Genealogy Chat

has anyone got access to any of the irish census material pre 1901? Apparantly the 1841 and 1851 were transcribed for calculating the old age pension and so weren't lost when all others were destroyed. They're available in the irish national archives but also somewhere in the uk? (I read this somewhere but can't find it now!) Anyone know where they've been stashed?! Am now pretty desperate!

LDS? Sorry, dim i know but what is this?

Yvonne Teresa is quite correct. Only fragments remain of all Irish census from 1841 to 1891. Census for 1901 is available through Dublin and Belfast NA address only search. If you know the address you can pull in records through LDS or Mormon Centres. Both these are the same. LDS stands for Latter Day Saints Google Latter Day Saints or Mormons for further information on where the LDS centres are. If you know where your folk are from then google that place to see if you can find any fragments. You may strike lucky. Dublin also has the 1911 Census but this is not available in Belfast as N Ireland is part of the UK and UK rules are 100 years before a census can be seen. The 1911 Census is also address only search but within 3 years both 1901 and 1911 will be digitised and will be online searchable by name. Dublin is supposed to be online by December 2006. Theresa Cork City 0-1 RSB The Rebels March on! Now I wonder what you may be referring to?? I have Cork ancestors back to the 1850's and before that Tipperary. Rebels?? Janet

Hi, I remember seeing something along the lines of what you are looking for when scouring the LDS catalogue for anything of help for Ireland . I put county antrim + pension into the keyword search the link is below may work by copy and paste. http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/ supermainframeset.asp?display=titlehitlist&columns= *%2C0%2C0&keyword=county+antrim++%2B++pension&prekeyword=county+antrim++%2B++pension Its one of those no circulation to family history centres though. Whether its helpful, Ive no idea, would have been interesting to look at one though. Teresa Googling title it seems to be in National Library of Australia

Just found this and added it to my list of things to look at when I go to PRONI one day !!!!!! 'Old age pension claims The old age pension was introduced on 1 January 1909 for those over seventy years of age. For many born before 1864, when the state registration of births began in Ireland, it was necessary to pay for a search to be made of the 1841 and 1851 censuses in order to prove their entitlement to the pension. The forms submitted by the claimants include such information as the names of parents, location at the time of the 1841 or 1851 census, and age at the time of the claim and during the relevant census year. Individual application forms completed by or on behalf of the applicant are known as ‘green forms’. The green forms are held at the National Archives, Dublin, under reference CEN/S/8. Another form of evidence related to the old age pension returns are ‘form 37s’, which were submitted by local pensions offices. These include the applicant’s name, stated age, parents’ names and address at the time of the census. Details of the search were added to the form, and each claim was bound according to barony in a series of volumes that are now deposited in PRONI under reference T/550. A volume based mainly on surviving old age pension claims was compiled by Josephine Masterson and is entitled Ireland: 1841/1851 Census Abstracts (Northern Ireland). Significantly, this checking was completed before the Public Record Office fire of 1922! The Old Age Pension search summaries for Northern Ireland, bound in books and held in Belfast, cover the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone. (Most of the Old Age Pension records contain only brief notes recording whether or not a census record was found for the applicant and whether the age given by the applicant matched the census information.) Only a fraction of the population is covered by these summary book abstracts, wherein altogether a total of 23,000 persons are identified. Admittedly, this is but a small part of the whole.' So only possibly useful if the person was 70 by or between 1908 and 1922. (pre 1838 to 1852 births)

Please note that not everybody who applied for a pension would be completing one of these green forms. These forms were only for those who could not prove their age. Baptismal dates were perfectly acceptable when applying for pension in Ireland and so only those who could not provide proof of where/when they were baptised were required to complete one. As most people in the South of Ireland were catholics and baptised this would not have been difficult to prove. Equally most people in the North of the country would also have been baptised. Both my husband and myself have checked these records and found nothing, so presumably all our ancestores of pensionable age had no difficulty proving their ages. Also these forms would only have been completed up until 1922 when most of the census returns from 1821 to 1851 were lost, when the Public Record Office in Dublin was destroyed in the Four Courts Fire n Dublin during the Civil War of 1922, while most of those Census Returns between 1861 and 1891 were pulped by the government in the early part of the First World War for the War effort. (!914/1918) This is the reason that only fragments remain here and there for those Census Returns that were fortunate not to have been at the PRO at the time. Janet

thanks a million all you girls for all the info. I knew it was gonna be tough to crack the irish records! maybe i can persuade he who thinks he must be obeyed that i really need a trip to dublin?! By the way, anyone know why my name appears in black/no link etc? have i done something really stupid or just slightly?