Using Ireland Civil Registration Indexes to obtain Vital Stats Certificates: Step 3

Continuing from Step 2 of Using Ireland Civil Registration Indexes to obtain Vital Stats Certificates

The Irish marriage certificate I received was almost identical to English Marriage Certificates I have ordered and contained the following information:

When married
[First] Name and Surname [of bride and groom]
Age [of bride and groom]
Condition [of bride and groom - meaing were they single, widowed...]
Rank or profession [of bride and groom]
Residence at the time of marriage [of bride and groom]
Father's Name and Surname [of bride and groom]
Rank or profession of father [of bride and groom]
Church they were married in, Parish, City
Witnesses
Person marrying them

In case you are ordering another type of certificate, here is what you can expect to find on each:

A Pre 1997 Irish Birth certificate consists of date and place of birth, child's forename/s, fathers name, address and occupation, mothers name and maiden surname, name and address of person who registered the birth.

An Irish Death certificate consists of the deceased's name, date and place of death, marital condition, occupation, age at last birthday, cause of death, name and address of person who registered the death.

A pre 1957 Irish Marriage certificate consists of date and place of marriage, both spouses age, name, marital condition, occupation and pre-marriage address and their fathers names and occupations.

I think you will enjoy finding your Irish ancestor's Vital Records using these sites!

Using Ireland Civil Registration Indexes to obtain Vital Stats Certificates: Step 2

Continuing from Step 1 of Using Ireland Civil Registration Indexes to obtain Vital Stats Certificates, posted yesterday

At the GRO website I chose English and Marriage. An application form (in .doc format) will open. Depending what browser you use, you may get a choice to OPEN the file or SAVE it. I chose OPEN and the file opened in my browser window (IE6). The top part explains how to apply, either in person, by mail (post) or by Fax. The cost is provided and the choice of certificate.

The GRO office will supply a Certified Copy or a photocopy of an entry in the Registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages provided enough information is furnished by an applicant to enable the records to be identified. A photocopy of an entry will contain exactly the same details as a Certificate. A photocopy is ideal for genealogical purposes.

Next, and this is the really cool part - you can TYPE the required information right on the form in your browser window! You can also print the form off and fill it out by hand, but I like to type my details. Now here is a tip for you if you are typing right on the form in your browser. You must remove the same number of ..... as the characters you are typing (for eg MASSEY means I must remove 6 dots) so that the form fields still line up properly! Don't worry it is easier than it sounds.

Here you also fill out your payment details (Credit Card, Cash or Cheque). Be sure you tick off the box for PHOTOCOPY. Next you can SAVE the form to your computer so you have a copy, then PRINT page 2 (the Application) only. Note that cheques can only be written in Euro Dollars from an Irish bank so unless you have a bank account in Ireland, you can't use this option.

I ordered the photocopies mentioned on the form in Note 2 and which, at the time of this writing, cost 6 Euro Dollars for the first order and 4 Euro Dollars for additional orders. If you do not know how much a Euro Dollar is in your currency, you can use this handy Currency Converter online. At the time I wrote this post, 6 Euro Dollars converted to $8.26 US dollars or $9.44 Canadian dollars

After printing Page 2 of the form, you can either Fax or mail it to the address given at the top of the form. I mailed mine and about 4 weeks later, received my certificate in the mail.

Last step - what information is included on an Irish Vital Registration and what do they look like - will be posted tomorrow

Using Ireland Civil Registration Indexes to obtain Vital Stats Certificates

FamilySearch.org has Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958 online. This collection includes births from 1864-1958, marriages 1845-1958 and deaths 1864-1958

I wanted to use this index to order the full certificates from the GRO for Ireland. I was searching for a marriage for Rebecca Massey in Dublin Ireland.

At FamilySearch I got 1 page of possible hits and this was the information from the hit that was the one I wanted:

Name: Rebecca Massey
Registration district: Dublin South
Record type: MARRIAGES
Registration date - quarter and year: 1859
Film number: 101247
Volume: 5
Page: 212
Digital GS number: 4195893
Image number: 00401
Collection: Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958

You will not be using anything from the index entry other than the invididual's surname and first name, year of marriage and location (Registration district) but you will likely want to copy all the information and save it. It is important to go first to the indexes for Irish Civil Registration in order to be sure the event is there and to be sure of the year and location of the event.

Next step is to go to the General Register Office certificate order page. Note that The General Register Office (Oifig An Ard-Chláraitheora) is the central civil repository for records relating to Births, Deaths and Marriages in Ireland. The GRO records of marriages other than Roman Catholic marriages date back to 1st April 1845 . Records of Births, Deaths and Roman Catholic Marriages date back to 1st January 1864.

An important note here is that if your ancestors lived in Northern Ireland, you cannot use this GRO website. Those of us with ancestors in Northern Ireland must go to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland which holds different records. I'll talk about the PRO of Northern Ireland in a separate post, but for now, back to ordering our marriage registration from the GRO.

Next step at the GRO is to choose Birth, Marriage or Death and whether you want your Certificate Application Form in English or Irish

Step 2 will be posted tomorrow

Ireland Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958 online

Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958 are now online at FamilySearch website

There are no images of the original record, but there are images of the indexes

Anyone with Irish ancestors will want to take a look