More questions arise about the FHC's Ireland INDEX films. Will describe the films here if anyone wishes to learn more of what's available to order. Will cap words like INDEX so it won't be thought of as the full REGISTRATION data [the actual handwritten registration entry we all want to see]. So bear with me, am trying to be as exact as I can, its needed to find these film series. There are 2 film series, both with hundreds of films that not all FHC volunteers seem to know about. The INDEX series and the REGISTRATION series. The films are buried in the FHC catalog under hard to find titles which don't show up for PLACE SEARCH, only KEYWORD SEARCH on the URL a bit below here. I had to prove to a FHC library here in the US that they existed by taking digital shots of the actual film box with label. Sent the jpg to a patron who was trying to order a film the FHC claimed didn't exist. The LDS church filmed all the INDEX books for 1864-1958. Church of Ireland INDEXES filmed 1845-1863 [marriages only]. Northern Ireland INDEXES filmed 1922-1958. They total thousands of films. INDEX films give year, name, parish, volume and page #. Other names were also on that same page as there were several lines per page. INDEXES point the way to finding the full REGISTRATION entry. The GRO needs the INDEX data or they have to view the INDEX themselves....and you pay them 2 Euros. You can't order the REGISTRATION films without viewing the INDEX to tell you which volume and which page to look at. There is no visible order to the REGISTRATION films....its like they dropped the whole stack of papers and picked them up again, entering them as they went. There are literally hundreds or thousands of images per film, you'd be looking for days without the INDEX information telling volume and page number. The LDS church filmed all the REGISTRATION books for various years [the full handwritten entry...exactly what you'd get from the GRO if you paid your 6 Euros each for them to search....or 4 Euros each if you send the registration data [Index data] to them and they don't have to search. Some gaps exist in these years but not many. Births were filmed these years : 1864-1881. 1900-1913. 1930-1955. Marriages were filmed these years : 1845-1870. Deaths were filmed for these years : 1864-1870. To find these obscure film series yourself in the LDS catalog, go to this page [the one I left off in my first post] : http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp Select PLACE SEARCH and enter IRELAND. Then clik the first offering [IRELAND]. Scroll down the list of 339 titles to CIVIL REGISTRATION [nothing else, just this phrase]. There are 15 titles with varied and confusing names to select. Clikking on each will tell about the title and if its been filmed, there will be a button saying VIEW FILM NOTES to clik. The massive film series I've been describing is in these titles which were copy/pasted so they are exactly what you will see : Quarterly returns of births in Ireland, 1864-1955, with index to births, 1864-1921 Ireland. General Register Office. [There are 1031 films here] Marriage records, 1845-1870, with indexes to marriages, 1845-1921, in the General Registry Office of Ireland Ireland. General Register Office [There are 334 films here] Death records of Ireland, 1864-1870, with index of deaths, 1864-1921 Ireland. General Register Office [There are 153 films here] Beginning 1922, the Irish Free State was what the bulk of Ireland was called [or Saorstat Eireann]. Films are murder to find now. Go back to the link above and select KEYWORD SEARCH. Enter IRISH FREE STATE and view the films there. You can enter SAORSTAT EIREANN but must not miss one letter or you'll get nothing. Use copy/paste for safety and you'll get 2 film series. 1922 and afterwards, Northern Ireland existed, PLACE SEARCH finds some films if you use the KEYWORD SEARCH for NORTHERN IRELAND REGISTRATIONS. 6 Titles are returned representing hundreds of films. Sorry for the precise detail in the descriptions, but it has to be done exactly right or you'll get a notice that the search found nothing. Surely its why some FHCs don't know they exist. I'm looking at the films....they do most certainly exist. MegG in OK ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >

Thank you so much, Meg, for the explanation of how to find the actual Irish BMD registration microfilms at the FHC. I've asked several volunteers at the center nearest me and they didn't know the films existed either. This was a very welcome education! Cheers to you ~ Tamy