Irish BMD Records Ordering Service

Did you know that birth certificates (1864-1923), marriage certificates (1845-1948) and death certificates (1871-1973) – Republic of Ireland only after 1921 –  are now freely available online at www.irishgenealogy.ie

Although the records online at www.irishgenealogy.ie will be valuable for many researching their Irish ancestors, this database is far from complete or accurate and only covers certain periods.

In some cases there is no link to an image of the original record or the link is to an incorrect page. Births after 1923, marriages after 1948 and deaths prior to 1871 and after 1973 are also not available at www.irishgenealogy.ie.

See our guide for searching for Irish birth, marriage and death records online.

Our genealogy Clerk service fulfills orders for copies of Irish BMD records  (birth, marriage and death registrations) at the General Register Office (GRO) itself.  Once you provide us with the reference details for the record, we can obtain a copy of this record from the original registers at the GRO, even if the record is missing from the online collection. 

An alternative index of Irish BMD records for Ireland is also available online at www.familysearch.org  and covers the period 1864 (1845 for non Catholic marriages) up to 1958 (Republic of Ireland only after 1921).  Here you will find the index references to these vital records and where you may find references to records that are missing from www.irishgenealogy.ie . 

Timeline will provide you with a copy of the original entry in the civil birth, death or marriage register.

If you require a long form birth, marriage or death certificate for a citizenship application or foreign birth registration, please specify in the form below.

Irish Birth, Marriage & Death Certificate Order Form

BMD Information

Civil registration in Ireland commenced in 1864, when it became compulsory to register all births, deaths and marriages. Although in the early years of civil registration an estimated 15% of births and marriages went unregistered. Non-Catholic marriages in Ireland were registered from 1845. Birth certificates record the name, date of birth and place of birth of the child. They also record the name, occupation and address of the father and maiden name of the mother. Marriage certificates record the name, age, address and occupation of the bride and groom. They also record the names and occupations of their fathers, the witnesses to the marriage and the church in which the marriage took place. Death certificates are the least informative, they record the name, age, address, marital status and occupation of the deceased, the cause of death and the name of the informant.

The Civil Registration Index Books are held by the General Register Office (GRO). These indexes have been digitised and are available online at familysearch (free) and Ancestry (subscription).  More recently another version of the indexes has been made available online at www.irishgenealogy.ie (free), where there is now a link to the original registration records for Births 1864-1923, Marriages 1864-1948 and Deaths 1871-1973 (Republic of Ireland only after 1921).  We can obtain copies for records found outside of this date range.  Once you have identified the entry that you are interested in, and it is not available online, you need to order a copy of the original registration by filling in our form above.

For the form you will require the name of the person, the year of the event and registration district as well as either the volume, page number and quarter or the Group Registration ID (which is one of the index references used on www.irishgenealogy.ie).  Once you have found this information in the indexes, you can order a copy of the record.

Please enter the information carefully. We will only order the certificate using the reference that you provide. We cannot refund your fee if the reference you supply is incorrect. On receipt of your order, we will obtain a copy of the birth, death or marriage record that you have requested.

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Terms & Conditions:
Copies of items will only be obtained according to the copyright permissions of the holding repository. Scanned Certs are provided on the understanding that no copy will be reproduced without the permission of the holding repository and copies are supplied for the purpose research and private study only and not for publication in any form. By using Timeline’s Genealogy Clerk Service you are agreeing to the terms and conditions stated above.