Great resources are available for people searching for records of their Irish ancestors

The last few years have seen a huge increase of people from all over the world logging on to the Irish Genealogy website to find new information about their family history.

Ireland’s General Register Office released 27 million records of births, marriages and deaths all the way up to 2013. The birth index goes back to 1900, the marriage index back to 1903 and the death index back to 1966.

It is thanks to the government’s Civil Registration Amendment Bill 2014, which removes obstacles to public access of records.

A government spokesman said: “Genealogy is an important way of connecting with those abroad who wish to trace their roots and also permitting those here in Ireland to establish their family history.

“It can also be of significant economic benefit to the country in the development of cultural tourism and in attracting visitors to Ireland to trace their ancestry, visit their ancestral homes etc. In addition, genealogy is also immensely important from a social history perspective”.

The website is now by far the largest Irish genealogy resource available online.

There are millions of people of Irish descent across the world and it is expected that this new resource will encourage many to start researching their family history.