Ireland Births and Deaths 1864-1958

These Irish birth and death records on findmypast.com.au are an index to civil registration which began in Ireland in 1864. You can order a certificate from The General Register Office. You will need to provide the registration year/quarter, registration district and volume and page number provided in the transcript and pay a fee.

The records cover all 32 counties in Ireland for 1864–1921 and 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland for 1922–1958. The original civil registration districts were based on 160 medical dispensary districts and in many cases cross county boundaries. This means that in certain cases births will be recorded in a county other than where the person lived. You can find a list of the registration districts and their counties for births and deaths.

Ireland Marriages 1845-1958

In 1845 government civil registration of marriages began for non-Catholic marriages and in 1864 for Catholic marriages. These records on findmypast.com.au are an index to these civil registrations. The full records reside in The General Register Office and can be ordered, for a fee, from that office. To order a certificate you will need the registration year/quarter, registration district and volume and page number provided in the transcript.

All non-Catholic Marriages in all 32 counties in Ireland are covered for 1845–1863. For 1864–1921, all marriages in all 32 counties in Ireland and for 1922–1958, all marriages in 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland are covered.

The original civil registration districts were based on 160 medical dispensary districts and in many cases cross county boundaries. This means that in certain cases marriages will be recorded in a county other than where the person lived. We have provided a list of the registration districts and their counties for marriages.

Do you have multiple spouses in your family tree?

We have taken the work out of searching the Index of Ireland Marriages. Our flexible search allows you to search for a married couple using first names. This is particularly useful in cases when the bride’s maiden name is unknown. Use the ‘What Else?’ box at the start of your search, or the Spouse Forename/Spouse Surname boxes on the left hand side after choosing the Ireland Marriages record set.

Our search matches people found on the same page of a register (volume). Your ancestor is listed alongside several possible spouses. This does not mean that your ancestor married each of these people! Instead this extremely useful function allows you to match spouses more easily, especially in cases where a spouse’s first name is all that is known, or both spouses have very common surnames, or where the precise year or registration district is not known.

Learn about your ancestors’ travels across the ocean with this informative blog by Kerry Farmer. Try searching the Passenger Lists leaving the UK 1890 - 1960 today and see what you can find.

It’s a common experience for genealogists – tracking ancestors forward through the UK censuses – to find that suddenly the whole family seems to vanish from the records. Eventually it might occur to us to wonder, did they migrate somewhere? If so, where did they go?

This is where the Passenger lists leaving UK 1890–1960 on findmypast.com.au can be so useful. These are the digitised and indexed lists of passengers embarking on long-distance voyages made from all British ports (England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales). If the ship stopped en route at additional ports, such as in Europe, passengers disembarking at those stops are also included. The original documents are held in The National Archives UK in series BT 27 (BT = Board of Trade). Findmypast has indexed together all departures from all British ports, allowing researchers to enter their ancestor’s name of interest and determine the destination.

The most common way of searching for immigrant ancestors is to search the archives of the destination country. But which government archives to check? In the case of passengers to Australia, the individual colonies (and then states) administered immigration separately until 1922, after which immigration control became a function of the Commonwealth Government. (A further complication when looking for immigration records is that, just as today, immigration is typically handled at the first port of call.)

Using findmypast.com.au, there is a better way. Look under ‘Travel & migration’ and select the record set ‘Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960’. I was searching for the migration of my grandmother, Olwena KELLETT, who was born in Lancashire in 1901. I entered her name (with first name variants) and searched between 1901 and 1907. It is a free search – not even requiring a subscription to do the search.

I selected ‘name variants’ – which also allows for the fact that some passenger lists only identify people by an initial. I found her in 1905, where she travelled from Britain to South Africa.

The above information is as far as you can go with a free search. It requires a subscription or PayAsYouGo credits to see the transcription of the results or full image of the page. The amount of information available on the passenger lists varies widely over time. Some only have minimal information about the passengers, while others include their dates of birth, occupations, and addresses in Britain before departure as well as their ultimate destinations overseas.

I had already found the record of the family’s arrival in Australia, and had assumed they had travelled on that same ship from London to Sydney. But instead little Olwena travelled with her mother to South Africa first, and then 2 years later the family travelled on to Sydney.

As many of the passenger indexes available in Australia concentrate on ships that came from British ports, ancestors who travelled first to places like South Africa or North America might not be included in the indexes of arrivals in Australia. Looking instead at the departures from Britain might help us understand what happened.

Just as today, not every person travelling was an immigrant. Apart from the seamen, many of our ancestors (such as merchants) travelled for work and people travelled for holidays. Families who had already migrated travelled back to Britain to visit family and friends. In other words, a surprising number of our ancestors appear in passenger lists crossing the oceans. Using the indexes of passengers leaving Britain provides a very useful additional way of tracking their journeys.

Published for the first time ever, these records cover schools in the Coffs Harbour District of New South Wales, some of which still exist today and others that no longer operate. There are over 4200 records spanning from 1891 to 1981, making them a truly fantastic resource.  There is a 30 year exclusion period, as recommended by the Department of Education and Communities NSW.

This index is developed from School Admission Registers, photocopies of which the Society has been able to acquire.  The information included in these records is surname, given name, school name, date of admission and source document reference. The original documents provide additional information on the pupil and their parents, guardians or care givers which the Society is able to access.

If a researcher locates a family member on the Index, they may contact the Society to access the school admission register copies that are held.  These copies may include additional information such as whether the pupil started their education at a particular school or transferred from another; the name and possibly the occupation of the parent, guardian or care giver; and in some instances, where the pupil continued his/her education or if they joined the workforce on leaving a particular school or their relocation to another area. Therefore these records are really valuable as they can lead to even more information.

This database indexes names drawn from schools in:

Corindi Public:  1940-1971

Karangi Public:  1892-1954

Lower Bucca Public: 1915-1970

Orara Public: 1891-1926

Upper Orara Public: 1926-1945, 1963-1980

Raleigh Public: 1894-1961

This photo was taken in 1976 of Raleigh School, which is one of the Schools in the Index. This was the new school building built in 1956 and replaced an older building which had been built in 1874.  Raleigh was a one teacher school until the early 1980s.

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Over 56,000 Waverley and South Head Cemetery Transcriptions have been added to the Life Events (BMDs) category on our website. These cemeteries in Sydney’s eastern suburbs began in the 1800’s.

Waverley Cemetery had its first internment in 1877 now has now grown to over 80,000 interments in 50,000 gravesites and memorials over 40 acres. South Head General Cemetery had its first internment in 1869 and now has over 6,000 gravesites and memorials in 4 acres.

These records include the full details transcribed, and also denomination, section, row and plot number. Nearby graves are also listed. These records are really valuable for anyone searching for ancestors from the Waverley and South Head areas.

There are a number of people that have been laid to rest in the Waverley Cemetery. From poets and beer brewers, to judges and cricketers, this list is worth a look as there are definitely people from all walks of life! Some of these people include:

• Dorothea Mackellar - Poet

• Edmund Resch - Beer brewer

• Eliza Winstanley - Australia’s 1st leading lady of the stage

• George & Charlotte Sargent - Meat pie bakers

• Harold Hardwick - champion swimmer & boxer

• Harry Rickards - Tivoli Theatre owner

• Henry Lawson - Writer & poet

• Jules Francoise Archibald - founder and editor of The Bulletin newspaper, public benefactor & provider of the annual portrait prize in his name

• John Fingleton OBE - Australian Cricketer & ‘Bodyline’ veteran

• John Sands - Greeting card manufacturer & stationer

• Lawrence Hargrave - Aviator and inventor

• Oscar Eliason - ‘Dante the Great’ (magician & conjurer)

• Sarah (Fanny) Durack - Olympic gold medal swimmer

• Sir Frances Forbes - 1st Chief Justice of NSW

• Victor Daly - Poet

• Victor Trumper - Test Cricketer

• William Dymock - Book seller

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