Civil records available to Irish genealogists

Civil registration in Ireland began in 1864 which, for many Americans, is just too late to provide direct assistance. Having said that, these records are a treasure trove and may be able to connect you with family members who remained in Ireland.

The website Irishgenealogy.ie allows you to access a variety of records. Births, marriages, and deaths are all available. For some of the records there is only an index, for others there are images. 

Indexes:
Births  1864-1915
Marriages 1845-1940 (Catholic marriages from 1864)
Deaths 1864-1965

Images:
Births 1864-1915
Marriages 1882-1940
Deaths 1891-1965

In addition to the civil records, this website includes access to church records as well as lots of valuable information about researching your Irish ancestors and links to many sources that can help you in your quest. 

1666 Census of Quebec

What a fascinating snapshot of a moment in history this 1666 census is. While it is in no way complete, it does give those of us who have French Canadian ancestors a way to see where our ancestors were at this one moment 350 years ago. If you have other ancestors in other countries you realize what a gem this is. 

There are several ways that you can look at this, if you want to see the handwritten pages, they are available on the Canadian National Archives website. Some of them can be a bit hard to read so I used it in combination with this Rootsweb site which has them translated and listed by area. Not all the links, however, work so if you are looking for the list of the ancestors on the Isle d'Orleans, Coast of Lauzon or Beauport, you will have to resort to the original records. 

The original records are also by region but you must be careful to notice when the change happens. The census is 147 pages long in PDF or you can look at the 163 pages one page at a time. The last entries in all of the areas are the unattached men, some of whom have wives in France (some no doubt who have lied about having a wife) and the single men. Also, many families have young men working for them as domestics, this is how our ancestors paid their way over to Canada, by promising to work for someone for usually three years. 

I highly recommend if you have Canadian ancestors, you look at and enjoy the wonderful record. In some cases, it is the only way we have any idea what year or about what year our ancestors were born. Don't worry if you can't find one ancestor, you will find many others. 

The areas are:
Beaupre
Beauport
Coste de Lauzon
Isle D'Orleans
Montreal
Quebec
Sillery
St Jean, St Francois, St Michel (parishes on the south side of the St Lawrence River)
Trois Rivieres