|
Irish Census Record Information
Like most countries, a census was done in Ireland every number of years to help keep track of the population. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed many of them.
The island of Ireland had been under British rule for centuries and churches were primarily the people-trackers up until the 1800s. In 1813 the English government tried to do a proper full census of the Irish people for tax purposes - but ran into all sorts of opposition. They tried again in 1821 and 1831, and while the information got better, there were still wild inaccuracies as the local population fought to avoid being tracked down.
In 1841 the local Irish police took over the job, and things got better. Even so, many Irish could not read or write at the time - so they could not spell out their names. They could only say them, and hope that the person that wrote down the name wrote it properly. For example, if an Irish person with an accent said "Shay", it might be written down Shee or Shea or Shay or any other combination of letters.
While the census takers continued to diligently record the island's population every ten years, the fighting that took place for Ireland's independence took place, unfortunately, right in the national archives. Therefore pretty much all records between 1821 and 1891 were lost. Census records do exist for 1901 and onward.
For privacy reasons, only the census returns for 1901 and 1911 are currently viewable by the public.
Main Listing Page
All Genealogy Articles
Note - Lisa Shea wrote this content for the genealogy site at BellaOnline.com - you might still find this content there as well. That's fine :) I gave permission!
Lisa Shea Homepage | Advertising Info | Low Carb Recipes | Sangria Recipes | Travelogues | Game Walkthroughs
All content copyright © 2008 Minerva WebWorks LLC. All rights reserved.
You MUST GET WRITTEN PERMISSION to reprint or republish any of this material.
|
