Records of the Irish Diaspora:
Records of first-generation migrants, may capture more details than the surviving records in Ireland.
Significant record sources include:
- England and Wales – The General Register Office records start in 1837. None of the registers are online, but almost all the indexes are available at the ‘FreeBMD’ site.
- Scotland’s People – Scottish birth, marriage and death records starting from 1855. The death records contain the full names and addresses of spouses and both parents. Many Irish emigrants are recorded.
- Australian death records – The ‘CoraWeb’ site offers a good overview of Australian death records. The names and addresses of both parents of the deceased are recorded. For many Irish immigrants, this may be the only place such information is recorded. The start date of these records can vary from state to state.
- U.S. marriage records – The ‘Family Search’ site has a collection of U.S marriage records. The start date and information available can vary from state to state.
- The Statue of Liberty Ellis Island passenger search database is home to 65 million records of passengers arriving to the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957. For tips on how best to utilise this database, check out the Genealogy Primer page.
- Irish Passenger Lists research guide and on One-Step Webpages by Stephen P. Morsen have information on US and Canada passenger lists which were kept in the port of arrival. Many have been published or digitised.
- The National Archives of Ireland holds a wide range of records relating to the transportation of convicts from Ireland to Australia covering the period 1788 to 1868, which are available on a transportation database. In some cases, these include records of members of convict’s families transported as free settlers.
- The National Archives of Australia has a collection of finding aids available.
- Family Search have a collection of New Zealand Immigrant Passenger Lists.