Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland adds 190,000 new records

To mark 104 years since the destruction of the Irish Public Record Office, the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland platform (https://virtualtreasury.ie) has just uploaded a further 190,000 records. The following is a summary of the releases, as noted on the site:

June 2026 Releases at a glance:

• over 190,000 new records bring to 544,000 the total number of records available in the VRTI and 340 million words of searchable Irish history.
• Enhanced Knowledge Graph of Irish History: Now with over 15,000 entries, including 5,800 more historical individuals added since last June. More than 3,500 people from the early modern period (1550-1700), over 2,300 of these are women and 2,300 people are from the medieval/Norman period.
• Catholic Emancipation, 1825-1829: This curated collection traces the campaign led by Daniel O’Connell and the Catholic Association, through thousands of digital images of letters, petitions, intelligence reports government correspondence.
• States of Independence, 1776-1783: Curated collection reveals the close, and sometimes surprising, connections between Ireland and the American Revolution.
• The Birth of Local History in Ireland: Curated collection gathers together attempts by early modern local history enthusiasts to document the customs, folklore, history and landscape of their localities.
• State Papers Ireland 1660 – 1715: Over 40 more volumes of State Papers and Signet Office records are being released. These have been interconnected with the Knowledge Graph creating a powerful new tool for researching this tumultuous period of Irish history following Cromwell’s death.
• Deeds of the Guild of St Anne, 1237 – 1778: Gold Seam containing 800 stories of the lives of ordinary men and women in Dublin, from arranging a funeral procession in 1345, or leaving bequests for prisoners in Dublin Castle in 1380, to mapping a property on Merchants Quay in 1739.
• Parchment Conquest (1171-1307): In 8,000 printed summaries of records drawn from a Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland we encounter Italian tax-collectors in Galway, poachers in Dublin, and women seizing land in Cork
• Medieval Irish Exchequer Rolls (1309-10) : A remarkable record, NAI EX 1/1 is one of only two original medieval memoranda rolls of the Irish exchequer to survive in 1922, containing 56 parchment membranes. Beautifully conserved and digitally imaged, these records can be viewed for the first time in over a century.
• Registers of the Archbishops of Armagh (1361-1542): four fascinating  volumes which capture the workings of church government, its extensive landholding, legal disputes and clerical discipline, as well as the relationships between English and Gaelic communities in medieval Ireland.

For further details, and the relevant links, visit https://virtualtreasury.ie/2026-new-releases

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

New additions to the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland

The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland project at https://virtualtreasury.ie has added further records to tie in with the 103rd anniversary of the destruction of thre Four Courts in Dublin. The following are amongst the new releases, as detailed on the site at https://virtualtreasury.ie/2025-new-releases :

• Explore new discoveries shared by more than 75 partner archives and libraries  across the island of Ireland and around the globe.
• View a total of 350,000  historical records telling Ireland’s story — from medieval rolls to the pre-Famine census.
• Start your research though three new Portals – doorways to periods in Ireland’s story:
• Age of Conquest Portal – five million words of Anglo-Norman (1170-1500) Irish history translated into English.
• Age of Revolution Portal – these documents illustrate the drama of the 1798 Rebellion and Ireland’s links to the American Revolution.
• Population Portal – these genealogical riches include 50,000 names from the 19th-century census destroyed in 1922. 
• Focus on the fascinating new Gold Seams.
• View ‘The Royal Revenue, 1270–1450’ — the culmination of five years’ work to fully digitise and translate the largest series of late-medieval Irish documents in The National Archives (UK).
• Discover our Knowledge Graph, a powerful new tool for identifying people and places, and the links between them, in the records.

The 50,000 census names made available through the Popularion Portal are from the destroyed 1821 census, with many surrogate copies made from the original records prior to their destruction. 

Have fun!

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available - Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

Three more parish returns found for 1766 Religious Census of Ireland

I had a quick Twitter exchange earlier today with Brian Gurrin (@BrianGurrin), following a post I had made about the latest Family Tree magazine, in which I have written about the new Virtual Records Treasury - you can read a sample of it at https://www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/virtual-record-treasury-of-ireland-a-look-at-the-1766-religious-census/, which looks at the 1766 Religious Census of Ireland.

Brian has just advised of a great wee find earlier today - three more parish returns have been identified from the 1766 census at PRONI in Belfast, all of them from north Wexford, near Gorey, with one of them being Ballycanew (will update when I get the other two names!). Although the census returns are purely statistical, as is the case with some of the surviving census material, it is still a testimony to the futility of assuming that when people say a record series is lost, that's it - there will always be someone around to prove otherwise!

A great deal of the 1766 census has been reconstructed by the Vrtual Treasury, including many parishes with returns naming individuals - you can search it at https://virtualtreasury.ie/gold-seams/1766-religious-census

Update: The returns are for Kiltennel (https://virtualtreasury.ie/item?isadgReferenceCode=PROI%20PARL%2088%2F30%2F5%2F81%2F1%2F1316), Ballycannew (https://virtualtreasury.ie/item?isadgReferenceCode=PROI%20PARL%2088%2F30%2F5%2F81%2F1%2F1290) and Gorey (https://virtualtreasury.ie/item?isadgReferenceCode=PROI%20PARL%2088%2F30%2F5%2F81%2F1%2F1313), all in north Wexford. The information was originally transcribed/extracted by Tennison Groves.

With thanks again to Brian!

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.