Skibb Girl's County Cork
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Page last updated: Wednesday, 09-Sep-2026 11:45:28 EDT

Ireland Research Basics

A highly recommended book for the Ireland researcher's bookshelf is John Grenham's Tracing Your Irish Ancestors.

A highly recommended book for the Cork researcher's bookshelf is Tracing Your Cork Ancestors by Tony McCarthy and Tim Cadogan.

Be sure the edition you purchase is the most recent. These two books will go into more detail than what you find on this page.

Censuses

20th century Ireland censuses, as well as surviving fragments from 19th century censuses, are online at the National Archives. These returns are also on film. It is not clear if everything on the films has been hosted online.

The 1901 and 1911 censuses are the only two intact surviving censuses that are currently available. (1926 is due next.) Almost nothing survived from the 19th century. If your ancestor was known to be in Ireland around 1911, you'll probably start with the 1911 census of Ireland. If the ancestor was known to be in Ireland around 1901, you'll want to check the 1901 census. Even if your ancestor was not in Ireland at those points in time, there may have been known relatives of that ancestor still there for whom you can check.

20th century census returns are organized by District Electoral Division (DED). Among the problems you may experience looking at the censuses online are the misspelling of some DEDs, and the misfiling of some household returns.

Certain circumstances make some people extraordinarily difficult to find. Residents of certain institutional buildings, such as police or military barracks or workhouse hospitals, were recorded by their initials. Particularly in 1911, some people filled out their return in Irish.

National Archives Censuses online
1926 census
Irish Censuses are great tools - when they survive!
Censuses 1821-1911
Memorandum on the Fate of Destroyed Returns
FHL Film Numbers for 1901
FHL Film Numbers for 1911

Civil Registration

Births, marriages, and deaths are filed by registration district and are indexed by registration district. There are indexes online the Irish government.

Within each district are a number of local registration offices. If you have looked at civil registration films, you'll notice the groupings within district returns by office. Families who stayed in the same place over the time span of the births of their children tended to use the same local office when getting the births recorded.

Records Online by the Irish Government

Civil registration started late in Ireland, compared to other parts of the United Kingdom. (At that time all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom). Registration of non-Catholic marriages began in 1845. Wide-scale civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths began in 1864.

The Irish government has birth records online starting from 1864 to 100 years ago.

Marriages online include the non-Catholic marriage records from 1845 through 1863 then all marriage records from 1864 all the way through 75 years ago.

At this time, death records online start at 1878 and go through about 50 years ago. Eventually deaths starting from 1864 will be put online.

Records Available at the LDS Family History Library

In addition to having civil registration indexes, the LDS Family History Library has a collection called Quarterly Returns which includes birth records on film from 1864 through part of 1881; 1900 - 1913; 1930 through part of 1955. Marriages and death records are on film 1864 - 1870. Marriages are indexed through 1955. Availability depends on your nearest LDS library. It might be possible to order a copy of a film for temporary use.

You should check both the LDS Civil Registration index and the Irish Government index in case you cannot find a particular individual. One may have an error whereas the other may not.

Getting Records from General Registry Office (GRO)

For a fee of € 5 per lookup, the GRO can send you a copy of what is in the register if you provide either the reference details from an LDS index film or FamilySearch reference, or the relevant information such as person's names, parents' names, including mother's surname, approximate date of birth, place of birth, and parents' occupations in the case of a birth lookup. Look at the application forms for certificates especially if you are not submitting a reference from film. I have managed to obtain death records by submitting a death notice from a newspaper.

Whatever is in the register is the same information as what is on the certificate, but the registry entry and the certificate are different pieces of paper. Make it clear when you write that you don't need a certificate, just a copy of what is in the registry book. Normally when I do my research, I skip the form and copy, paste and format search results into a letter for the GRO, explaining that I only want whatever the registry book shows. Include a credit card number and an email address, and GRO can email back your records.

Civil Registration Office
Office of the Registrar General
Government Offices, Convent Road
Roscommon, Co Roscommon
Ireland
Ireland Civil Registration Index (LDS)
Civil Registration, Births, Quarterly Returns (LDS)
Civil Registration, Deaths 1864-1870 with index 1864-1921 (LDS)
Civil Registration, Marriages, 1845-1870 with index 1945-1921 (LDS)
General Index of Births, Marriages and Deaths registered in Irish Free State, 1922-1958 (LDS)
Ireland Civil Registration, Govt of Ireland
Ireland Births and Deaths at Sea, 1864-1884 (LDS)
Foreign Register (LDS)
Register of Certificates of Baptism, 1864-1868 (LDS)
Map of Ireland Registration Districts

Church Records

If your ancestors were Catholic, see: Roman Catholic Records.

If your ancestors were Ireland Anglican, see: Church of Ireland Records.

Jewish Ireland

Quaker Births, Marriages, Deaths (Jones Index)

Presbyterian resources, Cork Archives

Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland

Unitarian Church Baptisms from 1717 (web archive)

PRONI Guide to Church Records

Introduction to Church Records, Flyleaf Press

Land Valuation Records

Land was regularly evaluated for its potential productive yield. Land was surveyed for its value in the 17th century. But for most of us, the earliest known valuation records we use for genealogy purposes start in the 1820's. Tenants and lease holders were taxed accordingly. These records are sometimes called census substitutes, and for a reason. Unlike a true census record, they do not enumerate everybody in a household. They do not always shed light on relationships between people on the same land holding. Nor do they necessarily list the laborers who lived on land that was owned or leased by someone else. There are four major sets of land valuation records - Tithe Applotment Books; Griffith's Notebooks; Griffith's Valuation; and Revision books after Griffith's.

During the famine period in the 1840's, land valuations rapidly changed. It wasn't just tenant farmers who were mercilessly squeezed. Some landlords, teetering on the edge of insolvency, came to view structures on their land as liabilities on which they had to pay taxes, incentivizing some to give passage fare to their tenants to emigrate (if they were kind) and then burn down the structures. Others who weren't so kind took away whatever their starving tenants did manage to produce, and if that wasn't enough, they simply evicted them and burned down what was left anyway. The land valuation records of the time reflect some of that chaos.

Tithe Applotment Books (TAB)

The tithe applotment books were enumerated during the 1820's - 1830's, with some places enumerated more than once. Some of this tax revenue was intended for poor relief, administered through the Church of Ireland. Resentment ran high, and with some justification, after many years of harsh and punitive penal laws. Tithe rebellions broke out, with both police and citizen fatalities. These enumerations are organized by barony and civil parish.

Griffith's Valuation

Griffith's Valuation, published from the late 1840's through the early 1860's, was the culmination of earlier analysis kept in earlier notebooks. Griffith's is organized by barony and civil parish.

Griffith's Valuation (Ask About Ireland)

Griffith's Notebooks prior to Griffith's Valuation

These famine-era valuations were captured in Tenure, Field, House, Quarto, and Perambulation books, organized by barony and civil parish. The field books described the property; house books listed the occupier and the measurements of the property occupied; tenure books listed the occupier, the rent payment and the nature of the rental - at will, or a lease. Sometimes the year of the lease is listed, if applicable.

The National Archives of Ireland has hosted these books online, but accessibility goes up and down. These books are also browsable at FamilySearch.

DETAILED LDS FILM BREAKDOWN OF NOTEBOOKS FOR COUNTY CORK BY BARONY

Click the film link to browse it online. You must be logged on to your free Family Search account for the links to work.

TENURE BOOKS

HOUSE BOOKS

RENT BOOKS

FIELD BOOKS

Revision Books after Griffith's

Revisions to land values continued after Griffith's Valuation, and continue to be done up to the present day. They are generally organized by Poor Law Union and District Electoral Division on LDS films.

Ask your local LDS FHL if they can order copies of these films to be borrowed.

Land Valuation Further Resources



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