Millions of Catholic Parish Records Free to View Online

**C. Flower** · 05-03-2016, 11:21 AM

A very nice new resource for people interested in genealogy and in their own family history.

For a long time, family research in Ireland was hog-tied by people trying to make money out of it.

It seems this is changing at last. Pity the National Archives seems not to have the resources to do this themselvs.

MORE THAN 10 MILLION Catholic parish records have been released online for free.

The marriage and baptism records span over 200 years from 1671-1900. They contain over 40 million names from over 1,000 parishes and cover most of the island of Ireland.
This is the first time the National Library of Ireland’s collection of Irish Catholic Registers has been fully indexed with images to the original documents linked online.
They are searchable for free indefinitely on family history website FindMyPast.ie. To mark their release, the website is making all its 110 million Irish records free for one week. Ancestry.ie is also making its Irish records freely accessible this month.

http://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/nation...id=mailsignout

http://www.nationalarchives.ie/search-the-archives/

**Spectabilis** · 05-03-2016, 02:47 PM

That is a monumental task by the National Library, indexing all those records.

I enjoyed using the 1901 and 1911 census returns when they became available free and had great hopes of turning up some buccaneer or pirate or heroine or something. but no luck. Ned Kelly looked promising for a while, but apparently he is one of the most searched-for Irish people and, no luck there. it looks as if we all hope for something more glamorous than poverty and emigration in those family histories.

I wonder what has happened to the Church of Ireland registers and those of other minorities?