Emerald Ancestors

This website specialises in Northern Ireland genealogy and has an online database that contains birth, marriage, death, and census records for counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone. My experience of using it tends to be confined to Co. Londonderry and parts of Co. Antrim.

I use it mainly for marriages. Initially, there is a free search of the marriage index which will provide you with the year of a marriage, the full name of the person named in the search, the first name of their spouse and the county where the marriage took place. For a fee, you will be able to search a fuller version of the marriage index that will tell you the full names of the bride and groom, the exact date of the marriage and where the marriage took place. However, if you want more details about a marriage you will have request a lookup, pay a further fee, and Emerald Ancestors will email you a typed copy of the entry in the marriage register.

Alternatively, this index will provide you with sufficient information to enable you to obtain a verification of a marriage at one of the local registration offices within the county. Because the fuller version of the index identifies the church it is often possible to look up a marriage in a church register.

With regards to births the Emerald Ancestors database is less comprehensive. However, more data on births are being added to the site periodically.  As far as deaths are concerned I found that most of the deaths on the site were probate deaths.

Copyright 2009 W. Macafee.