Friday 23 August 2019

Additional 1.2m Irish burial/obituary records online

Both Ancestry and FindMyPast have updated some of their Irish cemetery, obituary and funeral records collections recently, and I hadn't noticed. To atone for my sins, here's a round up:

FindMyPast – Billion Graves Cemetery Index
More than 2,000 additions were uploaded to the Index last month. The new total of entries for Ireland is 136,435.

Ancestry – UK/Ireland, Obituary Index, 2004-2018
Following the upload of some 3.2million records from hundreds of cemetery and funeral homes, this index now holds 4,855,799 entries. About 51,000 of these entries suggest family connections to Ireland, either because the deceased was buried on the island or the death was reported in an Irish paper.

Ancestry – Scotland/Northern Ireland, Death Index, 1989-2017
This index, now with 526,913 entries, claims to hold about 45% of all deaths that occurred in the stated time period. Some 77,633 entries relate to deaths of individuals with a last place of residence in Northern Ireland.

Ancestry – UK/Ireland, Find A Grave Index, 1300s-Current
Nore than 1.3million new records have been added in two tranches since May, making an updated total of 6.3million in the collection. As far as I can tell, just under one million relate to Ireland.

Ancestry – Global, Find A Grave Index: Burials at Sea/Select Burial Locations, 1300s-Current
In two recent instalments, more than 5million additional records have added to the index, which now holds a total of 13.3million entries. The proportion noting Ireland is tiny, but at 145,695 still worth checking.