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New birth, marriage and death records made available for public to access online

The records cover civil marriages from 1845, births for 1919 and deaths for 1969.

A NEW TRANCHE of Irish civil records has been made available online to members of the public from today.

Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection Minister, Regina Doherty and Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan have announced an update to the collection of historical registers of births, marriages and deaths.

The records, which include all civil marriage records from 1845, birth register records for 1919 and death register records for 1969, are now available online and free for the public to access.

The new marriage records are for non-Catholic marriages only, as civil registration of Catholic marriages did not commence until 1864.

The release is part of an initiative by both departments to provide online access to historical records and registers compiled by the Civil Registration Service.

It means more records can now be readily accessed for family history and historical research purposes.

The records – which were prepared by the Civil Registration Service and uploaded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht – can be accessed on the website www.irishgenealogy.ie.

The full range of records now available online are:

  • Birth records from 1864 to 1919
  • Marriage records from 1845 to 1944
  • Death records from 1878 to 1969

There is no charge for accessing the records. 

Doherty said the completion of the project to make all historical civil marriage register records available online was a “great achievement” for the Civil Registration Service which would ensure the preservation of the records for the future.

“The marriages project has taken a number of years to complete – given the condition of some of the older records – but all historic marriages are now accessible online for the first time,” she said.

Madigan added that the two departments would continue their aim to make all historic records freely available and easily accessible to members of the public.

Work will continue on the digitisation of images for up to 1.5 million death records covering the period from 1864 to 1877, which remain to be released to the public.

A separate project between the two departments will also see the publication of a number of other registers held by the Civil Registration Service, including a record of Irish personnel killed during World War 1, army registers relating to births, deaths and marriages and other registers maintained by the consular services.

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31 Comments
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    Mute Honeybee
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    Jan 8th 2020, 11:39 AM

    Please release the 1926 census, this will help families to link their information, it’s pointless releasing earlier information if people cannot join the dots.

    191
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    Mute Conoroconnor
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    Jan 8th 2020, 12:35 PM

    @Honeybee: I’m sure it will be uploaded eventually, I’d imagine it’s a slow process

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    Mute Honeybee
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    Jan 8th 2020, 3:51 PM

    @Conoroconnor: Must be, they agreed in 2012 to release them.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Jan 8th 2020, 10:58 PM

    @Honeybee: Sure they’re probably swamped with passport applications as it is. I’d say as soon as they catch up with themselves there, there will be a rake of new applicants just in time for Paddy’s Day of some future year.

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    Mute Sequoia
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    Jan 8th 2020, 11:44 AM

    A welcome move, but PLEASE release the next census records. There’s nothing between 1911 & 1926. Six more years is way too long to wait.

    Maybe reduce the waiting time from 100 to 75 years. That would mean we could have 1926, 1936 & if they were very generous, 1946 in one fell swoop.

    122
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    Mute Rosiemonstre
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    Jan 8th 2020, 2:50 PM

    @Sequoia: 1936 onwards are governed by laws that would require a constitutional amendment to change, but 1926 is, crucially, not. There is a petition to release 1926 early but even starting to work on preparing it for release would be good, since it is all still boxes of paper. The CSO has been intransigent about this in the past but attempts to lobby are being made.

    Please sign the petition here:
    https://www.change.org/p/leo-varadkar-release-the-1926-irish-census

    18
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    Mute SB. Sedentary.
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    Jan 8th 2020, 11:44 AM

    Now we just need the long-promised 1926 census to be made available.

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    Mute Mary Mc Carthy
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    Jan 8th 2020, 11:39 AM

    Money spent on allowing Irish people access to their Hertiage is well spent . We are still years away from having up to date records but it’s another step in the right direction . Well done

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    Mute Bríd Uí Mhaoluala
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    Jan 8th 2020, 12:08 PM

    What about letting adopted people find out their own personal details?

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    Mute Dav Nagle
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    Jan 8th 2020, 12:54 PM

    @Bríd Uí Mhaoluala: No, we are not allowed know anything about ourselves regarding birth records because we are ghosts according to this government and it’s predecessors

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    Mute Eric Davies
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    Jan 8th 2020, 12:09 PM

    i have been trying to trace my irish ancestry (through ancestry .co.uk and ireland )for many years – i have had some success with one side of my family but cant get any further back than 1864 -the other irish side of my family i cant get back further than 1900 . i have tried the tithe books , griffiths registry, local church records and bishops registers . i have managed to trace my welsh ancestry back as far as the year 756 ,but the irish records are incomplete – i was told by a lady in meath that this is due to a lot of records being destroyed in the fire at the four courts during the war of independence .

    34
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    Mute Declan Edward
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    Jan 8th 2020, 1:00 PM

    @Eric Davies: I think it was in the Customs House that they were held

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    Mute Honeybee
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    Jan 8th 2020, 1:40 PM
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    Mute Dónal Mac Cormaic
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    Jan 8th 2020, 2:08 PM

    @Eric Davies: I wouldn’t mind seeing if I can find anything that might help you. Genealogy is my hobby.

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    Mute Rosiemonstre
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    Jan 8th 2020, 2:48 PM

    @Declan Edward: No, it was the Four Courts during the Civil War. Censuses from the 19th century were the main loss, followed by Church of Ireland records and wills.

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    Mute Eric Davies
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    Jan 8th 2020, 4:05 PM

    @Honeybee: thanks honeybee ,i’ll give that a go .

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    Mute Kevin O'Shea
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    Jan 8th 2020, 7:41 PM

    @Eric Davies: in Ireland you will struggle to get church records going back further than the 1750s because the churches did not exist (coz of Penal Laws) and civil registration only mattered in the urban centres and this appears to have only started in mid 19th century.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Jan 8th 2020, 11:10 PM

    @Eric Davies: I don’t know if you want to try this, but I know several Irish people who had more luck tracing relatives with the various DNA companies. Amazing reunion parties for some – and a couple turned out to be related to friends they already knew! You have a better chance as a man of tracing it back further that way.

    Also, maybe Glasnevin Trust might have some relevant info? Their records are free, online and go back to 1828.

    Best of luck with your search.

    https://www.glasnevintrust.ie/genealogy/

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    Mute Nosmo King
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    Jan 8th 2020, 11:40 PM

    @Fiona Fitzgerald: Glasnevin Trust records are not free. Nothing is free in Glasnevin Cemetery. It has become a money making concern now rather than a solemn place of rest.

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    Mute Rosiemonstre
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    Jan 9th 2020, 9:35 AM

    @Nosmo King: Glasnevin is a not for profit organisation. You pay to see the records but all the money goes back into the Glasnevin Trust.

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    Mute pomerleau
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    Jan 8th 2020, 12:09 PM

    I don’t exist ……..

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    Mute Siobhan Tangney
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    Jan 8th 2020, 3:28 PM

    Marriage records from 1845. Just tried to find details of my g-grandparents who married in 1846 and not listed.

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    Mute Honeybee
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    Jan 8th 2020, 3:51 PM

    @Siobhan Tangney: The records are not complete, I am unable to get a birth cert for my grandfather born around 1898 or death certs for his twin sisters who died in infancy but I have discovered family members I did not know about.I also discovered my other grandfather had been registered under a name that none of us had ever heard so keep trying,enter the surname only or the wife’s maiden name etc,just don’t stop trying.

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    Mute SB. Sedentary.
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    Jan 8th 2020, 3:57 PM

    @Siobhan Tangney: They only exist for Protestants, so unless they were, you won’t find them. As the article above says, “civil registration of Catholic marriages did not commence until 1864″

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    Mute Nosmo King
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    Jan 8th 2020, 11:42 PM

    @Honeybee: Try for a Baptismal certificate for your grandfather. You may have more luck with that.

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    Mute HuffnPuff
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    Jan 9th 2020, 12:22 AM

    @SB. Sedentary.: it didn’t become law until 1864. There are lots of parishes that kept records before this, Skerries and Westland Row being two that come to mind.

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    Mute Jennifer Roche Bermingham
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    Jan 8th 2020, 2:04 PM

    I think 100 years has to pass before records of census can be released. And a lot of the national archive papers was destroyed by fire at the four courts during 1916 and war of independence

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    Mute Derek McDonnell
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    Jan 8th 2020, 7:22 PM

    I gave been trying to find family members. My grandmothers birth in 1920 was not registered and she only got it 40 years later when she applied for her passport. I still cant my grandfathers birth cert either in Ireland or UK. Records are incomplete.

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    Mute Smiley
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    Jan 8th 2020, 8:08 PM

    @Derek McDonnell: if parents didn’t register their child/ren it’s tough researching them. I think many families couldn’t afford the registration fee.

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    Mute HuffnPuff
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    Jan 9th 2020, 12:25 AM

    I was born in 1962 and because the local GP forgot to register my birth I wasn’t registered until 1966 when it was discovered I had no birth cert to start school. Always check around the years in question as registration was much looser particularly with home or nursing home births.

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    Mute Pat Kelly
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    Jan 8th 2020, 3:01 PM

    What about all the deaths the government have covered up? How many people actually believe this. Dont belive me look at the figures released by previous governments theres still a massive disparity even with there own figures.. Catholic church know where the bodies are buried literally! One and watches the other, both have the blood of the collectively forgotten.. no just society would allow the dead babies in Co. Galway to remain there, left and forgotten.. how many more are there? How long till we know the truth? Does anyone care ?

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