hurch records exist for Church of Ireland, Catholic,
Presbyterian, Huguenots, Quakers and Baptists. Baptisms,
marriages and burials are recorded in Parish Registers as far
back as 1680 however, you're very, very lucky if you find an
entry that old. Because it was against the law to record or
officiate at a marriage or birth in any religion other than
Church of Ireland, few early Church records exist outside of it.
Check the Locality Catalogue under Church records to see what is
available. See also Brian Mitchell's "A Guide to Irish
Parish Registers" c1988 by Genealogical Pub.Baltimore, MD.
ISBN # 0-8063-1215-7.
Before the start of civil registration for all in 1864,
virtually the only direct sources of family information for the
vast majority of the population are the local parish records.
Catholic Records
The only way to be sure of the extent of surviving records is to
check the individual parish. The National Library catalogue,
available at the counter in the main reading room, is the only
comprehensive county wide account of Catholic registers, and
records in detail the period covered by each set of registers,
including gaps, up to 1880. If you ask for these records from the
National Library, approval by the local parish priest is required
to view most of these records. Other locations, described below,
allow you to view the records without this permission, however.
The LDS
Church has a "List of Some Irish Catholic Church Records
Filmed in the nat'l Lib. of Ireland" (LDS film #0990442). It
lists the dioceses, parishes, record types and dates covered. The
LDS Church filmed the surviving Catholic parish registers of the
entire island but some are missing. Permission for public
research has not been granted by the bishops of Ardagh and
Clonmacnoise, Cloyne, Down and Connor, Galway, Kerry and Limerick.
In these parishes, written permission from the parish priest is
required before access to the records is permitted. A duplicate
collection of Catholic Parish registers is available at PRONI
and no permission is required.
Church of Ireland Records
The original records are indeed held locally, but unhelpful to
researchers. In general, for the northern counties of Antrim,
Armagh, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Louth,
Monaghan and Tyrone, surviving registers have been microfilmed by
PRONI,
and are available to the public in Belfast. For those counties
which are now in the Republic of Ireland, Cavan, Donegal,
Leitrim, Louth and Monaghan, copies of the PRONI microfilms are
available to the public at the Representative Church Body Library
in Dublin. For parishes further away from the border, local
custody is generally accurate, and it is necessary to commission
the local clergyman to search his registers. The current Church
of Ireland Directory will supply the relevant name and address.
Irish Jewish Community
If you believe you have Irish/Jewish roots and would like more
information, please contact The Irish Jewish Museum.
Methodist Records
There are a number of problems in locating Methodist records
which are specific to that Church. First, the origins of
Methodism, as a movement rather than a Church, gave its members a
great deal of latitude in their attitude to Church membership, so
that records of the baptisms, marriages and burials of Methodists
may also be found in Quaker and Presbyterian registers, as well
as the registers of the Church of Ireland. In addition, the
ministers of the church were preachers on a circuit, rather than
administrators of a particular area, and were moved frequently
from one circuit to another. Quite often, the records moved with
them. For the nine historic counties of Ulster, PRONI
has produced a county by county listing of the surviving
registers, their dates and locations, appended to their Parish
Register Index. No such listing exists for the rest of the
country. Pettigrew
and Oulton's Dublin Almanac and General Register of Ireland
of 1835 and subsequent years, provides a list of Methodist
preachers and their stations, which will give an indication of
the relevant localities. The next step is then to identify the
closest surviving Methodist center, and ask of them as to
surviving records. Many of the local county heritage centers also
hold indexed copies of surviving Methodist records.
Presbyterian Records
Presbyterian registers are in three main locations:
Quaker Records
There are two main repositories for records, the libraries of the
Society of Friends in Dublin and Lisburn. As well as the records
outlined below, these also hold considerable collections of
letters, wills, family papers, as well as detailed accounts of
the discrimination suffered by the Quakers in their early years.
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