Where do I research ancestors from County Derry?
Derry Genealogy, the Derry City and Strabane District Council service, is the county's Irish Family History Foundation centre, and its records are on RootsIreland: around a million entries from 1642 to 1922, civil and church registers plus an unusually rich run of census substitutes, rent rolls and defender lists from the city's siege century. The archive itself is the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast, which holds the church register copies, valuation books and estate papers, and certificates come from the General Register Office of Northern Ireland. Derry's special survival is the 1831 census, where the names of heads of household remain for many parishes, two decades before civil registration begins.
Useful pages: The Irish surnames map · Trace your Irish roots · The 1926 Census guide · Coming home · Irish around the world · Plan your journey
Sources
- Irish Family History Foundation: RootsIreland and the county genealogy centres, rootsireland.ie
- Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and the General Register Office of Northern Ireland, via nidirect: valuation revision books, church records and civil records
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