In April, PRONI, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland's launched an online search facility for Northern Irish BMDs.
There were hints beforehand that the site would be the same as Scotland's People but it has a different look and feel to it. There are positives and negatives compared to Scotland's People but the important thing is that it now gives remote access to a whole array of Irish records to everyone who cannot visit Ireland.
What Records Are Available Online?
The facility is to search for Northern Ireland only and so covers the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone and includes -
- All statutory birth, marriage and death records from 1864
- Non-Catholic Marriage Indexes from 1845
- World War II death registration
- Search and view townlands for Northern Ireland
The same rules apply as on Scotland's People's online records
- birth registration over 100 years old
- marriage registration over 75 years old
- death registration over 50 years
How Does It Work?
Access the site online at https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk/
You will see that it tells you that you can search without registering and for free. This is slightly misleading.
You can indeed do a free search but to look at the results of that search, you need to register for the site. However, given that you are there to look for records, it should not matter that you have to register.
You will also need to buy credits to look at the search results. However, the biggest plus is that you can buy a credit for 40p and as long as you have one credit registered, you don't need to buy any more to search. The searches themselves are free so it won't use up this one credit to search.
Search Results
You will receive a list of basic results of your search and then it is up to you what amount of further detail, you require.
- Basic Search Results - Sometimes it will be enough to look at the free search especially if you are only only wanting to confirm information. Certainly, we have found there is more information given than on a Scotland's People initial search.
- Enhanced option - This gives you a few more details of the record (costs 1 credit)
- Full option - This will show a copy of the image along with a transcription (costs 5 credits)
- Order Certificate - You can also order a copy of the certificate. You cannot use credits to do this and it will cost £8 for the certificate. If you do decide to go down this route and are looking for a pre 1922 certificate then it will also be available from the GRO in the Republic of Ireland. It is always keeping an eye on prices as it might work out cheaper to order from there. At the time of writing, prices there ranged from 4€ - 20€.
In our opinion, most of the time, it will be better to pay for the Full option as this will give you all the details available in the same way that the images on Scotland's People do. It's worth trying different options though to see what you think. As it only costs 1 credit to look at an enhanced image, it might be worth a try when you start so you get a feel for the information. Remember first to click on the links above for full information on what the options will give you.
Using The "Variant" Option
One of the options when putting the name into the search box is to use "variants". We have not found this useful however. Having already got several certificates in the past prior to this online facility, we used these in our initial free searches to test how useful the variant spellings feature was.
We put in the spelling from the certificates into the search boxes and it did bring us the correct results. However we did run into a problem. Using "Ramsay" as an example - Altering one letter from Ramsay to Ramsey brought us results with only the new spelling we had entered so we did not see the record we had searched for initially using the spelling "Ramsay". If you have used Scotland's People then you will know how useful the various options for alternative spellings can be. Perhaps we have been unlucky (on several occasions) but we would advise that it is always worth manually trying all spelling variations if you don't come up with any results for which you are looking.
Credits
The biggest advantage over Scotland's People is that you can buy 1 credit only rather than having to buy 30 credits at a time as you have to on Scotland's People. Also the initial searches don't cost you anything. Clearly there is a need to give them your card details which some people don't like however it is part and parcel of accessing information these days.
If there was one thing here that could make it easier, if you have not read through all the information prior to starting and buying credits, you will be unaware of how many credits that you will need to look at the information. If you don't have enough credits then it simply tells you that you need to buy more but it would be simple to have added the extra information to explain how many credits you need to do a search or the cost of buying an enhanced or full index. Once again, it's worth checking the pages on the different types of indexes (linked above) to see what the costs are. Even if you know at the moment, it will doubtless change over time.
Warning!
On the site, in the drop down menu under "features" you can view your saved searches however, it only saves your searches for 72hrs! Then you need to search and pay for the enhanced or full index again! It is the same for any notes that you make (also in the drop down menu under "features").
Remember therefore to make a record of the information or print it off!
Opening Up Results
This will help to open up information about your ancestors from Northern Ireland.
If you need any further help with searching or would like information on researching you Irish ancestors - wherever they lived in Ireland - then please get in touch for a no obligation chat at kintree@ymail.com.
Please click on the links below to find us on
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