You’ll find new Irish Catholic parish records from the 18th and 19th centuries including Catholic Parish Baptisms, 1742-1881, Catholic Parish Marriages and Banns, 1742-1884 and Catholic Parish Deaths, 1756-1881.

Even though the official state church was the Church of Ireland, the vast majority of Ireland’s population was Catholic, so these records should help in finding early births, marriages and deaths.

These records are significant because some of them pre-date civil registration which began in 1864 (except for non-Catholic marriages which began in 1845). Since Irish emigration peaked during the famine (1845-1852) and post-famine years prior to when most civil registration began, these records are an important resource for many Irish-Catholic ancestors who left during that period.

We’ve also released indexes to Ireland’s civil births (over 9 million records), marriages (more than 4.5 million) and deaths (6.6 million) from 1864 to 1958. Included in the Births index is James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, shown below.

If you can’t find your ancestors in our new Catholic or civil registers, there’s a good chance you’ll spot them in Ireland, Births and Baptisms, 1620–1881 – a collection of more than 5 million births taken from church, civil, family and other records.

As you may know, many of the Irish census records were destroyed which makes Irish family history difficult.  These  indexes cover the same period, so they may help to fill in the frustrating gaps in your family tree.

Start searching our Irish records today. Let us know if you make any interesting discoveries!

In the original enumeration, each landholder was recorded along with details such as townland, size of holding, land quality and types of crops. The amount of tithe payable by each landholder was based on all of these factors and calculated by a formula using the average price of wheat and oats from 1816-23. Most parishes had at least one tithe survey from 1820-38 while some had two or more. The results of each were carefully laid out in a large book prepared for the purpose, hence the title by which this archive is known to genealogists – the Tithe Applotment Books. Some parts of the country were exempt from paying tithe, among them glebe lands (land occupied by established clergymen), granges (land which in pre-Reformation times had belonged to a monastery) and all towns.

About this Database:

Information from the Tithe Books has been extracted and the names have been indexed in this data set. If you find an ancestor among the approximately 1 million entries listed, you will learn the following:

• Name
• County
• Parish
• Townland
• Year of enumeration

The Tithe Applotment Books are not comprehensive and some parts of the country were not surveyed. It should not be assumed that these ‘exceptions’ from the tithe survey were due to parishes being overlooked since there are usually explanations as to why they were tithe-free. In some cases there are no tithe books because a certain parish did not exist, or was part of another parish, at the time of the survey. There were also some parishes outside parochial jurisdiction, such as the above-mentioned granges, while glebe lands and all towns were also exempt.

Search Tithe Applotment Books 1823-1837

Griffith’s Valuation 1848-1864 is an invaluable reference for family historians with ancestors in Ireland in part because no census material from the nineteenth century has survived. In effect, because it is the only detailed guide to where in Ireland people lived in the mid-nineteenth century and what property they owned or leased, this collection serves as a census substitute for the years before, during, and after the Great Famine. It is also a valuable record of social and economic data and includes map reference numbers that can help researchers identify and perhaps locate property on Ordinance Survey maps created before the valuations took place.

Few other records can be used to identify an Irish ancestor’s exact place of origin, and only Griffith’s Valuation links an individual to a specific townland and civil parish. This is extremely important, since the first step in Irish genealogical research is to identify an ancestor’s townland and civil parish, which can lead you to ecclesiastical parish records of births and marriages.

Records in this database are indexed by:

• Name of occupier
• Name of leaser
• County of residence
• Barony of residence
• Parish of residence
• Townland of residence

In addition, pages from the Valuation may include street, subdivision, and ordinance survey page numbers, as well as a description of property, acreage, and valuation.

Search Tips for Names

Surnames are the most obvious keys for any researcher and you should note that many variants exist for practically every Irish surname. For instance, “O’Neill” may be listed as “ONeill” or “O Neill.” Because a surname could be transcribed a number of different ways, you should search for your ancestors under more than one spelling. Names with the prefix “Mc” or “Mac” should also be searched in the same manner. An Irish surname may also change over time and from generation to generation. For this reason, if you were searching for the surname “Donald,” you would want to search under “O’Donald,” “McDonald,” “MacDonald,” “M’Donald,” etc. This is particularly important if your Irish ancestors later emigrated to other countries because, in some cases, surname prefixes were dropped at the time of immigration.

You may have difficulty locating some names for the following reasons:

• Some given names have been abbreviated. For example, “Robert” may appear as “Robt,” and “Elizabeth” as “Eliz.”
• Some given names are misspelled, contain typos, or may be spelled unusually.
• Some given and middle names are truncated. Specifically, this happens when the name, including the spaces between the given name, middle name, and last name, is longer than twenty-three characters. For example, “McCormack, Annabelle Margaret” would be listed as “McCormack, Annabelle Mar.”

If you are unable to locate a particular given name and surname, try switching the given name to an initial, abbreviation, or possible misspelling. If the surname is not common, you may want to search only the surname.

Also, if your ancestor is listed as “Rep.” (for example, “Kennedy, Rep. Markus,”) it typically means that the individual owned land but was represented by someone else in the survey.

Search Griffith’s Valuation 1848-1864