Irish Genealogy News - Pages

Thursday 4 July 2024

Irish Registry of Deeds Index Project: July 2024 update

The Irish Registry of Deeds Index Project has been updated and the main Index now holds 595,067 index records from 61,422 memorials of deeds. They are freely searchable.

Every one of these memorials has been indexed by a volunteer, releasing fascinating genealogical information unlikely to be available elsewhere, and likely to remain hidden away, undigitised, in Dublin's Registry of Deeds for many years yet. This Index Project, set up in 2007 by Nick Reddan FIGRS, has moved on a pace since 2016 when FamilySearch uploaded its library of microfilmed images created many years ago.

These images are free to view at the FamilySearch site, allowing volunteers to index memorials from their own device in their own home, rather than having to visit the Dublin repository.

Volunteers can index a single memorial – perhaps one they have used in their own ancestral research – or index a batch of memorials at a time. There is no rigid commitment required of volunteers: each works at their own pace. If you'd like to join the indexing team, please check out this incredibly worthwhile Project (see this How To Index page). Its website offers many detailed guides to help volunteers, and being involved in it means you'll be helping other researchers learn about their ancestors. You'll also be gaining useful skills.

The Dublin Repository's official digitisation project is still, sadly, years away.