End of summer

This blog has been inactive over the summer, but I have been adding sporadically to my database of CONDR*N records and had a very enjoyable trip to Ireland a two weeks ago, visiting Co. Offaly for a couple of days and doing some extraction of CONDR*N records in the National Library of Ireland and General Register Office in Dublin for a couple of days prior to that. In Tullamore, Co. Offaly, I was even able to pop in to the Condron Concrete Works!

I was asked recently whether I am also interested in the name CONDERN. This is a new one to me, but the answer is yes! At present I am capturing all records of surnames COND*R*N (where * is a wildcard representing 0 or more characters), since I believe these names were probably used and recorded somewhat interchangeably. I realise that our CONDR*N forbears may also have dropped the "D" so in the future intend to collect CON(D)*R*N (so including CONRAN and CONRON) though this is on the back-burner for now.

Similar names that I am NOT studying include CONDON, CONDROY, CONDROW, CONDRY, CORCORAN as I don't believe them to be connected (though occasionally they may arise through transcription errors).

The Irish Family History Foundation (IFHF) has continued to add to its online indices of records (see my blog of 5 April 2008) which is great. Various counties now have indices to extant census records as well as to parish records. The records from Irish Midlands Ancestry for Cos Offaly and Leix (King's and Queen's Counties) are not yet online, but I had a very encouraging conversation with someone in the centre at Tullamore when I popped in while I was in Co. Offaly. He said that the parish records have all now been prepared for uploading and could appear in "as little as a few weeks" or longer: it now depends only on the paperwork being sorted out with the IFHF. This is good news and I hope that the IFHF and Irish Midlands Ancestry will now get the records online very soon.