This is the home page of the Registry of Deeds Index Project
Purpose
The purpose of this project is to provide finding aids for the records held at the Registry of Deeds in Dublin. There are three sets of indexes produced by the project:
- The main index is building a name index for the memorial transcription books held at the Registry of Deeds
- The grantors index consists of transcriptions of the Registry of Deeds' grantors indexes
- The townland index consists of transcriptions of the Registry of Deeds' townland indexes
Each of these index databases can be searched on a number of fields. None, of course, is complete. Each has those index entries contributed by the project volunteers.
Background
The Registry of Deeds is located in Henrietta Street, Dublin, Ireland and is a repository of records of wills, land transactions in Ireland and other deeds from 1709. While the original purpose of the Registry of Deeds was to enforce rules limiting the land transactions of Catholics, even before the removal of these rules in 1782 many Catholics and representatives of Catholic families appear in the memorials. Many memorials involved people of modest means who were merchants and traders who registered deeds to provide some form of security of tenure. Moreover, Catholic occupiers are sometimes mentioned.
The Registry of Deeds is a rich source of genealogical information. Marriage and other settlements are particularly informative about family relationships.
FamilySearch Films on-line
FamilySearch has put all the memorial volumes and indexes up on line. There is a link at the bottom of this page to the catalogue entry. Use the Guides pages from the top menu to navigate the films more directly.
Guidance
The guides menu item above has a number of guides.
This page show how in index and submit the index entries to the project. How to guide
Keeping in touch with the project
Visit us on Facebook
This is link to our mailing list archives the list is no longer working but the archives have a deal of information of a variety of subjects
Further specific guidance
A macro file to enter and transform index entries to a database format Data_entry_master.xlsm
Here is an example of how to use the database – Example
This is another how to index guide using a couple of newly developed macro files: New set of macro files to assist indexing
This is a non-macro Excel file you can use to submit index entries. Data_entry_master.xlsx
Here is a reference to the codes used in this site – Codes
Another way to look at the progress of the project and browse the index entries is: Summary of the coverage of the index
Found a memorial and would like to e-mail the index entries to a fellow researcher use and change [your number] to the memorial number of interest and include in your e-mail.
Search this site
The best way to search the site is to use the search page. The main data on the site is in the database and not visible to search engines. You can search on most fields in the database. If searching for a place you can search sequentially the residence field and the comment field. Note that not all lands mentioned in a memorial will be included in this (name) index.
Pictures of the Registry of Deeds Dublin
Registry of Deeds support for indexing
A representative of the Property Registration Authority has indicated the Authority's support for the concept of developing a full index of names.
Their statement is as follows
"The Property Registration Authority recognises the benefits of the development of a comprehensive names
index to the memorials volumes held at Registry of Deeds to assist genealogists accessing these valuable resources."
Their support for the concept of a comprehensive index does not mean they support this project above other endeavours. The Property Registration Authority is in no way responsible for the quality or coverage of the indexing produced by this Project. This is the sole responsibility of the volunteers.
How the project works
The index is the product of the volunteers. The coverage is dependent on what is submitted by the volunteers. The more volunteers, the greater the coverage of the index.
The contributors index memorial transcription books they are accessing and share that information with many others. Contributors are identified by their code-name appearing in each their index records. Contributors indexed using both microfilms of the memorial volumes obtained through the Mormon Family History Library (now superseeded by the on-line virtual microfilms available through FamilySearch) and actual volumes at the Registry of Deeds.
Update history
Contributions so far
Registry of Deeds in British Parliamentary Papers
Fees collected in 1830 1831
Replacing Lord Kilwarden (Arthur WOLFE) as Registrar
How to help
Whenever you look at a memorial volume, take a little extra time and index a few pages using the above format. Send the data as a spreadsheet file (excel, OpenOffice, Lotus 1-2-3, comma separated variable (CSV) file) or as a database file. Template file for excel and 123 are at the following links. Right click on the link and save the file to your computer.
A word file for submitting index entries and abstracts
A word template file for submitting index entries and abstracts
Save the above file to the folder of your personal word templates then it will be easy to create a new file in this template
The excel macro file
The excel file
The excel file with macros to assist making abstracts
The excel file with macros to assist making abstracts with different macro buttons
How to use the macro sheet to convert written abstracts to the database format
The CSV file
The Lotus 123 file
Microsoft Word 2003 file coded up abstract
Microsoft Word 2003 file database table
Rich text format file coded up abstract
Rich text format file database table
Then send the file by email to the webmaster of this site using the button below.
If you have a number of abstracts or copies of memorials of deeds, you could extract the name and other information and add the information to the database using any of the above mentioned methods. The page numbers may not be exact but they will be helpful enough as a starting point.