Find your ancestors in Life Events (Birth, Marriage, Death)

Life events are the place to start when researching your Irish family history.

Our birth, marriage and death records stretch back to the 13th century. The records cover the whole island of Ireland. Many of these records are particularly interesting as they include more than just names, they also feature addresses and occupations.

To help you keep track of your research a small tick mark will appear beside the records you have already viewed.

Irish BMDs - Civil Registration Index

One of the most important resources for Irish family history is the Index to Civil Registration. In Ireland Civil Registration began in 1864 (non-Catholic marriages were recorded from 1845). Using the volume and page number, and other information from the index, you can order photocopies of the full register entries, for a fee, from the General Register Office. Please note no labelled space is provided on the current GRO forms for Volume and Page number, you can fill in this detail in Section 2 of the form.

To make searching easier we have arranged the index into three sections:

Ireland Births 1864 – 1958

Ireland Marriages 1845 – 1958

Ireland Deaths 1864 – 1958


Civil Registration Districts Explained
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 events will be recorded in a county other than where the person lived. We have provided a map and list of the registration districts and their associated counties below.

Some districts were absorbed by others or changed name, these are as follows:

Parsonstown = Birr
Irvinestown = Lowtherstown

Donaghmore, after 1887 search: Roscrea and Urlingford
Glin, after 1892 search: Listowel and Rathkeale
Gortin, after 1889 search: Omagh and Strabane
Newport, after 1886 search: Westport

Click to view the Findmypast Registration Districts Map
Click to view the Findmypast Registration Districts Map

More Births, Marriages and Deaths

We have supplemented the Index to Civil Registration with a range of other sources designed to help you in searching for ancestors who were born, married or died before civil registration began for Catholics in 1864. These birth, marriage and death records features details almost a million births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials. The records cover the whole island of Ireland and include obituaries from newspapers and other published notices, indexes to wills, and gravestone details.

Acknowledgements: we extend grateful thanks to the National Library of Ireland for permission to use their Poor Law Union map in the creation of our BMD Districts Map.