Trace Your Irish Roots

The free Irish records are superb, but they reward being used in the right order: name, household, record, parish, land, each step handing you the place-name the next one needs.

1. Start with the surname

Our Irish surnames map shows where 795 Irish surnames were rooted in 1890, giving your search two or three counties to work in, not thirty-two.

2. Find the household in the census

The 1901 and 1911 censuses are complete for all 32 counties; the 1926 Census was released free in April 2026 for the 26 Free State counties. See our 1926 Census guide, then search free at census.nationalarchives.ie.

3. Get the civil record

IrishGenealogy.ie holds the civil registers free, images included: births 1864–1925, marriages 1845–1950, deaths 1871–1975. A civil record names the townland: the key to everything older.

4. Go to the parish registers

The National Library of Ireland's digitised Catholic parish registers (registers.nli.ie) reach from the 1740s to the 1880s across some 1,000 parishes, free to browse.

5. Find the land in Griffith's Valuation

Griffith's Valuation (1847–1864) lists every occupier by townland at askaboutireland.ie, each entry linked to the contemporary six-inch Ordnance Survey map.

6. Go a generation earlier: the Tithe Applotment Books

The Tithe Applotment Books (about 1823–1837) list land occupiers parish by parish, free at the National Archives and on FamilySearch.

7. Decode the placename

Logainm, the Placenames Database of Ireland, gives the official Irish form and meaning of the townland your records name.

8. When the free records run out

RootsIreland's county-centre transcripts (a 24-hour pass suits a single trip's research) and FamilySearch's free collections bridge to the American side of the story.

9. Go deeper, if you want to

Findmypast holds the strongest Irish collection; Ancestry pairs Irish indexes with passenger lists and US records. Use the free steps first.

10. Then go and stand in the place

Finish with our Coming Home guide and build the trip around the townland you found.