08 March 2013

Ancestry adds Ireland, Lord Viscount Morpeth's Testimonial Roll, 1841

One of this year's major releases from Ancestry this year is now online although not quite as originally advertised. With 158,389 records the content of Lord Viscount Morpeth's Testimonial Roll, 1841 falls short of the 250,000 first estimated.
According to a helpful blog post by Chris Paton, who was a beta tester, few of the entries have geographical identifiers. Which Michael Murphy signature is your ancestor? Chris sums up his review with:

The challenge with Morpeth's Roll is going to be a fun one, and perhaps at times frustrating - but this is one dataset where you may really need to put some work in. The document is what it is - and it has been beautifully restored and placed online by Ancestry.
As new Irish records are as rare as sky blue pink shamrock this is one that is sure to be intensely studied and hopefully annotated with likely geographical location as genealogists come to grips with it.

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