Irish Civil records are intact and these include all Births, Marriages and Deaths from 1864, although some early births may have missed registration. In addition, non-Catholic and Registry Office marriages were included in the registers from 1845.

An index to the Civil records is available in the GRO research room in Dublin and also online on familysearch. Certs can be ordered from GRO (www.groireland.ie) using the references details provided i.e. Record Type (Birth, Marriage or Death), Name, Year/Quarter, Registration District, Volume Number & Page Number.

The 1911 and 1901 Irish census returns are available online (free) on the National Archives website. No other earlier complete Irish census returns have survived and only fragments of earlier ones for a few places survive.

Many Irish birth and marriage records have been extracted from civil and church records and included in the Internationl Genealogical Index (IGI) on familysearch.org. The records included are between the start of civil registration and abuot 1881, but do not cover all areas.

For research prior to the start of civil registration church records will be required, and to start researching this you need to know two details : religion & location (parish, town or townland). Parish records for some areas of Ireland are available on several subscription and pay-per-view websites.

Location of actual records depends mainly on the religion involved. Catholic records are available on microfilm in the National Library in Kildare St, in Dublin (website : www.nli.ie), and many Church of Ireland records are available in the Representative Church Body Library in Rathfarnham (website : ireland.anglican.org/library/).

See also : Civil Cert Details for notes on details included on Irish Birth, Marriage & Death Certs, and Irish Research Links for useful research websites.