Honneyman Room

The North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS) acquired this room for meetings and for mounting a programme of Courses for family historians.  The room is named after Dr David Honneyman, a founding member of the Society and its first President and a lecturer by profession.

The initial set of courses, each consisting of several lectures, illustrated the range with material for beginners, for experienced researchers, for those wanting to learn about new techniques and new sources of information and for those seeking help with very practical matters:

David Honneyman

  1. Beginning Your Research: “Covers researching, recording and resources including some free websites, and is for absolute beginners.”
  2. Writing Up Your Family History: “Have you gathered much family history material but haven’t managed to write it up yet? This is your opportunity. The course consists of a mixture of talks and workshops to help you get started. Topics include how to organise your material, how to find stories and background material to make your account readable, how to use illustrations to perk up the text and how to use source material to make your story believable.”
  3. Understanding Family Finder: “This course is designed for those who have already taken Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder Test and have received their results. It explains how to use the tools on their website to further your genealogical research and covers what steps you can take to confirm relationships with your cousins. It also covers how Family Finder can be used to verify your research and how the unique X chromosome can help to confirm a match.”
  4. Manipulating Images in Word: “Points to be covered: Inserting images (photos, clipart, design elements); Moving and aligning images within the document; Text wrapping; Changing the size, shape and rotation of images.  This is for anyone who uses ‘Word’ but isn’t confident about how to handle images.”

A programme of Courses is mounted each autumn and spring and these have proved popular.  The cost is kept low and is used to defray the rent of the premises.    The most recent set of Courses organised by the Education & Development Officer covers a dozen or more topics.  They are open to the general public as well as to Members and need to be booked in advance as places are limited.

Members are also being encouraged to set up Special Interest Groups, for which the Honneyman Room will provide a suitable venue.