love history, archives and the past. The real event though, of course, is the website itself, and the fact that it is now live and – especially wonderful – available to you and me.
This is not always the case. Many national archives around the world make census information available but only to a limited audience.
A historian friend noted that this is the case with the British census, as well as census archive information in several other countries.
However thanks to this truly inspired nearly €4 million project, created with Government funding and built with the support of many museums, libraries and archives throughout the island and abroad, anyone can access this material.
It will benefit people around the world researching their Irish roots, students from the very young to those pursuing doctoral work, scholars of all sorts, writers researching books, and the person at home who wants to jump into the riches that can be found here.
There is so much to dabble in – hours and hours of exploration.
Helpfully, users are given plenty of guidance as well as context. A large section on early 20th-century Ireland breaks down into a number of chapters that give background for understanding Ireland at the time of the two census years. There is also a photographic archive which brings the period to life.
Then there is the amazing resource of the census itself.
Visitors to the site can choose to browse the census for 1901 or 1911, or can search each census for people or locations. For 1901, there are more than 4.5 million records from over 850,000 households, which completed the form on Sunday census night, March 31st, of that year.
You can locate a specific address in a specific city, town or village and see exactly who was resident on that evening in either year. You get a sense of the panoply of Irish life, from wealthy landowners out in their estates to the heaving tenements of the poor in the inner cities,where more than 100 souls might have been squeezed into a single building.
At the launch, the census return for the family of James Joyce was dissected in a fascinating way. Twelve Joyces lived in house 8.1 in Royal Terrace, Clontarf West, Dublin, according to the census.
A roster of the stairstep children born by Joyce’s mother Mary – 10 of them, nearly one a year – is listed. Only 39, she would die before long.
James Joyce (19) is listed as a student. He could speak Irish and English, the form states. The entire family, down to James’s eight-year-old sister Mabel, could read and write.
Don’t let me detain you though – I am sure you have found , or will find, someone or some place that intrigues you, somewhere in this marvellous, virtual slice of 1901.
National Archive census site: www.census.nationalarchives.ie/
Sunday, May 30, 2010
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama
BIOGRAPHY: Barak Obama: the Road from Moneygall, by Stephen McDonogh, Brandon, 300pp. €16.99
Book review by PATRICK M GEOGHEGAN
Source: The Irish Times - Saturday, May 29, 2010
AT HIS FIRST St Patrick’s Day reception at the White House, on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009, Barack Obama embraced his recently discovered Irish heritage. He revealed his pride that he had been adopted by Co Offaly, where his great-great-great- grandfather on his mother’s side had emigrated from in 1850, and he noted that he had even been invited over for a pint by a pub in Moneygall, an offer he hoped to be able to take up someday. In an unscripted aside, he joked that he had heard that “Guinness tastes very different in Ireland. It is much better. You guys are keeping the good stuff for yourself. It could start a trade war”.
The story of Obama’s Irish lineage was only revealed in 2007, during his campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for US president. When Obama heard the news his first thought was, as he later admitted, Why didn’t anyone discover this when I was running for office in Chicago? And he joked that he “used to put the apostrophe after the O, but that did not work”.
It has taken until now, however, for the full account of Obama’s Irish connections to be told in print. The book, which will be launched tonight in the Moneygall pub that invited Obama over for a pint, is more than just a study of his genealogical links with Ireland. It is also a thought-provoking study of what it means to be Irish, and how the Irish story goes beyond any simplistic identification with a single religion.
The Kearneys whom Obama is descended from were a Protestant family from Moneygall, in what was then King’s County. Another branch of the family settled in Dublin, where Obama’s great-great-great- great-granduncle John Kearney became provost of Trinity College in 1799. It is significant that the current United States ambassador to Ireland, Dan Rooney, has visited both Kearney’s tomb and Moneygall since his arrival. Obama may not have been aware of his Irish roots until three years ago, and the connection might be considered slight enough when compared to his African and American ancestry, but it is something that he has taken an interest in, and it has become important to him.
The Kearneys of Moneygall made wigs and then shoes, and were relatively successful in the years before the Famine. That catastrophe must surely have affected the family’s fortunes, for in 1849 the patriarch, Joseph Kearney, decided to follow the example of an uncle who had emigrated to Ohio in the late 18th century and set out for the United States. The following year he sent for his family, and his son, Fulmouth Kearney, aged about 20, made the 40-day journey to New York, and from there went on to Ross County, in Ohio. This migration marked the end of Obama’s connections with Ireland, with Fulmouth the great-great-great- grandfather of the 44th president.
After the American Civil War Fulmouth moved to Indiana, where he purchased a small farm in Clinton County. There his daughter, Mary Ann, married Jacob William Dunham. It was said that she spoke with an Irish accent, that all her three sons had black hair and that each of her four daughters had red hair. One of these sons was the father of Stanley Dunham, and it was Stanley Dunham who married the woman who did so much to raise the teenage Obama, his beloved grandmother Madelyn (known as Toot). When she became terminally ill, in the final few days of the 2008 presidental campaign, Obama cancelled all his engagements and flew to Hawaii so he could be near the woman he described as his “quiet hero” and the person who gave him his strength and his discipline.
Obama’s mother was Stanley Ann Dunham – named after her father, because he had wanted a boy. While studying Russian at the University of Hawaii she met and fell in love with a young Kenyan student, Barack Obama. They quickly married, and Barack Obama jnr was born soon after, in 1961. The marriage did not last, and the elder Obama returned to Kenya. His son would have little real contact with him for the rest of his life. Obama’s autobiography, Dreams From My Father, is as much an attempt to come to terms with this abandonment by a parent as it is a reflection on the role of race and ethnicity in his own life and in US society in general.
Although Obama did not become aware of the Irish part of his diverse heritage until 2007, he did grow up with stories of other distant connections. He is, for example, a sixth cousin six times removed of Wild Bill Hickok, the legendary frontier lawman, who boasted of having killed more than 100 men. (The real figure was considerably lower.) At a speech in Springfield, Missouri, in July 2008 Obama noted that his distant cousin had fought his first quick-draw gunfight in that town, and he challenged his presidential opponent, John McCain, to a duel on taxes in the same style. Unsurprisingly, when genealogists later proved that Obama was distantly related to George W Bush and Dick Cheney, these connections were not exploited on the campaign trail.
On that first St Patrick’s Day in the White House as president, Obama accepted a bowl of shamrock from the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, and an impromptu lesson in Irish. To much applause, the first Irish leader from
Co Offaly explained to the first American president from Co Offaly – admittedly at a considerably more distant remove – that the phrase he needed to know was “Is féidir linn!” It took Obama two attempts before he delivered the line like a native son.
As we reflect on the diverse paths in Irish history, the stories of success and failure, of enterprise and emigration, and as we face the challenges of the present time, it is a lesson we could all do well to learn. Yes we can.
Patrick M Geoghegan is associate dean of research at Trinity College Dublin. He grew up in Co Offaly
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
'Irish Roots' Discount Card Planned; The Press Association Reports
The Press Association reported on 19 May 2010 that tourists with Irish roots could be given discounts at some of the country's top visitor attractions under a proposed scheme to rally the Irish Diaspora.
People with Irish ancestry will be eligible for a Certificate of Irish Heritage under new plans being thrashed out by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Although holding the document would not entitle someone to citizenship or other legal rights, the department has proposed that successful applicants would be issued with a small credit-card style card giving knock-down rates at tourist venues.
The scheme would be overseen by the department but run by an outside company funded by fees from the applicants.
Micheal Martin, Foreign Affairs Minister, said firms were being invited to come up with ideas on how to operate the project.
Currently anyone born in Ireland born abroad with an Irish parent or grandparent can qualify for Irish citizenship.
But the department said there were many people worldwide who are of Irish descent but do not qualify for citizenship and it is envisaged the certificate would recognise those people in an official way.
Those hoping to apply will have to prove their claim to Irish ancestry, by producing documents such as a birth certificate, church records of death, marriage and baptism or land records or wills.
The programme would run on a trial basis for a year and be renewed annually thereafter up to a maximum of five years if successful. It is estimated the Diaspora consists of 70 million people across the globe.
Last September Mr Martin proposed the Global Irish Network following a three-day event at Farmleigh, bringing together some of the top minds from the Irish Diaspora to help promote Ireland overseas.
Source: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100519/tuk-irish-roots-discount-card-planned-e1cd776.html
People with Irish ancestry will be eligible for a Certificate of Irish Heritage under new plans being thrashed out by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Although holding the document would not entitle someone to citizenship or other legal rights, the department has proposed that successful applicants would be issued with a small credit-card style card giving knock-down rates at tourist venues.
The scheme would be overseen by the department but run by an outside company funded by fees from the applicants.
Micheal Martin, Foreign Affairs Minister, said firms were being invited to come up with ideas on how to operate the project.
Currently anyone born in Ireland born abroad with an Irish parent or grandparent can qualify for Irish citizenship.
But the department said there were many people worldwide who are of Irish descent but do not qualify for citizenship and it is envisaged the certificate would recognise those people in an official way.
Those hoping to apply will have to prove their claim to Irish ancestry, by producing documents such as a birth certificate, church records of death, marriage and baptism or land records or wills.
The programme would run on a trial basis for a year and be renewed annually thereafter up to a maximum of five years if successful. It is estimated the Diaspora consists of 70 million people across the globe.
Last September Mr Martin proposed the Global Irish Network following a three-day event at Farmleigh, bringing together some of the top minds from the Irish Diaspora to help promote Ireland overseas.
Source: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100519/tuk-irish-roots-discount-card-planned-e1cd776.html
Friday, May 14, 2010
New England Historic Genealogical Society Hosts Free lecture in Dublin on Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Via DNA Testing
Marie Daly, Mary Ellen Grogan and Judy Lucey as well as 24 participants from the New England Historic Genealogical Society are very excited about their upcoming trip to Dublin.
LECTURE: Tracing Your Irish Ancestors via DNA Testing by Dr. Gianpiero Cavalleri
DATE and LOCATION: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 7:00pm Georgian Suite, Buswells Hotel, Molesworth Street, Dublin
Dr. Gianpiero L. Cavalleri, Director and Senior Scientist, of Italian parentage but born and raised in Ireland, is a population geneticist who trained with Prof Dan Bradley at Trinity College, Dublin before going on to work at Stanford with Prof Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Dr Peter Underhill. He is one of the founders of EthnoAncestry and is currently researching the genetics of epilepsy at the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, Ireland
This lecture is free and open to everyone. Please join us.
For more information contact Judy Lucey, jlucey@nehgs.org.
The presentation is sponsored by The New England Historic Genealogical Society (Boston) as part of their research trip to Dublin. Special thanks is given to the Genealogical Society of Ireland for their assistance in organizing this event.
Judy LuceyAssistant Archivist
New England Historic Genealogical Society
101 Newbury Street
Boston, MA 02116-3007
Tel. 617-226-1223
Fax. 617-536-7307
We collect, preserve, and interpret materials that document and make accessible the stories of families in America.
Irish Genealogical Research Society - Ireland Branch Open Day
The IGRS Ireland Branch is hosting an Open Day on Saturday, 22nd May 2010 at Dublin City Library & Archive, 138-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2.
The exciting and educational agenda is as follows:
10:00-10:20 Registration & Coffee
Tea & Coffee available in the Library Cafe on the First Floor
10:20-10:30 Chairman's Welcome
10:30-11:10 'Griffith's Valuation and Valuation Office Records: What's There and Where Is It?'
John Grenham
11:15-11:55 'The 1641 Depositions Project and genealogy'
Prof. Jane Ohlmeyer and Dr Elaine Murphy
12:00-13:30 LUNCH (at own expense)
13:45-14:25 'Natives and Newcomers in Cromwellian Ireland'
Dr John Cunningham
14:30-15:10 'The records of Glasnevin Cemetery: A Resource for family History'
Mervyn Colville and Shane Mac Thomais
15:20-16:00 Ask the Experts! Question & Answer Session
BOOK STALL
ALL WELCOME - ADMISSION FREE
For further details please contact: Linda Clayton, Hon. Sec. IGRS (ireland Branch):
(01) 285 6360 or email: lindaclayton@iol.ie
The exciting and educational agenda is as follows:
10:00-10:20 Registration & Coffee
Tea & Coffee available in the Library Cafe on the First Floor
10:20-10:30 Chairman's Welcome
10:30-11:10 'Griffith's Valuation and Valuation Office Records: What's There and Where Is It?'
John Grenham
11:15-11:55 'The 1641 Depositions Project and genealogy'
Prof. Jane Ohlmeyer and Dr Elaine Murphy
12:00-13:30 LUNCH (at own expense)
13:45-14:25 'Natives and Newcomers in Cromwellian Ireland'
Dr John Cunningham
14:30-15:10 'The records of Glasnevin Cemetery: A Resource for family History'
Mervyn Colville and Shane Mac Thomais
15:20-16:00 Ask the Experts! Question & Answer Session
BOOK STALL
ALL WELCOME - ADMISSION FREE
For further details please contact: Linda Clayton, Hon. Sec. IGRS (ireland Branch):
(01) 285 6360 or email: lindaclayton@iol.ie
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