Author name: Ruth Blair

You can now order birth, marriage and death certificates from Ireland online. These are only the records that can be ordered online not all the available civil registration records. There are a few catches to the process.

Birth Certificates

You can get a certificate for a birth from January 1864 to December 1921 in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and from January 1922 in the Republic of Ireland.

The mandatory information to apply for a birth certificate is: first and last name of the child and mother’s first and maiden name.

Other information that is asked for but not mandatory are: date of birth which you can fill in completely or tick a small box that says it is an approximation; gender and father’s first and last name.

Requiring the maiden name of the mother to get a birth certificate is going to be restrictive for the majority of genealogists.

Marriage Certificates

You can get a marriage certificate that was registered in the Republic of Ireland from 1922 to the present. But you can only get marriages registered in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland from January 1920 to December 1921.

The mandatory information to apply for a marriage certificate is: first and last name of both the husband and wife and place of marriage. The place of marriage could be a church, village, town or registration district.

As when applying for a birth certificate you can add a date of marriage but tick the box to say it is an approximation.

Death Certificates

You can get a death certificate registered in the Republic of Ireland from 1924 to the present.

Mandatory information to acquire a death certificate is: first and last name of deceased and place of death.

Other information that is asked for but not required is: former residence of the deceased; age of the deceased and the date of death, where again they allow for an approximation.

You can also apply for Still-birth and Adoption certificates. Acceptance of the Terms & Conditions is a requirement for all orders.

The cost of the certificates is more expensive than requesting them by mail. Each certificate and each additional certificate of the same event costs €8.00. There is a search fee of €2.00 and postage which is €1.00 within Ireland and €2.00 to the rest of the world. So when ordering from Canada this would add up to €12.00 and with the current rate of exchange would equal about $15.75 Canadian.

You can pay for this online with a MasterCard, Visa or Laser credit card through their secure site.

If you have problems then you will have to contact the General Register Office by telephone.

The General Register Office says that the order will be shipped in five working days.

There is a Question and Answer section which can be helpful. Reading the Terms and Conditions also provides some more information.

It is a shame that they decided to severely restrict the years available for marriage and death certificates as well as making the mother’s maiden name mandatory for a birth certificate and both spouses’ names mandatory for marriage certificates. This makes it difficult for the average genealogist as they do not always know the mother’s maiden name for a birth or a spouse’s name for a marriage.

Remember that you can still check the Irish Civil Registration Indexes for births (1864-1958), marriages (non Catholic marriages from 1845, all marriages 1864-1958) and deaths (1864-1958) at Family Search.

©2010 – Blair Archival Research