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Up until recently it was very difficult to trace your Irish ancestry because of the lack of digitised information. However, many records are now accessible online, making it much easier to carry out your searches from your home.
Researching your Irish ancestry online can be a challenging and task. There isn’t one single website that holds all of the records available. Instead, there are many sites that offer a range of valuable data that you may need to access during your searching, for example, extractions, transcriptions and digitized images. These sites listed here offer a mix of free and paid subscription-based content, and they represent the major resources for your online Irish ancestry research.
AskAboutIreland.ie
Free
Ask About Ireland is a free website that provides online indexes, full returns and maps of Richard Griffith’s Primary Valuation of Tenements. The Valuation is one of the most important surviving 19th-century genealogical sources because it records the names of householders in each county at the time the land survey was carried out.
LibertyEllisFoundation.org
Free
The Liberty Ellis Foundation provides a database on passengers that entered the USA via the small Ellis Island Portal in New York Harbour. The database provides the address of where the immigrant was headed and sometimes their place of origin. If your ancestors left Ireland before, during or directly after the Great Famine of 1846 to 1849, then they will not be on this database, but will be on the US National Archives Irish Famine Collection – see below.
Archives.gov
Free
The US National Archives has two online databases of information on immigrants who came to America from Ireland during the 1846 to 1851 Irish famine. The Famine Irish Passenger Record Data File (FIPAS) provides records of passengers arriving in New York from 12th January, 1846 to 31st December, 1851. The second database, List of Ships That Arrived at the Port of New York During the Irish Famine, provides background detail on the ships that brought them over, including the total number of passengers and the records for passengers who arrived at the Port of New York during this time.
NationalArchives.ie
Free
Ireland’s National Archives has the fully digitised 1901 and 1911 census returns. In addition to a searchable index, you can downland images of the census returns, including the household returns and the enumerator’s returns. The websites other resources include the Tithe Applotment Books which date back to the 1820’s, a collection of World War One Soldiers’ Wills, the calendars of Wills and Administration 1858–1922, Census Search Forms and ‘Census Fragments’.
FamilySearch.org
Free
This website contains a large archive of family history collections that is free to search. The 1880/1881 census records may be of particular interest to those whose family were in the US, UK and Canada during this period.
Another useful tool on this website is the searchable civil registration index. This includes births, marriages and deaths for Ireland from 1864 (1845 for non-Catholic marriages) to 1921. Be aware that from 1922 to 1958, it only covers the Republic of Ireland.
cso.ie Central Statistics Office
Free
Locating census records online can be a real challenge, but the Central Statistics Office website helps you to locate online census records for the Ireland. With a bit of patience, you will find thousands of census links to census transcriptions, census indexes and census images in their categorised directory.
IrishGenealogy.ie
Free
Operated by the Irish Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, this free website provides a portal or search facility for digital genealogy records. Visitors will be able to search records from a number of on-line sources including the historic Indexes to the Civil Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths, the Church Records, and others such as the 1901 and 1911 Census and Soldiers wills.
Registers.nli.ie
Free
The National Library of Ireland has a database holding images of the Library’s Roman Catholic parish registers microfilm collection. You can search by parish name or by map. The cut-off date for all the records are 1880/1, but the start date depends on when the parish started keeping records and how well they were stored. Some start from the 1740s, others start over 100 years later.
IrishWarMemorials.ie
Free
The War Memorials Project is a developing inventory of war memorials in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Many of these war memorials carry not only the names of those that died, but also the names of those who served and survived from that district. The names include civilians, service personnel (including irregular forces), and members of armed services who died on active service but not during a war (e.g. in peace-time training accidents). It also includes memorials to members of the Irish Defence Forces who died on duty with the United Nations.
This site includes photographs of each memorial, and details of the sites. With each memorial there is a PDF file with a transcription of the text on the memorial and, in many cases, further information about those whose names appear on them.
Genuki.org.uk
Free
The Genealogy UK and Ireland (GENUKI) is a free website that provides links to hundreds of sites that will assist you in your Irish ancestry research. Its aim is to serve as a virtual genealogical reference library and most of the information it provides relates to primary historical material.
nidirect.gov.uk/proni
Free
The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) is the official repository for public records for the six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry-Londonderry, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone. This free Irish genealogy and history site offers databases containing details of those who signed the Ulster Covenant (1912), records of pre-1840 Freeholders, the first phase of the Will calenders (1858-1900) project and the Revision Books of Griffith’s Valuation.
Findmypast.ie
$
This Dublin based site provides subscribers exclusive access to the Irish Prison Registers, Landed Estates Court, the complete Griffith’s Valuation, national directories, indexes to Irish wills, gravestones and church memorials, Military records, emigration records, access to obituaries and other newspaper notices compiled from all over Ireland and much more. Their records even include over 6 million Irish dog licence records from 1866 which provide names and addresses of dog owners. The great thing about this website is that if you pay a bit extra for the World subscription, then you can access their databases for the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. This can be particularly helpful if your search leads you outside of Ireland.
IrishAncestors.ie
Free & $
Irish Ancestors is the website of the Irish Genealogical Research Society (IGRS). Their website contains free resources such as the 1901 Townlands Index, Irish Genealogist Database, IGRS Early Irish Marriage Index, IGRS Early Irish Birth Index (Surname-only Search) and much more. However, there are some areas of their website that are for members only, so you will need to pay their membership fees to access them.
RootsIreland.ie
$
Roots Ireland is run by the Irish Family History Foundation (IFHF), a nonprofit coordinating body for a network of government approved genealogical research centres in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Roots Ireland is a subscription based services that offers a unique database of more than 20 million Irish records. It contains data from 34 county genealogy centres. The main sources on the site are Irish Catholic and other church records of baptisms, marriages and deaths. It also has an excellent monthly publication called the Clann Newsletter.
AncestryIreland.com
Free and $
The Ulster Historical Foundation is a non-profit organisation. Their website provides access to a number of databases for free such as the Matheson’s Distribution of Surnames in Ireland in 1890 database. However, to access their Birth, Marriage and Death (BMD) records, you will need to purchase credits for lookups. Members get a discount on these lookups as well as free access to over 200 databases including gravestone inscriptions.
Additional Irish Ancestry Resources
- Irish Genealogy: A Beginners Guide to Tracing Your Irish Ancestry: Do you want to trace your Irish genealogy and discover more about your Irish ancestry? This guide will provide you with the essential information you need.
- Top 10 Books for Tracing Your Irish Genealogy: Whether you’re a novice or more advanced, these top 10 Irish genealogy books will provide you with essential information for your Irish ancestry research.
Forums: Join these forums to get access to a large community of experienced and knowledgeable family historians who will do their best to help you.
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- Rootschat.com – Specifically the Ireland forum
- Boards.ie – Specifically the Genealogy forum
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