The premier resource for tracing your British and Irish
ancestors
|
|
Civil Registration Indexes for Ireland Online
By Sherry Irvine, MSc, CG A significant change for the better is helping all genealogists searching for nineteenth century Irish ancestors. Indexes to the civil records of birth, marriage and death can be searched on the Web. This article describes the database at the FamilySearch website and adds information about other places to look. Online Indexes at FamilySearch Towards the end of 2008 volunteers participating in FamilySearch indexing projects completed the data entry of birth, marriage and death indexes for Ireland from 1845 to 1958. The indexes begin in 1845 for non-Catholic marriages. Civil registration indexes for all events – births, deaths and marriages of any type – start in 1864. Separate civil registration indexes for Ireland and Northern Ireland continue after 1922. The database is found at the Record Search Pilot Site which can be accessed from the FamilySearch home page. Select the “Search Records” tab and choose “Record Search pilot” from the drop down menu list. The term “pilot” means experimental or unfinished. The resource is under development and from time to time the index will not be available while improvements are made or new data added. User feedback is welcomed. The home page for the pilot resources presents two options, an opportunity to search across all data or to select a geographic area first. I suggest you begin with the search box because you can specify a location, in this case Ireland. Add a name (surname only or full name) and a date range. Look carefully for the All Events heading and the tiny arrow beside it. This is where you can do nothing (all events are searched) or select to search only birth, marriage or death entries. Notice the “More” option in the lower left corner. It opens up a bigger search options box which has additional fields for the names of parents or spouse. In both searches you can select one of three levels of correlation between your search terms and the results (exact, close, partial). If you bypass that search box and select the Europe region in the map as your way into the data you are taken to a list of resources arranged by country. Find Ireland, select civil registration, and you reach the same search tool described in the previous paragraph. Some searches produce a large number of results but if this happens the site gives you filtering options: Place, Date, First Name, and Event Type. The options show at the very top of the results table just below the website title. Try each one to see the effect. Filtering means narrowing the results—only those with the selected characteristic will be shown. Results are seen first as summaries. Selecting a name opens up the details for that individual on the right side of the screen. The facts displayed are: name, registration district, record type, registration date (quarter and year), estimated birth year, age, mother's surname, film number, volume, page, digital GS number, and image number. Not all of these facts apply to every record. Remember, what you have searched are indexes to civil registration records and it remains necessary to obtain the certificate for the event. Obtaining the Full Record Some of the full register entries can be viewed on microfilm in the Family History Library or through the facilities of a Family History Centre. This is the same information that is found on a certificate. Their collections include:
Online Indexes at the Irish Family History Foundation The Irish Family History Foundation website offers an extensive collection of vital records indexes at its website. The indexes are by county and are those created and maintained by the heritage centres in Ireland from civil and church records. As of early 2009 twenty of the thirty-two counties of Ireland have index data at the website and two others, Antrim and Down, report that data will be available soon. Of these counties eight list civil registration indexes as being part of their online data. Most cover 1864 to 1900 and some include data to 1922 and other years in between. Very few include the non-Catholic marriage record indexes for the years 1845 to 1864. The indexes are free to consult once you register with the website. The search tool is simpler than that at FamilySearch and the free results are less informative. You must pay five euros to see the full index entry. On the other hand, this is an alternative resource and can be used to double-check when an event cannot be found using the FamilySearch index. Certificates can be ordered from the two register offices, or register volumes held by the Family History Library can be viewed on microfilm. Other Options The FamilySearch Pilot index may appear to make all others irrelevant. It is certainly going to be everyone's first choice for a search, but alternatives remain useful. Human error may hide an entry and different search tools work in different ways and therefore have a chance of putting forward slightly different results. The alternatives of any size are FamilySearch resources. There are a lot of entries from the first 10 years within the International Genealogical Index at the FamilySearch website. On CD-ROM there are also a good many early entries, including some non-Catholic marriages, within the British Isles Vital Records Index. You should be able to find the index in the nearest Family History Centre. You may have access to microfilm copies of the indexes. These are in many large Family History Centres and in the libraries of some genealogical societies. They can, for example, be viewed at the Hyde Park Family History Centre in London. Check with the centres or libraries that you are able to visit. Another option is for you or your agent to consult the indexes in person in Dublin or Belfast. The websites listed at the end provide information about locations and hours of operation. Conclusion Searching vital record indexes has become much easier. The value of the Record Search Pilot Site for genealogists is significant. With excellent online versions of Griffith's Valuation, particularly the Origins version with its enhanced search features, gives new and better options for finding and identify Irish ancestors in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Biographical Note Sherry Irvine is the Course Director for Pharos Teaching and Tutoring Ltd a British company offering online courses in family history. She also lectures, and writes about English, Scottish, Irish and Canadian family history. She has lectured in Canada, USA, UK, New Zealand and Australia. She is the author of Your English Ancestry (2nd ed. 1998), Scottish Ancestry (2003), and Finding Your Canadian Ancestors (co-author, 2007). Her articles appear in several publications including Ancestors Magazine. She is a past- president of the Association of Professional Genealogists and a recipient of the Association's Smallwood Award of Merit. |
