| Genealogy Research Service Ireland by Bruce Chandler |
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Dublin Research Room - Civil Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths (BMD) These records are now kept at General Registration Office (GRO) 3rd Floor, Block 7, Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1. This office used to be upstairs in Joyce House, Lombard St., Dublin 2. Joyce House is still used for current BMD registrations, downstairs as before. Civil registration started in Ireland in 1845 for protestant marriages. In 1864 registration for all births, marriages and deaths followed. After 1921 data for Northern Ireland is only at the General Registration Office in Belfast. Index books for the Republic of Ireland registers are available at GRO Dublin up to and including 1995. For years after that up to the present, you submit the name of the person you seek to counter staff and they will give you an index print out of reference data from their computer, from which you can order an entry. A series of index books - Red for births - Green for marriages - Black for deaths - lead to the data. You apply to see up to five books at the one time in consecutive years. The books you seek must all be under the same category - births, marriages or deaths. These five books cost euro 2, making a day of searching very expensive. You get better value by going in the morning and paying for a General Search, which allows you to look at as many index books as you can manage in one day for euro 20 The index books vary in format. Read the notes which are available on the counter - an essential guide. Some cover six months, some a year. These types are divided into quarters. Look at the late registrations section, which exist for many books. Some index books have been computerised and give more data than the old indexes they replaced. Hand written additions were often made to the index books. These handwritten entries, including those in the late registrations, were not copied to the computer records and will not be found unless staff look for the reference on microfilm (tape). BE SURE TO ASK THEM IF THIS HAPPENS. The roll out on line of the computerised records, used on an internal database by staff for over ten years now, is unlikely in the foreseeable future. See Civil District Map of Ireland to view where the districts named in the index books are. I set out below examples of what you might see in a typical index entry. When you spot an index entry that looks promising, you complete an application form for a copy of the certificate entry, using the index references. Birth index books from 1900 give the maiden surname of the mother which saves a lot of time. When looking for a marriage cert. entry when you know the names of both spouses, you must match the references, otherwise you will get a wrong marriage when you order a cert. entry. Each application for a copy entry of either birth, marriage or death costs euro 4. Searching civil registrations at GRO Dublin is usually the place to start your family history search, especially if you have no idea in which part of Ireland your ancestors came from. It can often be the only way for some marriages, as a man usually travelled to the girl's parish for a wedding. Since introduction of civil registration it is said that nearly all marriages were registered but that birth and death registration was sometimes overlooked. That is my experience. In such an instance, you will have to search parish registers. Index Books from 1864 to 1921 inclusive were microfilmed by the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints (LDS). These microfilms, including microfilms of the actual registers from 1864 to 1868, are available for viewing at LDS Family Search Centres worldwide (advance notice needed) and also in Dublin at Dublin City Library, which library has indexes only, up to around 1950. |
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