This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/0AC.2ACI/2575.1 Message Board Post: Traci, Civil registration didn't begin in Ireland until 1864 and wasn't mandatory until 1880 so the likelihood there would have even been a birth certificate is slim. I've done quite a bit of research on Irish emigrants in the US who emigrated thru both Canadian and US ports and haven't found any information so far on birth certificates being collected. That's part of the problem with people in the US trying to find where there ancestors were from in Ireland -- lack of documentation. It's a problem too for those of us from Ireland who are trying to find out what happened to many of the emigrants in the US. There's not much of a paper trail. It would have been wonderful if the US had collected that information. I've checked naturalisation papers too for those who applied for US citizenship during the 1800s and so far have found no documentation included with those. There was little detail on emigrants point of origination in Ireland in those records until closer to the turn of the twentieth century but all the information I've found so far is just the emigrant's verbal statements about where they originated. I would be very interested in knowing if you ever do find that Irish birth certs were taken at some US port where it was. Eilis O'Hara