Computer Capers:
CDs & Internet Sites for Irish Genealogical Research
By C. Pryor Brown

If you’ve traveled to Ireland in the past five years you’ve witnessed a tremendous resurgence in all things Irish. From Kinsale in the south to Achill Island in the northwest the vibrancy of Ireland is infectious. The people are great. Economically it’s never been better. For the first time in memory there is a reverse migration. For my fifth trip to Ireland I had the pleasant experience of renting a house in Cromane on the Ring of Kerry in 1998. The couple I rented it from were living in Chicopee, Massachusetts. They were in their twenties and about a year ago decided to move back to Ireland with their newborn daughter.

The interest in Irish heritage has always been high. But over the past few years there has been a renewed and increased participation of those of Irish ancestry in tracing their roots. With the increase in Irish genealogical research the number of available resources - be they church or land records, municipal, parish, or family histories - has increased greatly. For example, the Index to Griffith’s Valuation of Ireland 1848-1864 was once available only in specific libraries in Ireland, then in some Heritage Centers there, and now it’s available on CD.

This article will explore some of the records available on CD and/or through the Internet. The availability of these new vehicles should not imply that researching your Irish ancestors is a “cakewalk.” It is not - because records were not kept, were destroyed or were lost and because much of the Irish emigration occurred during the An Gorta Mór (The Great Hunger) the period between 1845 and 1850 when 1.5 million Irish children, women and men died of starvation and disease. By 1855 more than two million Irish citizens had emigrated, for the most part, to America and Australia. Because people were focused on surviving and not keeping records of births, deaths and the like much has been irretrievably lost. Records of Irish ancestry can be difficult to find at best and impossible to reconstruct with any degree of certainty in many instances. But the human spirit prompts us to keep trying. Even though we’d like to get to our Irish roots as quickly as possible, the general consensus is that you should not spend any significant effort in Ireland until you’ve exhausted all possible sources in the United States - specifically federal census records, ship passenger lists, naturalization records, church and cemetery records, vital records and obituaries.

Key to conducting research on Ireland is first of all to understand the system of administrative divisions–province, barony, county, poor law union, civil parish, and townland as well as the ecclesiastical parishes. Most important is the townland, the basic address our ancestors would have recognized. Sometimes in America the only record of where a person was born is the county, perhaps listed on a cemetery headstone.

The CDs and Internet sites listed below are, by no means, complete and static. They should be considered works in progress and like Topsy . . . well you get the idea. The CDs are available from a number of sources, including Genealogical Publishing Company, Heritage Quest and Brøderbund.

Index to Griffith’s Valuation of Ireland 1848-1864. One of the oldest and most extensive records of Irish citizenry is Griffith’s Valuation. It references more than one million individuals who occupied property in Ireland between 1848 and 1864. Since only fragments of the census records for Ireland in the nineteenth century have survived, Griffith’s Valuation is extremely important because of the large number of individuals and the fact that it covers the period of The Great Hunger.

Passenger & Immigration Lists: Irish Immigrants to North America, 1803-1871. This CD provides ship passenger lists, occupation, the name of the ship, month and year of debarkation, and the county the passenger emigrated from. It contains a listing of ships leaving Cobh (Cork City) as well as those leaving Northern Ireland.

Passenger & Immigration Lists: Irish Immigrants to North America, 1846-1865. This CD contains approximately 1.5 million Irish immigrants who arrived in Boston between 1846 and 1851 or New York between 1846 and 1865. It contains an immigrant’s age, gender, occupation, county or province, village or town of origin, destination and passenger manifest ID number.

International Land Records: Tithe Applotment Books, 1823-1838. This CD contains survey data which was collected to determine that amount of tax payable by landholders to the Church of Ireland. The Applotment Books represent a virtual census of pre-famine Ireland. The CD lists almost 200,000 individuals with the county, parish, townland and year of enumeration.

International Land Records: Irish Flax Growers, 1796. This CD contains some of the earliest records of Irish citizens and though limited in scope is a valuable source of information as a census substitute. It lists 60,000 individuals who received awards for planting between one and five acres of flax. The CD contains the full name of the person who grew the flax and the parish and county in which it was grown.

Irish Source Records. This CD contains a number of valuable books with an integrated surname index: A Guide to Copies and Abstracts of Irish Wills; Indexes to Irish Wills, 1536-1857; Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland, 1536-181; Quaker Records, Dublin, Abstracts of Wills; Return of Owners of Land in Ireland 1876; Irish Marriages (from Walker's Hibernian Magazine, 1771-1812); Ireland: 1841/1851 Census Abstracts (Republic of Ireland); Ireland: 1841/1851 Census Abstracts (Northern Ireland); County Cork, Ireland, a Collection of 1851 Census Records.

Topographical Dictionaries: Lewis’s Gazetteers of England, Ireland & Scotland (mid-1800s). This CD contains detailed descriptions of English, Irish and Scottish locales as they were described in mid-1800s. The gazetteers contained in this CD describe a location’s political and physical features. In some instances they also contain descriptions of local industry, nearby towns, population and principal landholders.

Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500 - 1900s. This CD indexes more than 3,200,000 individuals who arrived in US and Canadian ports. It is updated annually. It contains name, age, family members, year and place of immigration, and the record of where to find more information.

This by no means is a complete list of Internet web pages for Irish Genealogy Research. That could fill a volume by itself. Rather it is a list of some of the most useful with emphasis on those sites which are managed by researchers or organizations in Ireland. Having said this, the most comprehensive web site, bar none, for genealogy research is Cyndis List.

Cyndi’s List http://cyndislist.com.  With over 94,150 links to genealogy sites from all over the world it is, by far, the most comprehensive web site available to genealogy researchers. As of March 27, 2001, it contained 851 sites for researching Ireland and Northern Ireland. Many of the sites explain the history, heritage, and other peripheral information about Ireland. And many do target specific counties, parishes, heritage centers and the like which would be useful to the researcher.

The Irish Ancestral Research Association (TIARA) http://tiara.ie is a not-for-profit located in Boston which contains a lot of good information on Ireland, visiting the country, a surname database and active links to individuals researching those surnames. It also contains links to other surname databases.

The IreAtlas Townland Data Base http://www.seanruad.com/ This data base will allow you to look up a townland and determine what County, Barony, Civil Parish, Poor Law Union and Province it is in as well as its size in acres.

The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/index.html This is a general usage site describing the holdings of the Archives. The genealogy section provides helpful guidelines to beginning Irish research, key sources and preparing for a visit to the Archives. There are searchable on-line databases such as the National School Records Roll Books and Registers arranged by county that can be used to prepare in advance of a visit to the Archives.

A Guide to the National Archives of Ireland http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/nai/. Presented by The Centre for Irish Genealogical and Local Studies, this site describes the holdings of the National Archives and has links to the National Archives and the Northern Ireland Public Record Office. Records described which are of greatest interest to genealogists are Census Records, Griffith’s Valuation and allied records, Tithe Applotment Books, Wills and Administrations, Church of Ireland Parish Registers, Marriage Licence Bonds, Betham and Other Genealogical Abstracts, Landed Estates Courts Rentals, and Directories.

National Library http://www.nli.ie/ is also a useful general information site with specific guidelines for Irish family history researchers. There is information on Irish heraldry and copies of coats of arms. The site also has Eolas, that is Information, in the Irish language if you care to tackle it.

Irish Family History Foundation http://www.irishroots.net/. This is a site focused on performing genealogical research for a fee. It contains links to the Heritage Centers where available and also lists a number of publications the researcher might find useful.

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland http://proni.nics.gov.uk/index.htm. A description of the collections and how to use them. There is a great deal of material of genealogical value and a useful set of indexes.

Irish Genealogical Society, Int'l (IGSI) http://www.rootsweb.com/~irish/. Irish genealogy information, resources and links.

If you have any questions or comments please contact me - pryorbrown@aol.com or write me at 8 Club Circle, Pittsfield, MA 01201.