Excuse my cross posting to various lists. When I first created my From Ireland web site, I had in mind to 'advertise'/tell those in the Genealogical Community how much wonderful work had been done by Iirsh 'Genealogists' in the past - they may not have considered themselves to be Genealogists, they may have just been people who were interested in History or Archaeology. A word for them may have 'Antiquarian' - it is a word used in some titles. To my mind still, one of the best things that any of you interested in a particular county, or, just Ireland, would be to subscribe to the various journals - even if you never get anything from that subscription relating to your own family history - you will be supporting the journal. Journals - they're not like magazines or newspapers the staff/transcribers receive no payment as such to the best of my knowledge - so, they *really* depend on the contributions by subscribers in order that each edition will be paid for. They are not profit bodies. The length of the life of the Journal, depends totally on the enthusiasm of those who would contribute articles and whether or not the editorial staff or who-ever is in charge of 'management' can pay to have each publiucation printed. To subscribe to any Journal - or, really the Association that publishes the Journal............it would usually cost about, I don't know - in the region of 30-40 Euro for one year - maybe less. I can't talk in that I have allowed my own subscriptions to fall short this year - adn - I don't know the actual cost at the moment! By subscribing to the Association associated with any journal, you do a few things. 1. You encourage people to transcribe material - because the journal has subscribers 2. You support publication of the journal, financially Transcribers HAVE to be encouraged. Gone are the days of the Antiquarian - the person who transcribed material purely for the love of it - Transcribers today, they don't get any money for the time they have put in to what they have done...........but they do get acknowledgement and they do have the references to publications which are actually very important when it comes to the real world and they want to get jobs or become recognised genealogists. 30-40 Euros may seem like a lot when compared to other currencies......... *BUT*, I ask you to think of this, by encouraging and supporting a journal, then, you may be encouraging some person who will to to the likes of estate records and transcribe them - and those very estate records may be the ones you yourself were interested in and you would have had to pay a genealogist 20-40 Euro per hour to read through the records and only take the information on your surname. In honesty, some of the Societies which I would always consider the best as regards material from the past, have gone more in the way of being Archaeological journals these days.............BUT - there are still a few wonderful societites about. The first that comes to mind is of course the Irish Genealogical Research Society - based in London, but - we do have an Ireland branch. Chekc out the London URL http://www.igrsoc.org/ This is the first and best Genealogical Society for Irish records. These days, only one journal is published per year, but there are Newsletters over the year and the members interests are of importance Then, there is the Irish Family History http://homepage.eircom.net/~ifhs/ This one, probably has more of an Australian connection about it, even though it is based in Kildare I can't find a URl for the Galway journal...........but it is one of the more Archaeologically inclined today Cavan - there's Breifne Kilkenny - Kilkenny Cork - well, Cork has it's own and it's not the Journal of the Cork Archaeological & Historical Society - it is the Journal that Jean Prendergast has a hand in publishing and transcribing material for and that can be found at : http://homepage.eircom.net/~aocoleman/ I could go on and on.............but really, for most of the Irish counties, then, it's the Irish Genealogical Society you should sub to......... I do have a list of Irish Journals on line at http://www.from-ireland.net/jours/journalscontentnet.htm and I do have some links to Society pages on that page - but, maybe they don't work any more. The thing is that many journals have gone 'bottoms up' because of lack of funding - and whilst they did have enthusiastic people working with them, transcribing for them..........they didn't have the funding to continue..... Anyway, I, personally feel very strongly about Irish journals...........most of what I know has come from the work done by others that I have read in the Journals....... the people who benefit the most from material transcribed and published in these journals - that's you - and if, if by any chance any of you who reads this mail is a person who can afford to spend 30-40 Euro ot thereabouts per year and not worry as to whether you actually get a return or not - but, would like that bit of money to go to a good cause, then, please encourage the various societies interested in transcribing and publishing Irish material. Jane