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Press Release - 5th September 2013
Findmypast.com.au adds a further 2.5 million Irish Petty Court records to its site
10% of Australians have Irish ancestry; how many runaways, miscreants or public drunkards in your family tree?
SYDNEY, 5th September, 2013: The ‘Luck of the Irish’ may be a popular phrase today, but additional records released by leading family history website, findmypast.com.au, prove this hasn’t always been the case. The genealogy website has topped up its Irish Petty Sessions Court Registers 1828-1912 record set with more than 2.5 million extra Irish court records. Misdeamours the decidedly unlucky miscreants were nabbed for include runaway servants, shebeens and trespassing livestock, giving a unique taste of Ireland life during this period.
This additional batch of records features 52 new courts in fifteen counties around Ireland. A further seven courts have been supplemented with records from additional years. This brings the total Petty Sessions Court Registers available on findmypast.com.au to over 15 million and the overall Irish family history records on the site to over 70 million.
Notable additions this time include a significant expansion to the records available for Galway, Roscommon, Westmeath and Limerick. Donegal also benefits from the addition of four new courts dating from as early as 1851, which should prove a real boon to family historians with ancestors from that county.
Vicki Dawson, General Manager of findmypast.com.au, said “Locating any criminal activity committed by an ancestor have proven to be of very high interest to Australians. Given this and the nation’s strong heritage ties to Ireland, our Petty Session Court Register is one of the most popular collections on the website.
“I am sure this recent top up will provide a fantastic resource for Australians searching for the more colourful stories of their Irish ancestors. It is always interesting to find out what your forefathers did to find themselves in front of a magistrate!”
New courts have been added to the following counties: Galway (9), Roscommon (8), Westmeath (7), Limerick (7), Donegal (4), Waterford (4), Tipperary (2), Cork (2), Carlow (2), Kilkenny (2), Mayo (1), Meath (1), Sligo (1), Wexford (1) and Wicklow (1).
To find out if you have Irish ancestors who had their day in court visit www.findmypast.com.au