Accredited Genealogists Ireland (AGI), the accrediting and representative body for professional genealogists on the island of Ireland, has published a new resource on Ireland's Census returns in the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (VRTI).
The VRTI was launched in 2022 to commemorate the centenary of the destruction of Ireland's Public Record Office in the 1922 Four Courts Fire during the Civil War.
This ambitious project has sought out copies, fragments, abstracts, and substitute manuscripts, publications, and datasets that replace some of the vast archive that was destroyed.
With the support of key stakeholders, including the National Library of Ireland, National Archives of Ireland, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Irish Manuscripts Commission, British National Archives, British Library and other repositories around Ireland and the world, fragments, copies and substitutes of lost records have been digitised or listed and made available on the VRTI platform, VirtualTreasury.ie.
Historic Census expert Dr. Brian Gurrin of the VRTI has brought together additional fragments, copies, substitutes, and ancillary sources in a bid to replace, as much as possible, the lost 19th-century Irish Census returns.
While what has been recovered certainly does not replace the entirety of what was lost, some researchers may yet discover their ancestors among the returns that have come to light.
The AGI resource, Census Returns in the Virtual Treasury, sets out what has been found for 19th century Censuses in Ireland. It also describes how to explore this collection, and most usefully, it explains different methods for searching the VRTI.
The new AGI resource is available here: Census Returns in the VRTI.
You can learn more about Accredited Genealogists Ireland (AGI) on its website.