Irish Civil Registration Districts
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/File:Ireland_Civil_Registration_Districts.jpg (Contributor: Jeff Svare)
What is the history of Irish Civil Registration Districts?
Civil registration began for non-Catholic marriages, somewhat propitiously on 1 April 1845 and after a gap of nearly 20 years, was extended to all marriages plus births and deaths (BMDs) from 1864. Rather than invent a whole new geography of bureaucracy, the Irish government decided to use the existing Poor Law unions to create a new staff hierarchy which is usefully explained via a short history of registration in Ireland from the General Record Office of Ireland (GROI).
Click on the map to the left from the FamilySearch Wiki to go to a larger version. However, even from this image, you can see how many different civil registration districts there are and how they share names with other geographical areas and do not always respect county boundaries. If you want to see how the county and RD boundaries relate to each other in more detail, then take a look at FindMyPast's BMD District Map to get a better idea, albeit that there are no towns marked.
For a more interactive map that will help you understand more about which places (towns and townlands) are covered by the Superintendent Registration Districts that share their names, use this Poor Law Union Map link to John Grenham's site.
Alternatively, Shane Wilson has a brilliant Registration District Browser page on his website where you can select a registration district and see it mapped out on Google maps with various different flagged and listed data points for it.
Civil registration began for non-Catholic marriages, somewhat propitiously on 1 April 1845 and after a gap of nearly 20 years, was extended to all marriages plus births and deaths (BMDs) from 1864. Rather than invent a whole new geography of bureaucracy, the Irish government decided to use the existing Poor Law unions to create a new staff hierarchy which is usefully explained via a short history of registration in Ireland from the General Record Office of Ireland (GROI).
Click on the map to the left from the FamilySearch Wiki to go to a larger version. However, even from this image, you can see how many different civil registration districts there are and how they share names with other geographical areas and do not always respect county boundaries. If you want to see how the county and RD boundaries relate to each other in more detail, then take a look at FindMyPast's BMD District Map to get a better idea, albeit that there are no towns marked.
For a more interactive map that will help you understand more about which places (towns and townlands) are covered by the Superintendent Registration Districts that share their names, use this Poor Law Union Map link to John Grenham's site.
Alternatively, Shane Wilson has a brilliant Registration District Browser page on his website where you can select a registration district and see it mapped out on Google maps with various different flagged and listed data points for it.
Page headings from birth register - image sourced via www.irishgenealogy.ie
Why are there 2 Districts shown on register entries?
Although each Registration District was overseen by a Superintendent Registrar (usually the Clerk of the Poor Law Union) and was thus technically labelled "Superintendent Registrar's District" as shown above, the actual registration of births, marriages & deaths was devolved to local Registrars, who were responsible for a sub-division of the Poor Law Union, which happened to be the existing Dispensary Districts. These became known as Registrar's Districts and the Registrar was usually the medical officer for the Dispensary District. You can see both in this example above from a pre-printed register of 1885. Just to confuse things even further a Registration District could contain a Registrar's District of the same name, so check carefully which level any indexes return records for - it will usually be the former.
How to find out more about this geography?
- Click on any Registration District via the Poor Law Union Map referenced above and the list of place-names covered will also give the relevant Registrar's District.
- Registration Districts of Ireland, 1871 is an online document that has been put together by Michael Thompson to allow you to access the geography from a number of different levels. The long alphabetical list of Registrar Districts at the end should also help you decipher place-names in images where the handwriting may be poor.
Why is it important to consider the different levels?
If you are doing single name family reconstruction in an extended area for example, it may help to separate the families by grouping them by Registrar's District as it is likely that siblings would have been registered consistently. However, don't quote me on that, as my own family history has taught me not to rely on this completely! I'm not sure if there was any legal requirement to register births and marriages in the nearest Registrar's District to the event, although I believe deaths had to be registered locally - I need to investigate this further.
Whilst it seems logical that BMDs would be registered in the closest Registrar's District, I have seen evidence to question this which I cannot readily explain e.g. one branch of my family tree hails from near Hacketstown, Co. Carlow and whilst births and deaths were registered in the Registration District of Shillelagh (Registrar's District of Coolkenno and Hacketstown), the marriages that took place in their local parish church in Hacketstown were all registered in the Registration District of Baltinglass? Therefore, my advice when searching for BMDs is to start with the most likely Registration District for the place where the event took place and cast your net wider to its neighbours if you don't find what you are looking for.
If you want to learn more about indexes and records of Civil Registration, then check out my page on "Civil Registration Records".
(c) Irish Geneaography - 2020
