For those who were not at the FHS meeting yesterday at Union Mills Methodist Church, one of our Guest speakers, 'Jude' from Manx National Heritage gave a presentation on the New Manx Ancestry Centre.
The 1.5 million pound accepted and approved plan will be located inbetween the Manx Museum and will have technology that assists the beginner to the experienced researcher.
The FHS in the Isle of Man are working alongside the MNH in digitizing records and If you wish to be involved and can give one day a week in indexing parish records, then contact Jude or Roger at the Museum).
The Centre will have millions of documents and photographs charting the last 500 years of island life. !.4 million photographs dating from the 1850s as well as records of births, marriages, deaths, wills, census returns, property deeds and land holdings dating as far back as 1507. Copies of the Manx papers that were published from 1793 along with 80 years of film and sound recordings can be played on plasma screens at audio stations.
The project is intended to be completed by early 2010 and digitizing the records is currently underway.
I'm quite excited about this and have volunteered along with quite a few other members to assist the recording of information. (Note: you do not have to be a member to help out)