The General Register Office (GRO)

The General Register Office (GRO)

If your ancestor was born, married or died in Ireland after 1864, when civil registration commenced, you may want to search for their birth, marriage or death registration in the General Register Office. The public research room is located on Werburgh Street, a short walk from the National Archives of Ireland.

**The General Register Office Research Room is only open to the public on Tuesday morning and afternoon.

What You Will Find in the GRO

In the research room you can consult the birth, marriage and death index books for a registration entry for your ancestor.  Alternatively, you can look up the indexes online at www.familysearch.org  or www.irishgenealogy.ie and purchase copies of the registrations when you get to the General Register Office.  If you are having difficulty locating a birth, marriage or death in the online indexes, it is always a good idea to check the original index books.  The original index books still contain hand written late registrations as well as marine, army and overseas events which are found at the back of the index books. These additional items are generally not found in the online indexes.   For more information on the records for civil registration in Ireland visit our Guide to Tracing Your Irish Ancestors on the Internet.

Location:

Werburgh Street.  The GRO public research room is found at the top of Werburgh Street beside St. Werburgh’s Church.  You will find the entrance, which is set back from the road, beside the carpark.  The GRO is very close to Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Castle.  If you cannot attend the GRO Research Room, there is an  email search and copy service available.

Opening Hours:

TUESDAY ONLY 10.00-12.30pm and 2.00-4.30pm (the last orders for copies is at 4.00pm)

Requirements:

general-register-officeYou do not require a reader’s ticket or any form of identification to attend the research room of the General Register Office. However, there are research fees.  A search of 5 consecutive years of index books costs €5. If you think you have a lot of research to undertake, you can pay €20 for a general search, which lasts for the entire day and allows you to check any index book that you wish.  Up to three people can be included on one General Search.

Once you find the entry you are interested in, a copy of the registration costs €5.  You can obtain copies of up to 8 registrations in person each day, but you can submit orders for more and these will be sent to you by post or email. If you have a travelling companion, they can also order 8 copies, so it is no harm bringing a helper with you if you think you will need to obtain more than 8 copies in a day.

The General Register Office now accepts credit and debit cards as well as cash.  However, you may not want to charge a €5 search to your debit card if there is a foreign currency transaction fee.   You may want to make sure you have some cash with you to carry out your research. The nearest ATM is about a 5 minute walk away. Although it is not pretty on the outside, the GRO research room is a spacious and quiet room with plenty of tables and chairs for researchers.  You cannot consume food or drinks at the desks but there is a water cooler and a bathroom.  There is also an excellent cafe across the street should you need coffee and cake to get you through the afternoon.