Irish Records: They're NOT all burned!

Trinity College Library, Dublin*

There’s hardly a family in the West of Scotland that doesn’t have at least a wee bit of Irish blood in it, including my own.  And the same is probably true for many countries around the world, so researching Irish ancestors is a popular pursuit.  

A host of myths have grown up around the family records of the island of Ireland, the most persistent being that “all the records were destroyed”.  While many of the records genealogists commonly use were indeed lost (particularly the earlier census returns), there are many others that are freely available – and I do mean freely, as the Irish government has committed to imaging, indexing and sharing many of them online at no cost to the user.  Some of these are included below.  The Northern Irish record office (PRONI) website also hosts a number of unique and little-known collections which may well amaze you.

Here, though, I’ve chosen to list only a small selection of free-to-access record sites for Ireland.  Bear in mind that the scope of these collections will change regularly, as it has just this week. 

When you visit these sites, first of all check out what they actually have.  Being aware of a website’s content and value for your research is an important preliminary step to using it.  Who wants to spend hours searching a website for records it doesn’t hold?

So pull out the Irish branches of your family tree and see how they feature among these resources:

Catholic Parish Registers at the NLI (National Library of Ireland)

Census of Ireland, 1901 and 1911

Civil Registration (BMDs) and Church Records

 

FamilySearch Irish Genealogy Help and Records Gateway  

            Many collections, including some indexed images. 

Irish Graveyards  

Military Archives (Irish Defence Forces)  

            Lists of serving men, pension records, army census of 1922

National Archives of Ireland

Census survivals for 1821-51, Census Search forms for 1841-51, the Tithe Applotment Books from 1823 to 1837, the Soldiers’ Wills from 1914 to 1917

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)  

Will calendars, historical maps, the Ulster Covenant, street directories, name search feature, and much, much more

No blog post on Irish genealogy would be complete without acknowledging professional researcher and author Chris Paton and his expertise in Irish research.  His GENES blog is in itself a great free resource for family history news and information, and well worth keeping up to date with.

*Note: none of the records above are held in Trinity College Dublin. It's just got an awesome library.