Saint Patrick’s Day and Irish Heritage Month is all about celebrating your Irish roots, and what better way to do it than by researching your ancestors from the Emerald Isle.
Luckily, some big genealogy research sites have made more than 180 million Irish records free for a short time. Read on to find out how to access these collections today.
The offers on this page have now expired, but you can find links to their Irish collections below.
Free Irish Genealogy Records for St. Patrick’s Day and Irish Heritage Month
Please know that we have partnered with all of the companies mentioned on this page to bring you information about their services and we may receive a fee to support our work if you choose to take advantage of these offers.
Ancestry’s Free Irish Records Offer
Ancestry has made their entire collection of more than 170 million Irish records free until the end of the day on March 18th to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. This access period means that you will be able to search, view and download the records, including the original images, at no cost.
For those of you that don’t have an Ancestry subscription that covers Irish records (Ancestry World in the U.S) this is a great time to add to your family tree at no additional cost. Just be sure to download the records to your computer, as well as adding them to your Ancestry tree. Otherwise, once the free period ends, you will no longer have access to these records. Read more about that here.
To view the Irish records start your search on this page. Once you enter in the name of an ancestor you will be asked to create a free account with Ancestry. After completing this step you will be able to view the available records and conduct more searches.
Remember that, although the account is free, Ancestry will email you with offers to buy a subscription if you sign up for this special St. Patrick’s Day event. To change what emails Ancestry can send you look for the Email Settings area in your account (click on your username in the upper right hand corner and select Your Account to find these settings).
MyHeritage Free Irish Collections for Saint Patrick’s Day
MyHeritage has also made their Irish records free right now and is even extending the access through March 20th. Unlike with Ancestry, there is no requirement to create an account when searching or viewing these collections.
While they don’t have as many Irish records to offer (14 million) they do have some unique collections and more than 120 million family tree profiles with Irish origins, so don’t miss your chance to access all of these records at no cost.
You can find the free collections a couple of ways. You can visit the main Irish records landing page to learn more about what MyHeritage is offering, as well as some fun Irish facts (Did you know that 3 members of the Beatles are of Irish descent?). There is a convenient search on this page that will let you find an ancestor in any of their Irish collections at one time.
Or, you can visit the card catalog and then use the filters on the left to sort by location. Choose Europe and then refine further to Ireland. This will list all of the Irish collections for you and you can search them individually.
Findmypast Free Irish Records
As with last year, Findmypast has not announced a free access period for St. Patty’s Day. However, given their one-of-a-kind Irish collections and focus on UK collections in general, some of which are always free, they can’t be left out.
You can find out which collections they provide at no cost here – including 7 million Roman Catholic Parish Records from Ireland. Of course, they also offer a free trial if you want to take advantage of more of their collections at no cost for 14 days.
Need more Irish (and free) genealogy help?
Check out The 10 Collections You Need to Know for Irish Genealogy Research and The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Researching Your Ancestors in England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland.
Family History Daily also offer numerous articles about finding and using free genealogy records online, including our popular guide 50 Free Genealogy Sites to Search Today. You can discover more no-cost collections here.
Happy researching!
Image: Michael’s Lane, Dublin City. National Library of Ireland on Flickr
Couldn’t get past the pay wall for free search
Looking for records of my great-grandfather, William C. Kinkaid, born. 21 Mar 1838, in Londonderry. He had at least one brother, James