I’m writing this column near the end of a month-long stay in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Before I departed for the Emerald Isle, I wrote several columns on using your laptop when you are traveling internationally [see “International Laptop Travel” and “International Laptop Travel Revisited”]. I thought it would be appropriate to give an after-action report on my laptop experiences on this trip.

One of the items I wrote about previously was the ability to send and check e-mail inexpensively while abroad. Shortly before I left, I found a free e-mail service available in the Republic of Ireland and signed up. I decided to be brave and forwarded my messages from my normal e-mail account to the account in the Republic. Thankfully, there were no glitches involved in accessing the e-mail. In fact, the hotel I was staying in, an 18th-century Georgian hotel, had recently been refitted for Internet access in each room. Although my room was incredibly small, I had my essentials for travel survival: a bed, a bathroom, a desk, and a modem connection next to the desk.

The Republic uses the same RJ-11 jacks that the United States uses, so I merely plugged in my new retractable telephone cable (which takes up a lot less room in my computer bag than the long length of cable I used to use), created a new connection using the dial-up network available from my computer in Windows 95/98, and the computer dialed the local phone number and connected me with my new e-mail account. There were absolutely no problems, and the cost was considerably reduced compared to my downloads last year through AT&T’s direct access calls back to the United States. The free service, called “GoFree” (from www.indigo.ie), had indicated that calls made during off-peak hours would cost approximately 15 cents, but in fact they cost about 45 cents for a brief connection. Even though the cost was tripled, it still beat $10 per call last year.

Before I left the Republic of Ireland for Northern Ireland, I tried to find a similar free service in the north with a POP3 telephone number to dial in, but was unsuccessful. I did several searches and even signed up for a Yahoo account because it was billed as a free service with a POP3 number, but the telephone number was nowhere to be found on the Web site. So I dialed a number in the Republic for the few times I checked my e-mail. It cost me about $15 the one time I downloaded about 120 e-mails, but I quickly got offline, deleted the numerous spam messages, and responded offline to the important e-mails before dialing in again to send them. The cost was higher, but I still think it was cheaper than dialing back to the United States.

The hotel we are staying in tonight in County Monaghan—back in the Republic—has a Web access terminal in the hallway by the check-in desk. That’s the first time I’ve seen that in a hotel, but I’m sure that such terminals are available in the better hotels around the world. I noticed that the initial charge for the terminal was IR£1 (about $1.13), which gives you eight minutes online. I had initially thought about sending this column through that terminal, but couldn’t find a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk drive. So, even though you could check and respond to your e-mail using such a terminal, you couldn’t save the e-mails or your responses to a disk.

Before I left for Ireland, I purchased a telephone jack adaptor for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That was a worthwhile purchase, because I would not have been able to use my RJ-11 capable plug. I ended up bringing two electrical plug adaptors with me, which was also a good move since there were times when I had my laptop plugged in and wanted to back up the genealogical information I had been putting onto my hard drive. I brought my external Zip drive with me, which has its own power cable, and it needed its own adaptor in order to work. One item that I have continually found useful is an extension cord. Last year, the hotel I stayed in had few outlets in the rooms and no desk, and I had to purchase an extension cord in Ireland in order to use my computer comfortably. You might consider bringing an extension cord with you to avoid this problem.

Since this trip to Ireland involved three weeks of genealogical research, I input a great deal of information into the various programs I use in my research. As I said, I backed everything up on my Zip drive. I brought two Zip disks with me, which hold 100 MB each. The Zip disks were also used for downloading images from my digital camera. I strongly encourage those who are undertaking similar research trips to bring along some method for making backups of your data. After all, you don’t want to spend all that time and money and then find that your hard drive has crashed when you return home. Protect your valuable assets—including electronic genealogical data.

One final note about using your laptop in research facilities: Every research facility I used on this trip had outlets available either at specially designated desks or within a few feet of a desk. I was able to use my laptop everywhere I tried to use it. Many facilities, as in the United States, don’t allow you to bring much into the reading room. However, I was always able to bring in my laptop and power supply.

The lesson learned is, don’t be shy about bringing your laptop into research facilities, either at home or abroad. And you can always find a way to stay in touch via e-mail, whether it’s in your hotel or at an Internet café. So if you’re planning a trip, include your laptop in the planning, and you may find you’ll use your time more productively.

Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing, editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists’ newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, and a frequent contributor to Ancestry Magazine. She can be reached via e-mail at liz@ancestordetective.com or at gceditor@ancestry.com.