Irish Genealogy
This is a (republic) government-supported site within the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (indigenous affairs?). It has some collections of church records and civil records. Since this is a free site, it is a great place to make your initial searches. Ask about Ireland This is the other government supported site within the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. It is an initiative of public libraries together with local museums and archives in the digitisation and online publication of the original, the unusual and the unique material from their local studies' collections to create a national Internet resource for culture. This free site is the host for the Griffith's Valuation data. National Archives of Ireland Although most of the items in their searchable catalogue can only be viewed in the Archive Reading Room, there is collection of on-line records including:
Public Records Office of Northern Ireland PRONI The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast holds many valuable sources for family history research. It also has collections able to be searched online (free) that includeEmerald Ancestors Emerald Ancestors specialise in Northern Ireland genealogy covering records from civil registration indexes, church registers and historical sources in Counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry & Tyrone. This is a (paid) membership site. |
Lawrence Collection (19th C photographs)
The Lawrence Collection consists of 40,000 glass plate negatives from 1870-1914. The images were produced commercially and capture scenes of that period throughout Ireland. The bulk of the outdoor images were taken by Robert French, the Lawrences' chief photographer. The majority of images from all counties has been catalogued onto the National Library of Ireland’s Online Catalogue and these are accompanied by scanned images of the photographs. Images which have been catalogued can be searched for using subject keywords such as 'evictions', 'fairs' and 'markets'. Family Search
In addition to the general tools available on this free site, you should consider these sub-sections: Both Ancestry and FindMyPast have .ie domain versions but you can view the same records with a World subscription from any other site provided by those companies. Ancestry offers some tips for searching their Irish collections. Roots Ireland The Irish Family History Foundation has been the coordinating body for a network of county genealogy centres on the island of Ireland for over twenty five years. The genealogy centres’ databases include parish church records of baptisms, marriages and deaths, census returns and gravestone inscriptions. Millions of these records are searchable online, providing a unique resource for family historians not available on any other website. This site recently switched from pay per view (pre-purchased credits) to a subscription model. You have the choice of 1 month, 6 month or 12 month one-time or continuing renewal subscriptions. Sample records (showing the format with fake data) can be viewed here without a subscription. |