Archive of the Month
Introducing the Anglican Record Project with full transcripts of the Delgany parish registers, County Wicklow, 1666–1900
Archive of the Month – November 2012
To access the Project, please click here
In a project that began in 2009, the RCB Library engaged positively and proactively with the Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht in the first stage of digitizing parish registers for the www.irishgenealogy.ie
website, a state website ‘dedicated to assisting people worldwide to search for records of family history’. Both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland church records have been digitized and are freely 
To date, as far as Church of Ireland registers are concerned, all the city parishes in Dublin, as well as the counties of Carlow and Kerry registers lodged in the RCB Library have now been digitized and are searchable online. Regrettably the project has stalled and no further Church of Ireland records have been digitized. Yet, as custodians on behalf of the state of Church of Ireland registers, our experience of the website has been very positive, Families who had previously searched unsuccessfully for years because they didn’t know of a parish origin, have suddenly found their elusive ancestors by being able simply to key in a name and at the press of a button finding them amongst those registers digitized to date.
A continuation of the digitization project to cover more of the extensive and All–Ireland collection of parish registers available in the RCB Library (for a full list click here) would be of enormous value to researchers worldwide and contribute substantially to the conservation of the original records. In the interim, researchers looking for Church of Ireland ancestors, must know of their parish of origin before coming to the Library to view the collections here, or visiting local churches, in cases where registers remain in local custody.
For a full list of the Library’s parish register series and other publications click
here
In the interim, registers published with an index by the RCB Library and others, as well as locally–produced transcripts and indexes of registers are of enormous value. In recognition of this contribution, we have decided to collaborate with Mark Williams, a regular visitor to the Library, who has painstakingly worked away for almost two decades transcribing parish registers. For November’s Archive of the Month we feature his transcripts of the parish registers for Delgany, county Wicklow, covering the period from 1666 to 1900, together with an index of names, which form part of his Anglican Record Project.
Here for the first time, the project is introduced to a worldwide audience, along with the searchable pdfs of the Delgany registers. Further transcripts from the Anglican Record Project will follow in coming months.
To view the Anglican Record Project and gain access to the Delgany register transcripts click here.
For further information about the collections of parish registers in the RCB Library please contact:
Dr Susan Hood
RCB Library
Braemor Park
Churchtown
Dublin 14
Tel: 01–4923979
Fax: 01–4924770
E–mail: susan.hood@rcbcoi.org
For information about Anglican Record Project please contact:
Mr Mark Williams
E–mail williamsfamilycrookham@btinternet.com