FERMANAGH-GOLD-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: Church Records
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 11:50:10 EDT

General guideline - of course there are exceptions.
In 1560 the Anglican Church became the state church - Church of Ireland.
A law was passed in 1634 requiring Church of Ireland to keep registers.
Records for other denominations can sometimes be found in the Church of Ireland
registers.
The Methodist movement began in 1747.
It was not until 1782 that an Act was passed validating marriages peformed by
Presbyterain ministers. In 1819 the Presbyterian Church began to require its
ministers to keep records (oldest known Presbyterian register in Antrium
dated 1674)
As Penal Laws were lifted in 1829, Catholics began to keep records.
January 1st, 1864 it was required by law to register B/M/D events with the
government.
In 1869 The Church of Ireland ceased to be recognized as the State Church and
in 1876 a law was passed requiring C of I registers to be stored in the
Public Record Office Dublin then in 1878 the storage law was ammended allowing C of
I ministers to retain their records if they had suitable storage facilities.
Fortunatley many records did not make it to Dublin or copies of the records
were made and kept locally.
In 1922, the Four Courts Fire in Dublin resulted in the destruction of seven
centuries worth of records. Fragments of records were retrived several miles
away from where the fire had occurred.
Hope this is of some help
Genevieve

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