Census Information On Line

In a continuing effort to make census records available, the National Archives of Ireland announced the digitization of the 1911 census.

The older style form, hand-written by the head of the household, can now be viewed by those researching their Irish ancestors.

As part of the process to put the data into the public domain, numerous search terms can be used to locate long lost relatives. Genealogists can hunt by name, and they can refine the search to particular counties or townlands. There's an option to search by location, so that you can see who was living in the neighborhood and how large the families were.

Since this was the last census taken before the 1916 Rising, anyone with an interest in history can browse through and get a sense of what Ireland was like in a time of bubbling unrest in the late Edwardian period.

What sort of jobs did people have, did they have many servants, and did many people still speak Irish? All that can be found in the census.

For those whose ancestors migrated long before 1911, of course, they can scan the records to see what might have become of those who stayed, of the brothers or sisters or cousins who chose not to try their luck in America but stuck it out in Ireland.