Author: Irish Roots Project Editorial Team

Two snapshots survive of every household in Ireland: Sunday night, 31 March 1901, and Sunday night, 2 April 1911. Everything the nineteenth century counted before that is gone — which makes these two census years not just useful but precious, and mercifully, completely free. This…

Before the State counted the Irish, the Church christened them. For the decades before civil registration — and for the great majority of the population — the Catholic parish register is the only document on earth recording that your ancestor was born, married, and belonged…

On the first of January 1864, every birth, marriage, and death on the island of Ireland became the State’s business — and the genealogist’s inheritance. From that date forward, your family’s vital events were written into civil registers that survive, complete, to this day. Civil…

If Irish research has a front door, it is IrishGenealogy.ie — the State’s own free portal, holding the civil record indexes for the whole island and, for older events, the register images themselves. Most family mysteries that can be solved at all begin unravelling here….

Every Irish family tree starts the same way: a name, a county, and a story that has been polished smooth by a century of retelling. The astonishing thing — the thing first-time researchers never quite believe — is how much of the rest is sitting…