New Irish Records on Ancestry

Do you have Irish ancestors?  Then the latest release of records on Ancestry may hold some treasures for you following the addition of four Irish Roman Catholic record sets to the site.

Spanning 1763 through to 1912, the new records feature baptism, marriage and burial registers from parishes across the country, as well as the records of over 8,000 confirmations.

Although the Church of Ireland was the established state church from 1536 to 1870, the Irish population remained overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. In 1861, almost 78 per cent of people were recorded as adherents of the faith, with this figure rising to 89 per cent within the space of just three decades.

As a result, genealogists may be able to take their research back further and plug important gaps in their family tree. While Protestant marriages were registered by the state from 1845, the statutory recording of births, marriages and deaths for all Irish citizens – including Catholics – did not start until 19 years later.

The level of detail recorded in some of the documents can also be useful given the absence of 19th-century Irish census records, most of which were destroyed during the Public Record Office fire in 1922.

For example, a typical confirmation register not only features the name of the person that was confirmed (usually a child over the age of 12), but their age, parents’ names and current residence.

“These records will be vital to anyone interested in researching their Irish heritage, whether they live in Ireland or are one of the many millions living around the world with Gaelic roots.” said Ancestry.co.uk’s Senior Content Manager, Miriam Silverman.

“Civil and social discontent in Ireland for hundreds of years made record keeping, especially of Catholics, hard to maintain, which is why this collection opens the door to Irish family history wider than ever.”