Coleraine Family History Society hold AGM

During the chairman’s address, John Moore thanked all the guest speakers who have honoured the group with their exhilarating and informative talks this year. Thanks were also given to Coleraine Library for their continued support and use of their facilities.

Reference was also made to the upcoming honour given to the Society in hosting this year’s North of Ireland Family History Society Annual General Meeting in Dunluce Parish Centre on Saturday, May 22 - preceded by a tour of Old Bushmills Distillery).

John concluded his report by thanking all the members of the Committee for their continued support. Diana Kirkpatrick delivered the Treasurer’s report thanking Assistant Treasurer, Kathleen McCracken, for her support and Cyndy Cotton for her help in the sale of the Londonderry Sentinel and Coleraine Chronicle CDs.

Randal Gill, President of the North of Ireland Family History Society then took the chair to conduct the election of Officers.

Guest speaker was Brian Mitchell from the Derry Genealogy Centre. In 1982 Brian compiled an online database of Derry Pre 1922 Civil Marriage and Birth records (excluding Bellaghy and Maghera) with the assistance of 16-25 year old YTP, ACE and European Social Fund participants.

He was responsible for negotiating with Bishop Daley, Bishop Mehaffey and Cardinal O’Fee to allow transcription of these records. Brian talked about the Irish Diaspora and the emigration routes they would have taken from the nine Ulster counties and pointed out the Ancestorsonboard and Ancestry.com sites as useful sources of information. During the years 1892 and 1924 he also pointed out that over 20,000,000 immigrants passed through Ellis Island.

Brian described the Scots-Irish identity in terms of the Ulster American Symposium as “brewed in Scotland, bottled in Ireland and uncorked in North America”. Derry is keen to promote this Diaspora in the bid for UK City of Culture 2013. Brian also referred to the former U S President Ulysses S. Grant’s visit to the Province (during the late 19th century) which included a civic reception at his maternal Simpson homestead near Ballygawley and visits to Derry, Coleraine, Ballymena and Belfast.

The Society would like to extend their thanks to Brian for a very interesting, informative and illuminating talk.