Research
Fitzpatrick Multimedia Archive (FMA) V3.0
Are you a Fitzpatrick? Have you Fitzpatricks in your family tree? Are you interested in Fitzpatrick history? If you answer yes, then it is no longer necessary to travel to some of the most significant libraries in the world to view Fitzpatrick records. No longer is it necessary to search for the insights of many of the most reputable Fitzpatrick authors, including their handwritten field notes. No longer is it necessary to try to piece together many generations of Fitzpatrick families because the Fitzpatrick Multimedia Archive (FMA) can now answer many of your questions. Three hundred seventy-five documents, photographs, and slideshows of Fitzpatrick history are instantly available on your computer. They include items from the time of the Macgilpatrick ennoblement by Henry VIII in 1541 to current Upper Ossory maps of churches, chapels, and Fitzpatrick castles, letters, heraldic achievements, memorials, paintings and so much more. There has never been a single Fitzpatrick resource available anywhere with these capabilities until now.
The Fitzpatrick Multimedia Archive (FMA) is an electronic resource containing the works of Shearman, Carrigan, O'Hart, Lodge, and Carew as well as manuscript, family, and unpublished sources from private collections not available in the public domain. These resources can be viewed in full colour and printed from your own computer. The FMA has been 20 years in the making and has evolved from the work of Steve Zalewski and Ronan Fitzpatrick as part of their collaborative research for their publication, The Descendants of Bryan Fitzpatrick, Lord and First Baron of Upper Ossory (2013). The Archive merges all of these resources into a single text-searchable program for easy access, viewing and printing. Over one dozen Fitzpatrick descendancy charts are also included with branches containing up to 15 generations of documented descendants. So, no more searching for hundreds of Fitzpatrick sources because they are instantly available in the FMA. And it is yours for free.
The FMA consists of two parts – the Descriptions and the Sources. All of the items in the FMA have unique descriptions and access a variety of electronic formats including electronic scans, photographs, documents, portraits, engravings, presentations, and similar multimedia.
These are selectable by you through a combination of search options. You can search by name, location, Fitzpatrick branch, multimedia type, and any text you can think of. Each Description has its own buttons for easy viewing and printing. Another button gives access to the second part - a Description’s Source. Typically, each Source includes the author’s name, year, title, publisher, repository, call number and a link to the location where it can be accessed. The FMA Descriptions and Sources complement each other and are powerful companions for The Descendants of Bryan Fitzpatrick volume.
Exciting new additions to the FMA are over a dozen Fitzpatrick family descendancies which show over 1100 Fitzpatrick descendants and family members, hundreds with dates and places of birth, death, marriage, and residence. Several of these descendants have documented connections to Bryan Fitzpatrick, Lord and First Baron of Upper Ossory.
The Fitzpatrick Multimedia Archive currently consists of 375 items and will grow as new content is discovered and added. To help you to get the most from this valuable resource, an Installation Manual and a User Manual are available on the Research tab of The Fitzpatrick - Mac Giolla Phádraig Clan Society website at Research – The Fitzpatrick – Mac Giolla Phádraig Clan Society (fitzpatricksociety.com). The website also contains a Full Catalogue of the items in the Archive.
The FMA needs three programs to run:
- Microsoft 365
- Irfanview (free for personal use)
- Foxit PDF Reader (free for personal use)
Instructions that come with the FMA explain how to download and install these programs. All three programs work together as part of the magic of the Archive and may be installed on either a laptop, standalone or networked PC. (Foxit requires a muti-user license for networked PCs.)
We invite you to download and use the Fitzpatrick Multimedia Archive as your main resource and constant companion for all things Fitzpatrick. And remember, it's free. Get started here:
Microsoft Word - Fitzpatrick Multimedia Archive-SIngle PC Installation (fitzpatricksociety.com)
(Click on images below for PDFs.)
Referencing This Work:
Zalewski, Steve & Fitzpatrick, Ronan (2023) Fitzpatrick Multimedia Archive V3.0: an electronic resource of the Manuscript, Family, and Published Sources for the Fitzpatrick Nation, Bend, Oregon : Upper Ossory Press, instructions for free download available at: https://fitzpatricksociety.
Click to watch video on the FMA.
The Collection
The Collection of Fitzpatrick Research is a database of Fitzpatrick names, events, dates and places contributed by over 130 Fitzpatrick researchers worldwide and currently contains over 14,000 Fitzpatrick events. These events include, but are not limited to, births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, and burials. The Collection standardizes the format of the information submitted and organizes the resultant data into sorted lists to facilitate searching. If you have MSOffice 365, a PC application will be provided that makes searching by given name and/or location easier. The application and reports are made available to only those that have submitted Fitzpatricks to the database. The Collection is for the use of contributors to augment their own research and is expressly forbidden to be published on the internet or reproduced in any publication or in any electronic media.
Click the video above to watch The Collection of Fitzpatrick Research V.3 Tutorial.
The objective of The Collection is two-fold. The first objective is to consolidate the Fitzpatrick research of all participants into a single location and make this research available to all participants. The second objective is to facilitate the sharing of genealogical information by providing leads for contributors to contact each other when there is a likelihood of a common ancestor. These leads are achieved by comparing each entry in The Collection with all other entries in The Collection and reporting on the matches. The methodology involves collecting the research submitted and converting it into a common format. Placing a person in a known location at a known date is the goal for each event entry. Names, events, dates, locations, and the contributor’s name are the primary data items for each entry. In some cases, sources and comments may also be included.
To provide a higher probability for a match between entries of different contributors, as well as a providing a workable searching mechanism, a standard format is required. Files may be submitted in GEDCOM, CSV, TXT, or spreadsheet format and each file will be converted into the standard format. This format will contain a surname, given name, event, date, and location. All items must be present to be included in The Collection. In addition, the following criteria must also be met:
Surname: Must be a Fitzpatrick surname or close variant.
Given name: Must be a viable name or an initial. Cannot be blank, “Unknown”, “?”, “child”, “son”, “daughter” or similar names.
Event: An event in a person’s life that creates a document that can corroborate the name, date and location of the event. Common events are births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, and burials but may also include immigration, christenings, censuses, court proceedings, et. al.
Date: The date of the event with the right-most 4 characters indicating the year.
Location: The place of the event. The location may have up to four jurisdictional levels separated by commas. The smallest jurisdiction is at the left, larger jurisdictions to the right. A maximum of 30 characters per jurisdiction is permitted.
A minimum of 4 complete Fitzpatrick name, date, event, and location groups must be submitted by a contributor in order to be included in the database. Each entry satisfying the screening criteria will then be added to The Collection along with the name of the person submitting that entry. Files may be submitted in GEDCOM, spreadsheet, or document format as described below.
These files should be emailed to szalewski2000@yahoo.com before December 1, 2020. Only one GEDCOM file from each person will be accepted prior to that date and no files will be accepted after that date.
Getting the Most Out of Carrigan
It is often difficult to locate Carrigan's view about a specific topic in his four volume series, The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory. Steve Zalewski has now made this process much easier for the Clan. Use this process with any PDF file that originates from Carrigan's text to help you quickly locate where he mentions a subject in any of his four volumes. Click the image above to view PDF.