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Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland Resources => Topic started by: shanew147 on Saturday 06 March 10 19:09 GMT (UK)

Title: Introduction to Irish Records
Post by: shanew147 on Saturday 06 March 10 19:09 GMT (UK)
Irish Civil records are intact and these include all Births, Marriages and Deaths from 1864, although some early births may have missed registration. In addition, non-Catholic and Registry Office marriages were included in the registers from 1845.

An Index to Civil records can be searched on the familysearch website at this link (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1408347)

Certs can then be ordered from the GRO using the references provided in the index record.

See these Rootschat topics for information on Civil records and Order Certs :


Also available online are the Irish 1901 and 1911 census (http://census.nationalarchives.ie/) (free) on the National Archives website. No other earlier complete Irish census returns have survived and only fragments of earlier ones for a few places survive.

For earlier dates church records will be required, and to start researching these you need to know two details : religious denomination & location i.e. parish, town or townland (see addition details on Church records in the next post (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,442233.msg3192307.html#msg3192307)).

Some records are available on a free website IrishGenealogy (http://irishgenealogy.ie/) - at the moment this website includes details for counties Carlow (Cofi), Kerry (RC & CofI), Diocese of Cork & Ross (RC) and parts of Dublin city & county (RC, CofI & Presbyterian). Some other areas are available on several subscription and pay-per-view websites.

Location of actual records depends mainly on the religious denomination involved, but Catholic records are available on microfilm in the National Library in Kildare St, in Dublin (website : http://www.nli.ie/), and most Church of Ireland records are available in the Representative Church Body Library in Rathfarnham (website : http://ireland.anglican.org/library/).

Records for certain parishes are available in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (RC, CofI and Presbyterian) - mostly for Ulster counties, and many RC records have been filmed by the LDS and are available through their libraries.

There are also some useful extracted civil record collections on familysearch :

 Births, 1864-1881 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1584963)
 Marriages, 1845-1870 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1584964)
 Deaths, 1864-1870 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1584965) (not many included)

For more details on these and other sources see the various topics on the Rootschat Ireland Resources (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/board,385.0.html) section and under each of the county boards.

Link to the IGI section on familysearch : International Genealogical Index (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/igi)
  (many of these records are submitted and need to be verified. These are now referred to 'Community Contributed' records)

(updated links 4th Mar 2013)
Title: Introduction to Irish Records - Church Records
Post by: shanew147 on Tuesday 25 May 10 08:43 BST (UK)
The level of details included, and dates covered by church records can vary quite a bit depending on the individual parishes. The majority of the population were Catholic 78% 1, but ~12% were Church of Ireland, the rest of the population  were Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist, Quaker, etc. :

Catholic Records
 Very few records before the 1800s
 Most parishes were keeping records by the 1830s, although some start much later
 Cities and towns generally have older records
 Deaths/Burials are rarely included

Church of Ireland
 About two thirds of the original registers were destroyed in the civil war 2 as they'd been sent to the records office in Dublin for safekeeping
 Many parishes kept copies of their original record, which may be available
 Transcripts & Extracts are also available for some parishes
 The established (State) Church, so can include records for other religions

(1 based on statistics extracted from the 1861 census,  2 1922)
Title: Re: Introduction to Irish Records
Post by: shanew147 on Monday 21 June 10 11:48 BST (UK)

The additional Familysearch links listed here to the Beta, Pilot, and SearchLabs sub sites are no longer active as of November 2011, so have been removed.