Cookie
We would like to use cookies to store information on your computer, to improve our website. One of the cookies we use is essential for parts of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but parts of the site will not work. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, see our privacy notice.
Privacy notice

The O'Donoghue Society

For all those interested in history and genealogy and whose names are derived from the Gaelic

Latest News

Read All News

Researcher's Tips

Birth years from census (UK) data
It seems almost universal for people to get a probable birth year from census data by subtracting the age from the census year. Certainly some websites and some census CDs provide this as "helpful" information. For me it isn't helpful and personally I always subtract one more year from the result. All the 19th century censuses except 1841 were taken the first weekend in April, so people were three times more likely to have been born a year earlier. E.g. if a person was 24 in 1851, the accepted guess by subtracting one from the other seems to be 1827 for the birth year. But in point of fact, making of course the big assumption that the age is correct, this person was probably born between April 1826 and the end of March 1827. Born any later and (s)he would have been only 23 at the 1851 census. So for 1851 I subtract the ages from 1850, and similarly for the other censuses. 24 from 1850 gives 1826 which is the true "most probable birth year". If you don't do this you may be looking in the wrong year when you go looking for details in the parish registers. Most baptisms took place before the child was three months old, and usually less than that. For someone who was "24" at the 1851 census, even the baptism may have taken place as early as April or May 1826, so I'd always start looking in 1826 and only go on to 1827 if I couldn't find what I was looking for. In 1841 the census was taken in June, and ages above 15 are usually in a state of confusion reflecting the enumerators' understanding, or more usually lack of understanding, of the guidelines. Ages above 15 were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5, so that "20" stands for anything between 20 and 24 and so on. But many enumerators gave up, ignored the instructions and gave the exact age - and I always offer up silent thanks when they did! But for ages under 15, or where the enumerator gave an age that was not a multiple of five, the birth still has seven chances out of twelve (and therefore still slightly more than 50%) of having taken place in the year before the one you get by merely subtracting the age from the census year. Source: Tony Woodward (GOONS)

EU's General Data Protection Regulation Update 2 emailed May 21

Home » News » EU's General Data Protection Regulation Update 2 emailed May 21
This note tells you where I have got to in implementing GDPR.  I have been working at this for over two months!  I will not meet the required date of May 25.  The task has been enormous for a one-man band such as our society.  If anyone feels inclined to report me to the EU High Command, be my guest…The society’s real work has been on hold in the interim which really ticks me off.

1.         I have carried out all the necessary review steps recommended by the UK Information Commissioners Office.
2.         I have sent a note to everyone on the mailing list asking for their confirmation that they want to continue to receive emails from the society.
3.         I have rewritten the society’s privacy policy which is on the web site.
4.         I have rewritten the society’s terms and conditions which is also on the web site.

In relation to 1 these are the facts

The mailing list totalled 1550 on May 3
•           158 responded asking to be kept on the list.  To those folk, thanks.
•           216 email addresses were rejected for various reasons:
-           you spammed the society (if you use the office email that happens automatically in most cases),
-           you changed your email address and didn’t update your Personal Profile or didn’t tell me,
-           you forgot your previous registration (or log in/password) and re-registered with a different email address,
-           plus a few other more obscure reasons.
•           1176 didn’t respond.

For rejections the individuals will be deleted from the data base.

For non-responders.  For those who have not visited the web site in the last five years I will delete you from the data base.  If you have visited the site in the last five years I will send a chaser. If I receive no response again, I will delete your whole entry from the data base.  Of course if you would like to respond to this email you will save me another job!

All this admin is a real p-i-t-a.  So much has had to go on the back burner.  But the beneficial outcome is that the data base will be much more current which is good.  You could say that I should have done some of this a long time ago – point taken!

Cheer up, Rod, I hear someone say, the sun’s shining somewhere….
 
24/05/2018