Genealogy is a topic that most of us have thought about at some time, and there are many of us who have devoted a lot of time and effort to the question ‘Where do I come from?’ Now that question has become a little easier to answer thanks to the National Library of Ireland who have digitised their parish records from the 1740s up until the 1880s.
Click here to visit the NLI Parish Records
The parish registers are considered to be the single most important source of information on Irish family history prior to the 1901 Census; and in many cases, they are the only records of Irish citizens from these times.
The registers cover 1,086 parishes throughout the island of Ireland, and consist primarily of baptismal and marriage records. They are brilliant for people interested in local history and in tracing their family tree as they are a more complete source of information than indexes.
The National Library of Ireland initially began making microfilm copies of the parish registers in the 1950s and the NLI holds microfilm copies of more than 3,550 registers from the vast majority of Catholic parishes in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The registers start from the 1740/50s in some city parishes in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford, to the 1780/90s in Kildare, Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford. Registers for parishes along the western seaboard generally do not begin until the 1850/1860s.