Four new and updated Irish collections on Ancestry

Ancestry has added two new Irish record collections this week and updated two more.

Both debutantes are newly created indexes to record-sets held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. While the records have been searchable via PRONI's free online Name Search facility for some years, Ancestry's new index will extend access to more researchers.

NEW

Ireland, Ulster, Census of Protestant Householders, 1740 The original collection was destroyed in the 1922 fire in Dublin and only some transcripts survive. They include 46 parishes across Antrim, Armagh, Down, Donegal and Tyrone, and all parishes in County Londonderry. The returns record only the names of heads of household (no other personal information). Ancestry's new index holds 15,951 entries. See PRONI, here, for more information.

Ireland, Index of Religious Census, 1766
This new index holds 20,506 transcriptions of census returns from 35 parishes in the counties now in Northern Ireland, plus 38 parishes in counties now in the Republic of Ireland. The returns recorded religion as 'Roman Catholic' (also referred to as ‘Papists’) or Protestant.
Protestants were sometimes distinguished between 'Church of Ireland' and 'Dissenter', the latter usually meaning Presbyterian. For more details, see PRONI, here. See sample, right.

UPDATED

UK and Ireland, Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current This collection has grown by more than six million entries in the last three months. As usual with Ancestry's UK and Ireland Indexes, it's difficult to calculate how many entries relate to the island of Ireland. I can't even hazard a guess. Search return information is pretty good, although there may be more available in the full obituary, which you can view on Newspapers.com if you have an appropriate subscription.

Ireland, Royal Hospital Kilmainham Pensioner Discharge Documents, 1724-1924. This newly updated index holds 104,638 transcriptions of discharge documents for pensioners who served between 1724 and 1924. For each record, details may include a brief description of the pensioner together with age, place of birth, particulars of service and the reason for discharge. Searching the index returns good information (see right) but if you want to view an image of the document you'll need a Fold3.com or Ancestry All Access subscription.

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