Need opinion on <ROOTSIRELAND.ie> coverage of Irish BM records.

Question

I'm a "Newbee" on Irish research and need to have an understanding of the % of Irish parishes actually covered by >ROOTSIRELAND.ie>. My search for JAMES DOUGHERTY born 1782-92 produced 16 James' for all of Ireland, over half of which came from one parish in Donegal. Interpreting these results depends on just how many Donegal parishes have been transcribed & entered on their site. Is that info on the <ROOTSIRELANDie> site and maybe I've overlooked it?

Is there any other Irish site where one can see which parishes have had records transcribed?

Answer 1

Have you tried churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/advanced.jsp

I have found some information on there.  They don't have all parishes but, it is worth a look and it is free!  I believe it is a subgroup on Irishgenealogy.com......

I'm new at this myself, hope it is of value, Lynn

Comments

Thanks so much for your suggestion, Lynn. Will certainly try it.

Answer 2

Hi Marie,

I use Roots Ireland a lot, especially helping out answering questions in G2G here. I've found Roots Ireland very reliable, slightly expensive for getting old certificates. In Ireland birth records date from 1864, when the Irish civil registration system was introduced. Until this time, a child's arrival was recorded only by baptism (or christening, according to religious denomination).

There is one major glitch with older records, which affects not just Roots Ireland but most if not all genealogy search sites. The glitch is that pre 1785 a lot of the records were recorded in Latin and if you search for the Anglicized/English name it won't return a result. To get the result you have to enter the Latin version of the name.

Another problem for Irish records is some villages actually straddle several Parishes and dependent on where the person who was recording the event was working the records could/can be recorded in different Parishes (it could just be a case of the person crossing the street for this to happen).

If you need any more help feel free to contact me.

All the best

Billy

Comments

Thanks for your response, Billy. Must admit I am a little frustrated with the results of my <ROOTSIRELAND.ie> as a search for the marriage(s) of those parents shown on the Donegal baptisms, came up with only one set  (out of the 7 or 8 baptisms).

It was because  the baptisms weren't matching the marriages that I began wondering about the actual makeup of the database: are all parishes completely entered; is it still a work in progress; did all Donegal pariishes have surviving records,etc These were some of the questions churning through my mind.

Thanks again, do appreciate your time & effort.

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Sadly not all Parishes have fully intact surviving records for a variety of reasons and remember there were periods when people did not bother to register births, deaths, or marriages with their Parish.

All the best for your hunt

Billy

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Thanks again for your in-put, Billy. People not having their children baptized is always a big problem for us family historians, isn't it? I've always thought it was the one redeeming factor for a state religion! I've done research in both Quebec & Norway and you knew if you looked long enough you'd find the event.

I also wanted to mention that I did find answer to part of my query: <ROOTSIRELAND.ie> does have a listing of all parishes with the years of surviving registers. Unfortunately, the vast majoriy don't begin until after my James Dougherty left Ireland. Looks like this brickwall will stay intact for awhile longer.

Thanks for being so patient with me & my probems.

Marie

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Hi,

A wee update Roots Ireland have just announced that they've added and updated more Parish records.

Billy

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Billy,

Sorry for the delay in answering - busy day.

Great to hear there are more parish records being added. Look forward to checking them out. Thanks again for all the information & help.

Marie