Ireland Civil Registration

Civil registration are the government records of births, marriages, and deaths. Because Irish civil registration records are indexed and cover most of the population, they are an important source of genealogical data, particularly of names, dates, and places of births, marriages, and deaths.

Civil registration began in 1845 for protestant marriages. In 1864, registration of births, deaths and other marriages began. The indexes from 1845 to 1958 have been made available on line on FamilySearch's Record Search. SEARCH THESE INDEXES ONLINE by clicking here.

General Historical Background

Before civil registration, churches alone kept the records of baptisms (births), marriages, and burials (deaths) in Ireland. On 1 April 1845 the government began registering non-Catholic marriages. On 1 January 1864 the government began registering all Irish births, marriages, and deaths.

For civil registration purposes, Ireland is organized into districts. In each district, registrars record births and deaths, while ministers, priests or registrars register marriages.

Quarterly, the superintendent registrar of each district forwards copies of the district's registrations to the appropriate General Register office. The original records remain with the district registrar.

Since 1922 registrations for Northern Ireland have been housed at Belfast, while those for the Republic of Ireland have remained in Dublin. Pre-1922 records for all of Ireland are in Dublin.

Information Recorded in Civil Registers

Births

Birth registrations typically include the child's name, sex, birth date, and birthplace; the parents' names (including the mother's maiden name) and the father's occupation; and the informant's signature, residence, and qualification (often the relationship to the child being registered).

Marriages

Marriage registrations include the marriage date, place, and denomination (for church marriages); the names of the bride and groom, their ages [too frequently given as "full age"], occupations, marital statuses, and residences at the time of marriage; the names and occupations of their fathers and often whether their fathers were deceased; and the signatures of the bride, groom, and witnesses. Marriages were usually performed in the bride's parish and were registered by the performing minister, priest or registrar. In the Irish Republic, since 1956 both parties' dates of birth and parents' full names have been recorded in addition to the future intended town or country in which the couple intend to reside.

Divorces

Although judicial divorce became possible in England & Wales from 1857 this was not the case in Ireland. Divorce continued to be available only through a private act of parliament, which was in itself a rare occurance and one only available to the well-off. After the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922(later called renamed 'Ireland' and commonly referred to as the Republic of Ireland) this situation continued until judicial divorce was finally legislated for following a referendum in 1995.

In Northern Ireland judicial divorce became available in 1939.

Divorce records usually contain very brief details about the names of the parties and the date and place of the marriage being dissolved. However, court files relating to divorce proceedings may contain additional information on family members, their marital history (including marriage date and place), property, residences, and sometimes dates of events such as children’s births.

Given the restriction upon divorce in Ireland some people chose to divorce in the jurisdiction of England & Wales. Searches can be made for records there at:

Divorce Registry of the Family Division
Somerset House, Strand
London W.C. 2
England

Records of UK parliamentary divorce acts (up to 1921) can be found at:

House of Lords Library
London, SW1A 0PW
England

As mentioned above, judicial divorce began in England & Wales in 1858. Files relating to the court proceedings for divorce records are confidential for 75 years. Records older than 75 years can be consulted at the National Archives in London and indexes for the period 1858 to 1937 are available there.

To learn more about divorce records, visit the following Web sites.

Deaths

Death certificates give only the name, occupation, age at death, and marital status of the deceased; duration of the illness; date, place, and cause of death; and signature, qualification, and residence of the informant. For a married or widowed woman a spouse's name is sometimes recorded. Where a child has died, the child's occupation is often given as "son or daughter of...". In Northern counties, the father's name of unmarried adult females are often recorded.

Civil registrations of deaths are of limited genealogical value because they:

- Do not normally contain parentage or birth information.
- May be inaccurate (the informant may not have known the information requested).
- May not contain enough information to distinguish your ancestor from others with the same name. This cannot be emphasised enough.

Nonetheless, a death certificate is usually the only civil record for persons born or married before government registration began in 1864.

Since December 2005 death records in the Irish Republic record the deceased's date & place of birth and parents' full names. In Northern Ireland, since 1973 death records have stated the deceased person's date & place of birth.

Locating Civil Registration Records

Civil registration records are kept at the superintendent registrars' offices in the districts. Duplicates are kept at the General Register offices. The General Register Office for the Republic of Ireland has birth, marriage, and death indexes and corresponding records, including registrations of Irish subjects at sea, abroad, or in the military through 1921 for all of Ireland. The office's post-1921 records cover Republic of Ireland counties only. The address is:

General Register Office
Joyce House
8-11 Lombard Street East
Dublin 2
IRELAND (EIRE)
Internet: http://www.groireland.ie/

The General Register Office of Northern Ireland has birth, marriage, and death records, including registrations of Irish at sea, abroad, or in the military from 1922 on for Northern Ireland only. The address is:

General Register Office
Oxford House
49/55 Chichester Street
Belfast BT1 4HL
NORTHERN IRELAND
Internet: http://www.groni.gov.uk/

When requesting a registration certificate by mail from these offices, include:

1. A check or money order for the search fee.
2. The full name and sex of the person sought.
3. The names of the parents, if known (only when requesting a birth record).
4. The approximate date and place of the event.

Indexes to Civil Registration Records

Indexes can help you find a registration entry for your ancestor. Before 1878, registration indexes were arranged alphabetically by year. Since 1878, indexes have remained alphabetical but have been divided by each quarter of the years (e.g. 'January, February & March' etc.). Most registration indexes list only the name of the individual registered and the district, volume, and page number of that person's registration entry. The death indexes also list the individual's age at death. In the LDS films the Republic of Ireland post-1927 birth indexes include the mother's maiden name. However, since tghe LDS filmed the indexes the mother's maiden surname now appears in the Birth Index since 1903. In searching for an index entry, knowing the name of the district and at least an approximate year in which the birth, marriage, or death occurred will reduce your search time.

Place-names in the indexes are for districts. In rural areas, many villages and parishes belong to one district. In urban areas, a city may be divided into several districts.

To identify the district in which your ancestor lived, use the following sources:

Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland, (1871 Census), which lists Irish localities and the districts that served those localities in 1871.

Ireland, Census Office, General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns of Ireland, (1901 Census, [London, England: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1901?]; FHL book Ref Q 941.5 X22g 1901; film 865,092, which lists Irish localities and the districts that served those localities in 1901.

Civil Registration Districts of Ireland, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1983; FHL book Reg 941.5 V2c, which provides maps and districts' names as they were in 1871.

If you find an index entry, you can use that entry to request a copy of the original record from:

- The General Register Office in Dublin if the event was recorded before 1922 or took place in the Republic of Ireland, or
- The General Register Office in Belfast if the event took place in or after 1922 in Northern Ireland.

If you cannot find an index reference, consider the following reasons:

- Late registrations of births and deaths are indexed separately at the end of each index volume.
- Surnames are often spelled differently than expected.
- Surnames with prefixes, such as O'Brien or McDonnell, may be listed without their prefixes (Brien, Donnell).
- Events are filed by the date they were registered, not the date they occurred and may therefore be indexed in a later volume. (For example, a birth on 20 December 1879 which was registered on 6 January 1880 will be listed in the January-March volume of 1880.)
- Indexes were hand-prepared and may contain errors, such as copying mistakes (for example, the interchange of T and F) and missed entries.
- Occasionally, people were registered under a variation of their first name, other than that recorded at the time of their birth or death. For instance Ted for Edward or Molly for Mary.
- In error, some marriages have been indexed by the name of only one party.
- If a wsoman was married previously, then her surname in the marriage index might at a later marriage be her surname from a previous marriage and not her maiden surname.
- Vital information provided by the family (particularly age at death) is often incorrect.
- People with prolific first names or surnames are sometimes difficult to distinguish in the index.
- Children born before their parents were married may be listed under the mother's maiden name.
- Some children are simply listed as male or female if they were not named by the time of registration.
- Some events were not registered, even though registration of births, marriages and deaths was required by law.

If, after considering the above factors, you cannot find a civil birth, marriage, or death certificate for your ancestor, you may want to search church or other records.

Records at the Family History Library

The Family History Library has microfilm copies of the civil registration indexes of births, marriages, and deaths for Ireland and Northern Ireland through 1958 (through 1959 for Northern Ireland). The Library also has microfilm copies of:

Pre-1871 marriage and death registers for both Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Birth registers from 1864 through to March 1881 and from 1900 through to 1913 for both Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Birth registers for the Republic of Ireland from 1930 through to 1955.
Birth, marriage, and death registers for Northern Ireland from 1922 through to 1959.
Some registrations of Irish subjects at sea, abroad, and in the military.

The film numbers for the indexes and records are found in the library catalog through the following: