The newly expanded Irish Genealogy website aims to make it quicker and easier for people to find information about their Irish ancestors from more online sources.
Ireland’s Arts and Heritage Minister Jimmy Deenihan launched the expanded portal yesterday.
“There is a huge level of interest in genealogical research, especially overseas. I am frequently impressed by the strong connection that people feel with Ireland, and the interest they have in finding out more about their past and where they have come from,” Deenihan said.
The aim of the expanded Irish Genealogy portal, Deenihan explained, is to allow people do one search which will scan a range of records. A link will then bring users of the portal directly to the results of the search.
Major additions to the search facility include links to the American emigration records of Castlegarden, now called ‘Castle Clinton’, and Ellis Island. These records are important as they are the first records emigrants completed on arrival in America.
A search on the Irish Genealogy website will now include:
- Census 1901 Records – Irish Census of populations for 1901 for all counties of Ireland.
- Census 1911 Records – Irish Census of populations for 1911 for all counties of Ireland.
- Griffiths Valuations – the first full scale valuation of 19th-century property in Ireland, published 1847 to 1864.
- Tithe Applotment Records – compiled 1823-1837, these records include details of occupiers of holdings more than 1 acre and the amounts they had to pay.
- Soldiers Wills – a collection of the wills of Irish soldiers who died while serving in the British Army.
- Military Archives – the largest resource for individual testimonies for the revolutionary period 1913-1923.
- National Library of Ireland – many of the NLI’s catalogued collections including its digitised material are included in searches.
- Ellis Island Records – including passenger lists and other records of US immigration through Ellis Island, New York.
- Castle Garden (Castle Clinton) Records – comprising a database of information on 11m immigrants to the United States for 1820-1892.
- Ireland-Australia Transportation Database – this National Archives of Ireland database of records relates to the transportation of convicts and others to Australia.
- Women in 20th Century Ireland 1922-1966 – this is a database of almost 20,000 entries on a set of records relating to central government.
