Two major sources of data exist, church records and civil records.
The civil registration of births, marriages and deaths only became compulsory in Ireland in 1864 (1845 for Church of Ireland marriages) so for pre-1864 research parish registers are the major source of information.
In theory the Church of Ireland was required to keep registers from 1634 but the law was generally ignored and parish registers in general did not start until the mid or late 18th century.
In 1876 Church of Ireland records were declared public records and ministers were required to forward them to the Public Records Office in Dublin. This was resisted by many ministers and in 1878 the law was amended to allow parishes with secure storage areas to retain their records. In addition many ministers copied their records before turning them over to the PRO. This was fortunate as very few records survived the destruction of the PRO in 1922.
In 1703 the Penal Laws prohibited the keeping of Catholic parish records. It is interesting to note, however, that from 1745 marriages between two Catholics in a Catholic church was legal but not between Catholic and Protestant which had to be performed in a Church of Ireland Church. Many Catholics continued to be buried in what had become Protestant graveyards and these burials are recorded in the Church of Ireland records.
In spite of the law against the keeping of records some Catholic parish records date from the late 18th century. Most of these have been microfilmed and are available to researchers in the National Library of Ireland. It has, however, been stated by some authorities that the registers from some dioceses (where they are available in the National Library) may only be searched on production of a letter of agreement from the local parish priest and that there is no access to the records for the parishes of the diocese of Dublin. This has not been the experience during the present research.
The information in parish registers varies from parish to parish. According to "A Genealogical Guide for Ireland" (published by the Genealogical Dept., of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) the following information is generally available.
Church Records
Catholic Church:
Christening : Name, place and date. Parents' and sponsors' names.
Marriages : Names of bride and groom and witnesses.
Church of Ireland:
Christening : Name, place and date. Sometimes a birth date, parents' names and occasionally residence and occupation.
Marriages Names of bride and groom, places of residence, date and place of marriage and sometimes the names of witnesses.
Burials : Name of deceased and his residence. Sometimes his age, burial date and age. In the case of infants and children sometimes the names of the parents.
On 1st April 1845 the civil registration of Church of Ireland marriages commenced and the Births, Marriages and Deaths Act of 1863 made civil registration of all births, marriages and deaths compulsory as from 1st January 1864.
The country was divided into registration districts, coinciding with the Poor Law Union, under a superintendent registrar with each district subdivided into sub-districts. The original entries were kept in the districts and copies sent to the Registrar-General in Dublin.
The records are neither computerised nor microfilmed so it is necessary firstly to manually search the indexes which costs £1.50 for a 5 year period and then armed with the reference a photocopy of the record must be obtained which costs an additional £1.50.
The birth indexes from 1900 are exceptionally valuable as they include the maiden name of the mother and in the period 1900-1933 (with some exceptions) the actual date of birth is given. Similarly the marriage indexes from 1966 cross reference the spouses and give the actual dates.
In extracting data, extreme care is needed to check all variations of spelling the name since these occur frequently. This is due in some cases to the lack of standardisation of the spelling, to the person registering the birth not always being literate and to the registrar not being sure of a spelling. Brazil appears as Brazill in Dublin and Brazel, Brazle and Brassil elsewhere. If one of these variations occurs in Dublin then a rural ancestry can be suspected. All entries in the Family Group Sheets are made under the name shown in the birth index.
Marriage and death records have their own pitfalls. Here the registered birth name was not always used but more usually the name by which the person was known which could be an additional name from baptism or alternatively a diminutive or a pet name and this caused considerable confusion especially with the large number of Ellens and its variations. The age at death should also not be taken at face value. In one case if the age had been accepted the marriage would have occurred at age 10!
The Dublin branch of the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) has a family history section. Here microfilm copies of the indexes to the Registrar-Generals records which are available for inspection, together with microfilms of the actual birth certificates for the period 1864-1881 and various other records. In time they will have microfilms of all the Registrar-General's records and these will be available for study without fee.
One of the problems involved in using the indexes is that the actual location of an event is not listed, only the registrar's district which frequently conceals the true location e.g. a birth in Kingstown would be listed as Rathdown and a marriage at Dublin Airport listed as Balrothery.
Other valuable sources of information are the census returns for 1901 and 1911 (the only returns which exist). These are available in the Public Records Office, Dublin.
The 1901 census gives names of inhabitants, age, sex, relationship to head of house, religion, occupation, marital status, birthplace. It also gives information on house and property including the name of the lease holder.
The 1911 census return gives the same information but in addition records the number of years married, total children born alive and the number still
There is a tradition in Ireland that the first child is named after the paternal grandparent and the second child named after the maternal grandparent. This tradition was not always followed in the case of the families studied but occurred sufficiently often to suggest that where it did not occur obviously then there might have been an unknown elder child who had died in infancy. Certain names also seemed to belong to families so if a name combination that was peculiar to a family was found in another area there was a reasonable presumption that this person was a relative. This was not always true but the use of this hypothesis did occasionally produce fruit.
Information on Certificates
Births : Name, place and date, sex. Parents' names (mother's maiden name), occupation of father. Name and address of the informant.
Marriages : Names of bride and groom, places of residence, date and place of marriage. Present marital status. Age if under 21 though occasionally simply shown as "minor". If over 21 usually shown as "full age" though occasional an age may be shown. Names of witnesses. Fathers' names and occupations. After 19?? mothers' names are given and actual dates of birth.
Death : Name of deceased. Place of death, date and cause. Age. Name and address of informant with relationship sometimes given.
Other Sources Available in the National Archives
Tithe Applotment Book (1823-1838)
Griffith's Primary Valuation (1848-1864)
Valuation Lists (1855-1968), basically census returns of land occupiers
Trade Directories for various towns.
Records of Wills
Administrative Divisions.
Apart from the division into provinces and counties the following divisions also exist or existed.
Last Modified 22 Jan 2002