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Findmypast has made two exciting new collections available for tracing your Irish ancestors all the way back into the 16th century. Theses fascinating additions to Findmypast’s 90 million plus historical Irish records, include indexes of your ancestors’ wills and marriages, namely;

Diocesan and Prerogative Wills & Administrations Indexes, 1595-1858

Diocesan and Prerogative Marriage Licence Bonds Indexes, 1623-1866

Both of these rare sources, were amongst the relatively few resources that survived the explosion of the Public Records Office of Ireland during the Irish Civil War in 1922.

The wills and administrations collection are indexes to documents that were proved in front of Church of Ireland ecclesiastical courts. You can find out great genealogical details from them including your ancestors’ names, occupations and what they left in their wills and to whom.

The marriage licence bonds were an alternative to marriage banns where the couple paid a fee to wed. These records list protestant marriages in Ireland between 1623 and 1866 and feature the 1664 marriage of Jonathan Swift and Abigail Erick, the parents of Jonathan Swift Jnr, the author of Gulliver’s Travels.

If you’ve struggled to build your Irish family tree back into the 1600s and beyond, these records could prove to be the key.

For more stories on tracing your Irish heritage from Findmypast click here.