kevin <kevinmcc59@eircom.net> said: >Hello Jan, When you say that West Cork should have a Heritage centre... >do you mean one that is similar to Mallow? >We all know the "employees" in Mallow can search an entry within seconds >and in turn charge 75 euro for that search. That's like saying lobster should be fifty cents a pound because it only takes seconds to pull one out of a trap. There is a lot more to doing a search than hitting the <enter> key on the computer. If these heritage centres are such a goldmine, how come the Limerick Centre had to close because it was losing too much money? >The amount of work put in by enthusiasts and monies from govt. grants it >would be excellent if they put the records on line.We all know this isn't Most of the data from parish records was input by FAS trainees under government employment schemes at a time when unemployment in Ireland was very high. There aren't any such grants now because there aren't as many young people out of a job. >going to happen. We have a rip off culture here in Ireland. If anyone is >prepared to pay 75 euro I'll gladly go to Dublin for each person at 25 >euro and do it myself.It's quite simple... just put the records on line... You make it sound so easy, Kevin. Even when you have the year and the parish, it's possible for an experienced and diligent researcher to miss finding an entry in the microfilmed parish records at the National Library. The beauty of the heritage centre databases is that you have a chance of finding a locality with nothing more than the names of the parents. For example, in 1992 or '93, I spent two weeks reading Mallow parish records at the NLI and found, I believed, all of the Ahern records that were there. But I had some puzzlements. A sister of my great-grandfather, Margaret Ahern had married a Maurice Roche in Mallow. Their first two children were baptised in Mallow, but by the time they emigrated to Arlington, Massachusetts, they had six children. I had no way of figuring out where the other four were born, but the Mallow Heritage Centre was able to tell me in seconds that the other four were baptised in Doneraile, the next parish over. Did I pay them for the few seconds it took for the computer to spit out the answer? No, I paid them for all the costs involved in creating and maintaining that database. If they ever come up with a West Cork heritage centre that is the equal of Mallow in providing value for money, it will shed a welcome light in the "Black hole of Irish genealogy". -dja