Genealogy Chat

I thought the lds hold the irish general gro index for Irish births marriage and deaths. I am sure it was the case when I last went. They also hold the general gro index for scotland, and the the england and wales gro index.

You will find that the LDS lists for Ireland are about the same as the UK. Not everybody is on the LDS. Many churches in the UK were against allowing the LDS to film their records and most of my ancestors are not on the LDS. Compounding the problem in Ireland is the fact that Ireland was/is mainly a Catholic Country and the Catholic Church does not give permission for the LDS to film many of its records. Please remember that the LDS have done genealogists a favour by their various records. BUT initially it was done for the Mormons and was and still is the fact that all the records they have on their lists were information to collect as many souls for their church as possible. Therefore many churches will not allow access to their records for the Mormons to appropriate. Records after 1864 are available at the GRO in Dublin. You will need to search yourself or employ a researcher or if you know date just get in touch with Dublin GRO and with appropiate fee ask for what you want. Records pre 1864 are available at The National Library in Dublin and you will need to search these registers yourself and for this you will need to know whether they are Catholic or Protestant and the Townland from whence your folk are from. Armed with this information you complete a form to be able to see the fiche and you go from there. Without a Townland it is an almost impossible task as they will only allow you the fiche after completion of all the information that you complete on the form. I suggest that you do a lot of homework on the Townlands of interest. This can be done on the internet. Dublin would have many many Townlands. When looking for Townlands in Fermoy, not a very big town, I came across about 15 Townlands so each one has to be searched if you do not know which one you are looking for. You can pay a researcher to do the work for you but Ireland does not come cheap, and if you are looking for a John Murphy how will you know that the researcher has found the correct John Murphy? You will find that many, many Irish births are NOT registered whereas MOST will be baptised, so again knowledge of where your folk are from, and then visit the appropriate church will find many of them. Why were they not registered you may well ask?. It might have been a 15 mile walk or more to the nearest registration office and faced with that and a string of children in tow, possibly all barefoot, cold and wet and you may begin to understand why many births were not officially registered. It was a very different world in 1900. The church would have been much nearer. Many State records were destroyed in the Civil War of 1922 when these were sent to Dublin. However many of these records were Protestant Records. The Catholic Baptismal records have always remained and do to this day with the churches, and so many records do go back in all areas to the 1780's although many only go back to 1820's. On all the baptismal records I have from Tippererary, going back to 1798, I have the mother's maiden name and names of sponsors. I also have witnesses names for marriage records, but no fathers recorded. Janet

Anyone?

I noticed the Genfindit site now offers Irish BMD certificates (photocopies) for order by credit card. When I searched the Irish BMD indexes, available from Church of Latter Day Saints family history centres across the country, I found that most of my ancestors do not appear to have been registered around c1900 - there also seems to be a lack of events registered in the major city of Dublin. Therefore, how reliable are the LDS indexes for Ireland, and how would you explain the absence of my ancestors births? Are LDS indexes official records? Do Genfindit use the same indexes as LDS, or could there be a different index available at the General Registry Office - possibly more complete? At the website, they state "Parents names do not appear in the birth index except after 1903 when the mother's surname is given.", but I did not notice any Maiden names listed up to 1909!? Finally, how would I find information on Christenings from Catholic churches of Ireland? Have any parish registers been made available on Microfilm or transcribed nationally by LDS? Any help would be much appreciated!