So Many New Resources for Irish Research

With the opening of the new PRONI centre in Belfast, there has been a great deal of activity in digitizing and making accessible, items of interest to those searching Irish ancestors. The PRONI centre allows onsite access to Irish records in much the same fashion as the Scotlands People Centre in Edinburgh at Register House.  There has never been a better time to be researching your Irish roots. Here is a list of what is available online – most of it FREE:

Thousands of eyewitness accounts from the bloody Catholic uprising of 1641 have been transcribed and put online for the first time. The uprising ultimately resulted in half the land owned by Irish Catholics being confiscated and given to Protestants from Britain. This land redistribution, based on some 5,000 sworn statements given by the eyewitnesses, make this free collection a valuable resource for genealogists. Here’s the link: http://www.1641.tcd.ie/index.php

The Irish Newspaper Archives has expanded their list of newspapers that can now be searched for free. There is a cost to view the actual article. http://www.irishnewsarchive.com/Default/Skins/SEARCH/Client.asp?Skin=SEARCH&enter=true&AppName=2&AW=1304766319516

Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin has added burial records that go back as far as 1828, which predates the official opening of the cemetery in 1832. Officially known as Prospect Cemetery, it is the largest nondenominational cemetery in Ireland and contains an estimated 1.2 million burials. Both Protestant and Catholics are buried in this cemetery and this record set is an excellent place to look if you have ancestors from Dublin. Have a look: http://www.glasnevintrust.ie/genealogy/

The website Irish Genealogy continues to add more Catholic church records to their website. The most recent update includes church records for Dublin City, Carlow, Cork and Kerry. http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/

Ireland Genealogy also allows you to search through historic Irish Pension Records by surname. These records predate the 1901 Irish census. Although these records are currently held at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, many of these records are not indexed by surname. Thus, this website can save you time and effort. There is no cost to search but there is a fee to see the full record  http://www.ireland-genealogy.com/

The Guinness Brewery in Dublin has digitized historical employee records from the brewery spanning the period from 1759 to the present. Some 20,000 individual employee files have gone online, which represents about 80% of all employees who worked at the historic brewery. A typical file lists the employee’s name, date of birth, date of death, employee ID number, date joined the brewery, date left, occupation and department that the employee worked: http://www.guinness-storehouse.com/en/GenealogySearch.aspx

Here’s what’s new at PRONI:

• 93,000 wills from the district probate registries of Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry online for free. They can be viewed here:  http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives.htm

• probate registries for the districts of Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry. http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives.htm

• historic photographs online through Flickr. The first batch of images is 15,000 pictures taken by a photographic studio in Armagh from 1900 to 1952. Many of the images are wedding and family group photos. The collection can be searched by family name. This is a good resource to check if you have ancestors from County Armagh. http://www.flickr.com/photos/proni

The Heritage Council of Ireland has launched a major new web portal called the Irish Archives Resource. It allows researchers to locate archival collections in Ireland that are relevant to their research. A detailed listing is provided for each collection along with instructions on how to access the collection. Many of the major city and county archives in Ireland have already contributed to the website. This site looks like it will quickly become a must-stop for Irish genealogy researchers: http://www.iar.ie/

Belfast City Council has digitized 360,000 burial records from three city cemeteries:  Belfast City Cemetery, Roselawn Cemetery and Dundonald Cemetery. Each record contains the following information: full name, age, sex, last place of residence, date of death, date of burial, grave section and number and type of burial.  http://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/burialrecords/index.asp

Queen’s University in Belfast has created a virtual library on the history of Irish migration. The Irish Emigration database contains more than 33,000 records from various sources, including letters, diaries and newspaper ads. The Voices of Migration and Return database contains 90 life interviews conducted with migrants from the Ulster region. http://www.dippam.ac.uk/

FindMyPast Ireland has recently launched. Searchable records include land and estate records, Griffith’s Valuation of Ireland, directories, military and rebellion records, migration records and wills that go back as far as the 13th century. Here is just a sampling of what can be found on this subscription based site:

Marriages, Deaths, Wills (The Index of Irish Wills (1484-1858), Dublin Will and Grant Books Index (1270-1858), Philimore & Thrift Idexes of Irish Wills (1536-1858)

Sir Arthur Vicars Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland (1536-1858).

Census substitutes such as the Griffith’s Valuation, Tithe Defaulters of 1831 and the

Census of Elphin 1761

Treble Almanack & Dublin Directory 1783

City of Dublin and Hibernian Provincial Directory 1824

Thom's Irish Almanac & Official Directory 1884

Bassett's The Book of Antrim (1888)

The William Smith O'Brien Petition 1848-49

1798 Claimants and Surrenders

Ireland's Memorial Record: World War 1: 1914-1918