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Irish Family History

Tracing Irish Family History

A major problem encountered by genealogists in tracing family records in Ireland is that the Public Records Office in Dublin was destroyed by a fire during the Irish Civil War in 1922 along with the majority of records stored there. Some Irish family records did survive and not all family records were stored in the Public Records Office so non-Church of Ireland parish records, civil records of births, marriages and deaths, property records and later censuses should all be accessible. 

To add to the problems of an Irish family historian is the fact that most Irish census returns for the years 1861–1891 were destroyed after the statistical information had been obtained, whilst the returns for 1901 and 1911 are fully intact.

The surviving family records are split between archives in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. A useful starting point for advice on tracing your Irish ancestors is to contact the Irish Genealogical Research Society.