Irish Ancestors - State Registration (Births, Marriages & Death)

Between 1838 and 1852, 163 workhouses were built throughout the country, each at the centre of an area known as a Poor Law Union. The workhouses were normally situated in a large market town, and the Poor Law Union comprised the town and its catchment area, with the result that the Unions in many cases ignored the existing boundaries of parish and county.

Poor Law Union

The Poor Law Union (also known both as the Superintendent Registrar's District and, simply, the Registration District) were indexed and collated centrally, and master indexes for the entire country were produced at the General Register Office in Dublin.

In the 1850s, a large-scale public health system was created, based on the areas covered by the Poor Law Unions. Each Union was divided into Dispensary Districts, with an average of six to seven Districts per Union, and a Medical Officer, normally a doctor, was given responsibility for public health in each District. When the registration of all births, deaths and marriages then began, in 1864, these Dispensary Districts also became Registrar's Districts, with a Registrar responsible for collecting the registrations within this District.

In most cases, the Medical Officer for the Dispensary District now also acted as the Registrar for the same area, but this did not invariably happen. The superior of the Registrar was the Superintendent Registrar, responsible for all the Registers within the old Poor Law Union. The returns for the entire Poor Law Union were indexed and collated centrally, and master indexes for the entire country were produced at the General Register Office in Dublin. These are the indexes which are now generally used for public research. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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