Online Databases of Births, Deaths and Marriages

As well as the online database of BDMS recently made available by the GRONI, Belfast, there are other [usually pay per view] databases produced by a number of institutions and organisations. These can be used as an alternative to searching church records or the GRONI [Belfast] online database. The table below provides links to a number of websites that I have found useful, partricularly when searching for pre-civil registration BDMs.

Rootsireland.ie [the website of the Irish Family History Foundation (IFHF); ancestryireland.com [the website of the Ulster Historical Foundation(UHF)] have online databases which contain details of marriages and some births and deaths. These websites require you to register. Note that registration is free. Apart from Rootsireland, the early part of a search on these websites is free but at the point where you want more detailed information you will have to pay. Note that Rootsireland is now a subscription site - the UHF site is still a pay perview site. Notealso that the same UHF databases are on both sites.If you are a memmber of UHF you will find the fees for records coming from ancestryireland.com site much cheaper. However, the UHF site only covers parts of Counties Antrim and Down.

Because many people from North Antrim and Co. Londonderry moved to Scotland, I have included a link to ScotlandsPeople. In my view, the fact that you can get a scan of the actual birth death or marriage certificate as an immediate result of your search makes it the best of all the pay-per-view websites that I use. An added bonus is that the Scottish BDMs usually provide much more information than Irish BDMs.

I have also included links to the websites: Findmypast.com and Ancestry.co.uk which are useful if you are searching for ancestors in England and Wales.

Ancestry.com has been included because it is particularly useful if you are searching for ancestors in America. Ancestry.com can be accessed, free, at a computer at any local library throughout Northern Ireland, by using your library card. Note, however, that you cannot access Ancestry.com [free] from your home computer.

However, I find that many of these sites are continually making changes to their sites - the latest being Roots Ireland. This means that some of my examples of how to search their sites can be out of date. This applies particularly to the case studies of families where the screenshots included on how to search the Derry Genealogy Databases for a marriage or a birth are somewhat dated.

Although these websites contain millions of records it is worth remembering that none of them contain all of the records that are available.

Copyright 2014 W. Macafee.