why 2024 is the time to take another look
I’ve been looking for my Irish ancestors for a few years, like twenty years at least. Not constantly but every few years I would try again. My grandfather’s grandfathers were William Lyle Dougherty on his father’s side and Joseph Ferguson on his mother’s side. Both supposedly from Ireland. My sisters and I even traveled to Ireland in 2007.
Now the story was that Joseph’s father was a doctor in Dublin by the name of David Ferguson. In 2007 I mistakenly thought he would be easy to locate, using professional journals and registries at the national Archives in Dublin. But I came up empty.
Saint Patrick’s Day and Everyone is Irish and I start thinking about looking for David Ferguson once again and “bingo,” I think I found him. What I found was an index to a will and probate for a “David Ferguson, late of Enfield, county Meath, Medical Doctor deceased who died 5 December 1873 at George’s-place Dublin.”1
That was just the beginning. My last sojourn done this path before the covid-19 pandemic I found nothing on any of the sites for my guy in Dublin or areas nearby. While learning to write good source citations I discovered a few tricks and one is to look to see when the record selection was put online. Ancestry appears to be good about providing that source information of when the collection was published online. Since 2019 there have been a myriad of Irish records added not only to Ancestry, also Find My Path, and IrishGenealogy.ie. An example are the extensive Guinness records that were recently added to Ancestry.
If you have been diligent in keeping up your research logs you know exactly when the last time was that you checked the records on your brick wall. If it has been a while, like it had been for me with my Irish lines, this may be the time to try a few new searches.
How to Check publication date at Ancestry
You may want to first look at Ancestry’s card catalog.
- Go to Search on the main menu.
- Click on Card Catalog.
- Add a Keyword such as Ireland.
- Click the Search button.
This will give you all the records most recently added that contain your “Keyword.” Hover over the title and you will see when it was last added/or updated. You could scroll through the lists looking for records that may be pertinent to help in your search. Or Just take a look to see what is new.
For me I started a new search on my guy, in this case David Ferguson from my Ancestry family tree. When I have a record that may be my guy I click on the view record tab.
The screen shot above shows the View Record tab. If you click on Source your screen looks similar to the one below.
The Source information often will show the date or at least the year the collection was published (my highlight in blue). This is very helpful information to keep track of. In this instance it was published on Ancestry in 2022. This was exactly the kind of information I was looking for when I visited Dublin in 2007 and did not find. So now that I have found a David Ferguson who died in Dublin in 1873 and was a physician in Innfield [or Enfield], Meath County, I have been able to find more for this same David Ferguson MD.
Now there is always more than one way to get the same information. To make a paper copy of the record on Ancestry with the source information attached I like to do that while viewing the online digital copy. In the screen shot below you see the tool bar on the right hand side. Select the tool that looks like a wrench.
the drop down menu looks like this (below). Click on Print.
Now the Print menu gives a few options I always click on “Print entire image” and “Also print source data.” Click on Continue.
A print screen similar to the one shown below will come up. I have a printer that prints double sided. For records that are in portrait mode select “Flip on long edge.” If it is in landscape mode select “Flip on short edge” then click on the blue print button.
The results are as shown below. All the information I may need to write up my own source citation is given on the back of the record image. If I need more bits of information I can write them in pencil.
If your printer doesn’t do double side printing then be sure to staple the two pieces of paper together so they do not become separated from each other. This source information again shows the year published (see red arrow above).
Next time I will tell you more about what discoveries I made.
1 Ireland, Calendar of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1920, National Archives, Dublin, p. 198, 1874, Ferguson, David, [79]; images (http://www.willcalendars.nationalarchives.ie/search/cwa/details.jsp?id=1639370947 :pub. 2016, viewed 30 March 2024).