Irish Genealogy Game-Changers: 10 Million Catholic Parish Registers FREE FOREVER on Findmypast
1-2 minute read
By The Findmypast Team | March 15, 2016
Findmypast is home to over 10 million Irish Catholic Parish Registers, part of the largest collection of Irish records online.
Fully indexed and searchable, the registers form one of the most important record collections for Irish family history and are free to search and view forever.
Spanning over 200 years of Ireland's history from 1671-1900, the Irish Catholic Parish Registers contain over 40 million names from over 1,000 parishes that cover 97% of the entire island of Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
Learn How to Make the Most of the Collection
The National Library of Ireland's collection of Irish Catholic Registers has been fully indexed with images to the original documents linked online. The records can be searched by name, year and place, allowing relatives and historians the opportunity to make all important links between generations with the baptism records and between families with the marriage registers.
Discover: 5 Essential Tips for Searching Our FREE Irish Catholic Parish Registers
The indexing of these important documents also allows researchers to witness the devastating effects of the Great Famine (1845-1852) first hand. Using the records to examine baptism rates in pre and post Famine Ireland has revealed that the number of children baptised across the whole of Ireland dropped by more 50% in the decade that followed. Across all 32 counties, 2,408,694 baptisms were recorded from 1835-1844, while 1,109,062 baptisms were recorded between 1851 and 1860, a difference of more than 1,299,000 baptisms.
The records also reveal the worst affected regions, with counties Limerick, Wexford, Roscommon and Kilkenny seeing the most dramatic drops in baptism rates.
In less than 5 years, Findmypast has made over 110 million Irish records (with 300 million names) available online. Irish family research has been transformed from the select pursuit of the few, to a fun and relatively easy hobby for the many. The Irish story of hardship, migration and opportunity is a global story, and in partnership with the cultural institutions around the world we are bringing the fragments of their lives within reach.
