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Archiver > GENBRIT > 1999-10 > 0938972686


From: Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake <>
Subject: Re: Copyright issues
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 18:44:46 +0100


In article <>, Roy Stockdill
<> writes
>
>Sadly, there are one or two dinosaurs like this still around. The Catholic
>Church also comes to mind. I gather that in some parts of Ireland they have
>set up so-called "heritage units" - on the dubious pretext of making work
>for unemployed young people - through whom all research requests for
>lookups in parish registers must be processed. They are not publicly
>available. According to a Guild of ONS member in a letter to the Journal
>last year, it is very costly, takes an inordinately long time and there is
>no guarantee of the research quality. It's just a cynical money-grubbing
>exercise by the Church , of course.
>
There have indeed been both brickbats and praise for the county-based
Heritage centres in the Republic of Ireland. It's clear that they vary
in both charges and efficiency, and it's well worth reading a news group
like soc.genealogy.ireland to differentiate them.

However, it's neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Church of
Ireland that is being cynical or money-grubbing. I suspect Roy that
you've not visited a remote parish in the West of Ireland recently? My
mother's family are from Co. Limerick and I'm a reasonably regular
visitor there. Believe me, the priests of both denominations have such a
mass of parish work (forget all about Ballykissangel...) and travelling
to do that there's no time for assisting family historians, much as they
would like to do so. The Heritage centres therefore fulfill a vital role
in that if they weren't there then there'd likely be no access to the
records unless the Irish government were to pay for a whole
infrastructure similar to the county archives in the UK.

What the Irish government decided to do was to fund Heritage centres
commercially in an aim to exploit genealogical tourism. Indeed some of
the original transcription into indexes was done by disinterested
students, but I think you'll find that the majority of centres are now
run by professional staff, who not unnaturally have salaries that need
paying. In much the same way as there are not free national newspapers
written by you nor much free software written by me. :)

So, some people get excellent value for money, others get ripped off.
The feedback suggests that a majority feel they are not good value for
money at present.
--
Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake

Drake Software web site: http://www.tdrake.demon.co.u

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