Irish Genealogy: an introduction ot the key sources
People often assume that most of the Irish records were destroyed in the Four Courts Fire of 1922. While it was tragic that most Irish wills, census returns and many Church of Ireland parish registers were damaged (among other records), in fact there are many sources available to anyone tracing their Irish roots.
Here are some key sources available to you for your Irish research, both on findmypast.ie and other websites.
Census and Census Substitutes
The first complete census to survive for Ireland is the 1901 census, earlier returns having been destroyed during the Irish civil war, by government order and by administrative oversight. The 1901 and 1911 census of Ireland can be viewed online for free at the National Archives of Ireland’s website.
A number of useful nineteenth century census substitutes are available to search on findmypast.ie. Perhaps the most important is Griffith's Valuation (1847-1864),which lists approximately 80% of householders in Ireland and includes the names of over 1,400,000 individuals.
Other useful census substitutes available on findmypast.ie are: the Census of Elphin 1749, Tithe Defaulters 1831, William Smith O'Brien Petition 1848-9 and the Dublin City Census 1851.
Search findmypast.ie’s census and census substitutes records.
Land and estate records
As well as the 1.4 million individuals listed in the Griffith’s Valuation of land occupation (1847-64), the findmypast.ie website uniquely includes the Landed Estates Court records. These records, compiled from 1850-1885, give copious details about over 500,000 tenants residing on estates all over Ireland, with tenancies dating from the late 18th century, maps and drawings of locations.
Search findmypast.ie’s Land & Estate Records
Civil Registration
Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced into Ireland in 1864 and civil registration of non-Catholic marriages was practised in Ireland from 1845. The index to civil registration is available on the FamilySearch, while birth, marriage and death records can be ordered from the General Register Office of Ireland.
Parish Records
Parish registers are organised by denomination. While some are now available online, most are still held locally or in repositories, so you will either have to visit in person or hire a researcher, such as Eneclann, to do it for you.
Most Roman Catholic parish registers are available on microfilm in the National Library of Ireland and can be consulted in person. Some registers for Cork and Ross, Dublin and Kerry are available online at the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport’s Irish Genealogy website.
Church of Ireland registers are either held in manuscript form at the Representative Church Body Library in Churchtown, Dublin 14, on microfilm at the National Archives of Ireland, at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast (Northern Ireland parishes) or in local custody by the rector. Some Church of Ireland parish records relating to Carlow, Dublin and Kerry are also available online at the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport’s Irish Genealogy website.
Methodist records between 1747 and 1817-18 are usually entered without distinction in the Church of Ireland parish registers. Presbyterian parish records for the counties of Northern Ireland are kept mainly in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, while those for the Republic of Ireland are usually held locally by the minister. Quaker (Religious Society of Friends) records are held in repositories in Dublin, Ireland and Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Most Jewish records can be accessed through the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin.
Courts and Legal
Legal records are a treasure trove of information for family history researchers. Our Irish Prison Registers collection is compiled from the records housed in the National Archives of Ireland and covers most surviving records for prisons in the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland from 1790-1920. In total there are 2.7 million records, with information on over 3.5 million people.
The Petty Sessions order books (1850-1910) cover all types of cases, from allowing trespass of cattle to being drunk in charge of an ass and cart. This first batch of entries contains details of 1.2 million cases, with most records giving comprehensive details of the case including: name of complainant, name of defendant, names of witnesses, cause of complaint, details of the judgement, details of a fine if any, and details of a sentence passed down if any. This first batch of records is particularly useful for areas of the country for which family history records are notoriously sparse such as Connaught and Donegal. Another 15 million cases are to follow throughout 2012.
Searching the records: All names appearing in our Courts & legal category can be searched for, also a specific time frame, or prison. The "County" field refers to the county of the Court, which is not necessarily where those involved in the cases lived or were born.
Search findmypast.ie's Courts and Legal records
Directories
Directories started to be used in the late eighteenth century and became more prevalent as economic and trade activity increased. The findmypast.ie directories collection contains over 2 million names.
The directories themselves may be divided into four main categories:
1) National Directories
Not many Irish directories that can be considered truly national but, of those that are, most are available to search on findmypast.ie. One of the earliest national directories is Ambrose Leet's Directory to the market towns, villages and gentlemen's seats and other noted places in Ireland (1814) – however it is directories published by Pigot, Slater and Thom that are the most comprehensive national directories. Generally organised by province, these list the principal office holders, gentry, professionals, tradesmen, hotels, schools, public institutions, churches, and even pubs for each town in Ireland.
2) Provincial Directories
These focus on specific areas of Ireland – many are organised by province (Connaught, Leinster, Munster and Ulster) while others relate to geographical areas of the country such as the south-east, or groups of counties.
Not surprisingly, the greatest number of provincial directories related to Dublin. These include the Treble Almanack & Dublin Directory, Pettigrew and Oulton, the Post Office Directory and, perhaps the most well-known Dublin Directory, Thom's Irish Almanac and Official Directory of Ireland.
Other provincial directories available to search on findmypast.ie include Henry & Coughlan's General Directory of Cork & Munster (1867), Guy's Directory of Munster (1893), William Bassett, Limerick City and County, and Principal Towns in the Counties Clare, Tipperary and Kerry Directory 1880-1881, Henderson’s The Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory (3rd ed., 1856) and Shearman's Directory of Waterford, Kilkenny & the southeast 1839.
3) Local Directories (County or City)
County directories tend to provide more details on smaller villages and towns in Ireland, though very few exist for the west of Ireland.
Bassett published a number of detailed county directories relating to Kilkenny (1884), Wexford (1885), Down (1886), Louth (1886), Antrim (1888) and Armagh (1888). Information includes a detailed introduction to each town and village with details of office-holders, professionals, merchants and tradesmen, as well as a full alphabetical directory of farmers and other residents not listed by trade.
Other publishers produced local directories too, such the now rare Sligo Independent newspaper, County Directory, Almanac and Guide (1889), The King's County Directory (1890), Ashe's Limerick and Clare Directory 1891-92, Macloskie’s Directory of Fermanagh (1848) and Tempest's Jubilee Annual 1909 (Louth)
Other local directories focus on major cities such as Limerick (Guy's Limerick Directory, 1912) and Belfast (Matier's Belfast Directory, 1835-6 and Henderson's Belfast Directory, 1850).
4) Directories about People and Professions
Directories about people generally focus on the well-off landed classes such as Thom's Irish Who's Who (1923), Hussey De Burgh's The Landowners of Ireland, (1878) and Bateman's Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (1883)
Other directories relate to individuals and their occupations. For instance, Alumni Dublinenses (1924 edition) is a register of the students, graduates, professors and provosts of Trinity College from 1637 to 1846. English Goldsmiths and their Marks, (1921) includes complete lists of all known Dublin and provincial apprentices, freemen, quarter-brothers and masters, while Kenny's Irish manufacturers' directory (1919) details all manufacturing businesses in Ireland, from ‘Abdominal Belt’ to ‘Zinc Ware’ manufacturers.
Search the findmypast.ie Irish directories collection.
Wills
Although the majority of wills and testamentary records for Ireland prior to 1922 were destroyed in the fire at the Public Records Office, a number of records, including indexes and calendars, as well as some wills survive which go some way to filling in the gaps left in 1922.
The findmypast.ie Irish wills collection includes four indexes to Irish wills, covering the years 1484 – 1858:
- - Index of Irish Wills 1484-1858, which lists all the surviving wills at the National Archives of Ireland
- - Dublin Will and Grant Books Index 1270-1858
- - Phillimore & Thrift, Indexes to Irish Wills 1536-1858
- - Sir Arthur Vicars, Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland 1536-1858
From 1859 a Calendar of Wills and Administrations was published annually, and these Calendars still survive, even where the original documents do not. The Calendars are arranged alphabetically, and each record contains the name, address and occupation of the deceased, the place and date of death; the value of the estate, and the name and address of ?the person(s) to whom probate or administration was granted.
You can review the Calendars at the National Archives of Ireland, or commission a researcher to do this for you.
Memorial Records
Gravestones and Church memorials are an important tool for genealogical research, especially in the absence of any papers records. Probably the best known collection of gravestone inscriptions is that compiled by Brian Cantwell, where he listed memorial records for Counties Wicklow, Wexford, South Dublin, Clare, Cork, Kildare, Galway and Sligo. Between 1970 and 1991, Cantwell visited over 540 graveyards and churches, transcribing legible memorials. The result is a database of over 67,000 names. His son, Ian, then continued the project completing the memorials for western Counties Galway and Mayo. Other projects, like that of Tipperary Clans, have transcribed thousands of memorials from all over the south-west. Search the findmypast.ie Irish memorial records database.
MIlitary and rebellion
The records held in this collection contain useful information on those involved in war or combat. Search the entire findmypast.ie military, war and rebellion collection, or each individual section:
- - Ireland's Memorial Records 1914-18
- - The 1798 Rebellion: Claimants and Surrenders
- - The Weekly Irish Times, Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook, Easter 1916
Travel and migration
Between 1858 and 1870, ports in Great Britain and Ireland were required to record details about individuals who travelled there from North America, as there were concerns over the threat of an uprising in Ireland by the Fenians, who had many supporters in America. findmypast.ie’s Transatlantic migration index contains the names of just under 42,700 individuals who travelled from North America to Great Britain and Ireland during this period.
Search findmypast.ie’s Irish migration records.
Newspapers
The findmypast.ie site includes a collection of over 250,000 obituaries and other newspaper notices compiled from all over Ireland, and especially the south-west.
Search findmypast.ie’s Newspaper Records
Electoral registers
These registers list those who were eligible to vote in elections. The findmypast.ie site includes some of the earliest voters lists to survive from Ireland. These were compiled for the 1837-8 parliamentary enquiry into electoral problems in Ireland, and cover the years 1832-38 and list 52,600 individuals.
Search findmypast.ie's Electoral Registers
Help with your Irish research
More and more records are coming online all the time, making it easier for you to conduct your own research. However, some records can only be accessed in Ireland, such as the many parish registers, and records held in the Registry of Deeds or the Valuation Office. If you are looking for a researcher in Ireland to assist you, we recommend our partners Eneclann. Eneclann is Ireland's premier genealogical and historical research agency. Established in 1998 as a Trinity College Dublin campus company, they offer research services covering all of Ireland. Most of Eneclann’s research work comes in as private commissions, but you may also be familiar with their research from programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are?, Faces of America, and Where Were Your Ancestors During the Famine?
Eneclann’s core research team has been in place since 1998, and they bring an unparallelled level of experience and continuity to all their clients. Since1998 they have completed over 15,000 individual research assignments. In that time they have developed key areas of specialisation - they are especially strong on pre-1800 research. Eneclann have a reputation for solving genealogical puzzles, and untangling even the thorniest family trees. All Eneclann genealogists are members of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and have signed up to their code of ethics.
Find out more about Eneclann’s Irish research services.
