Online parish records will boost global ancestry searches

Family history searches should become much easier when records going back nearly 300 years from almost 1,100 parishes go online for people of Irish descent to see for free.

By next summer, the National Library of Ireland (NLI) expects to have completed the work of digitising and uploading the baptism, marriage and other records which it currently holds.

While they have been available to view on microfilm since the 1970s, their availability online will mean geneaologists can conduct their searches from the comfort of home or office anywhere in the world, instead of having to travel to the NLI in Dublin.