As mentioned, both these returns are already available to the public and there are plans to make them available online from late 2008 onwards. Details can be found on the National Archives of Ireland website.
The records were collected on a similar basis to those of England, Scotland and Wales; forms were duly completed by the head of the household and given to the enumerator to compile the returns. There is no complete name index for the entire country and the records are organized by Poor Law Union, district, parish and town. Hence, it is necessary to have an approximate idea of where your ancestor was living before you can search.
The returns contain all the details that are to be found in their English, Welsh and Scottish counterparts, as well as additional information. The 1901 census provides details about the condition of the house in which your ancestor was resident, as well as their religious denomination. The 1911 census also includes information on how long women had been married and the number of children born of this marriage that were still alive.
The census records can be found for the whole of Ireland until 1921 at the National Archives in Dublin, which also holds the census returns for the Republic of Ireland post 1921, though they are not yet open for public inspection. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast, has the census returns for the six counties prior to partition and also after 1921, though these later records are similarly closed to the public. Additionally, local centres should have copies of returns for their particular area.
USEFUL INFO
Griffiths’ Valuation
Although the census records for Ireland before 1901 were largely destroyed in 1922, there is one resource still available that can be used to partly fill in the gaps – the Primary Valuation, more commonly known as the Griffiths’ Valuation after the director of the Irish Valuation Office of the time, Richard Griffiths. It is a survey of property throughout all Ireland covering the period 1848–64, and was used to determine the amount of tax each person should pay towards the support of the poor in each Poor Law union at a time when the Irish Famine was at its worst. The returns cover every household, building and land, listing everyone who paid rates – with the name of the occupier and owner (if rented) included for private property and houses, making it an important way of establishing where a family lived. They are arranged by barony and civil parish with indexes to the townlands covered in each volume. Index volumes and returns can be seen at the National Archives of Ireland, as well as copies in regional research centres; whilst access online is via www.origins.net.
The third of the four main sources that genealogists use are ecclesiastical records generated at local level by parish churches and various other religious organizations. Registers of baptisms, marriages and burials contain some biographical information that you can use to extend your family tree further back in time – theoretically to the sixteenth century, when parish registers were first introduced. This chapter explains what the records are, how you can use them, and where they can be found. It also lists some of the non-conformist records generated by religious groups outside the authority of the Church of England.
It is possible to make significant progress in building your family tree using the two sources discussed in the previous chapters – civil registration certificates and census records. However, if you want to work further back in time, pre-nineteenth century, you will have to turn to records generated at a local level, not by the State but by the Church. Together, these sources are loosely described as ‘parish registers’ and they record key events in a person’s life, such as baptism, marriage and burial. Since parish registers were introduced in the mid-sixteenth century, and continue to the present day, they are one of the longest continuous sets of record available – though a large degree of luck is required to find an ancestor in the earliest surviving registers.
‘Parish records are among the longest continuous sets of records available.’
Historically, Christian Britain was divided into dioceses, each administered by a bishop and consisting of smaller territorial sub-divisions known as parishes. A parish is a geographical unit under the administration of a local priest or pastor, and they have existed in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland since the end of the sixth century. By the nineteenth century, England and Wales had approximately 11,000 parishes, varying considerably in size and population. Although there have almost always been religious minorities such as Jews in England, the vast majority of the population belonged to the Established Church of England from the sixteenth century onwards, when the country broke away from the authority of the Papacy in Rome. Those Christian minorities that did not thereafter subscribe to the Established Church, for example Quakers and Roman Catholics, came to be known as ‘non-conformists’. They remained small in number until the nineteenth century, in part due to the persecution they faced. Surviving records for these non-conformist groups will be discussed separately below.
HOW TO …
… make the most of parish registers
1. Prior to the commencement of civil registration, parish registers that recorded baptisms, marriages and burials on a local level are our only way of confirming the births, marriages and deaths of our ancestors. These can be more difficult to trace, because there is not one centralized index and you usually need to know which parish your family was living in to be able to locate their entries. Parish registers also contain less detailed information than civil registration certificates, making it more challenging to compare details from record to record. Nevertheless, the fact these registers survive for some parishes as far back as the sixteenth century means there is a wealth of information about your ancestors waiting to be discovered, with a little patience and determination!
2. If you find civil registration documents for your ancestors that do not give the information you were expecting to find, it may be worth looking for the parish register of whichever religious ceremony would have marked the event to see if the two records corroborate one another.
Parish Records of the Church of England
In 1538, Henry VIII’s chancellor Thomas Cromwell introduced legislation that required every priest to record all baptisms, marriages and burials within his parish, and it is these surviving records that enable genealogists to trace their ancestors beyond the start of the great record series of the nineteenth century – civil registration certificates and census returns. Few records survive this far back – on average, most English parishes have records that start around 1611 though there are some examples in Wales from 1541 – because many of the early records were not kept with any degree of care, being written on loose sheets of paper which have not survived the passage of time. A further royal proclamation was issued in 1558 instructing that these parochial events be written on parchment rather than loose paper, which increased the chances of survival; therefore 1558 is generally recognized as the start date of parish registers.
Another Act of Parliament, passed in 1597, is also important as it led to the birth of what are known as ‘Bishops’ Transcripts’. As well as compiling their own parish registers, local clergy were instructed to make annual copies of each register and send them to the bishop of the diocese in which they served. Therefore these are very useful duplicate copies of the original parish registers and can be used as an alternative if the original does not survive (or is partly or wholly illegible). However, Bishops’ Transcripts sometimes contained less detail than parish registers, or recorded slightly different information, so it is worthwhile examining both sources where possible.
There are other factors to consider when viewing the earliest registers.