Navigating the new system for Irish census records launched by the National Archives

The National Archives of Ireland has launched a new system for accessing the 1901 and 1911 census records, as well as earlier census fragments. While some improvements have been made, with the system now fully optimized for mobile use, other changes have been met with criticism and frustration, as various usability challenges have been identified by seasoned genealogical researchers.

Earlier this month, the National Archives of Ireland (NAI) quietly announced an important update to its free-to-access 1901 and 1911 census records system. The old system we’re all very familiar with is being phased out and replaced with a new version, which is now accessible here.

The transition is already underway, and the old system will go offline in the coming months. Users are advised to familiarize themselves with the new system without delay, as no automated links will be established between the two systems.

The following notice currently appears on the old site:

“Important Notice (Updated February 2025)

This census records system has been replaced with a newer version… and will be coming offline in the coming months. Any updates made to the data will only be reflected in the new system and there will be no automated links established between the old and new census systems. Please ensure you make all necessary arrangements as soon as possible.”

This official announcement is lacking in detail, offering little insight into the precise nature of the changes introduced by the new system or a definitive timeline for the old system’s shutdown. As far as we can tell, there have been no other announcements nor any further communication by the National Archives regarding this update.

Having tested the new census record system, we can confirm that several changes have been introduced, which we outline below.

Key changes to the Irish census records system:

– URLs (links)

Once the old system is taken offline, users will only be able to access the 1901 and 1911 census records and earlier census records through the new system, available at the following URL:
https://nationalarchives.ie/
collections/search-the-census/

All URLs relating to the old census record system will cease to function once it is removed. This affects the old links to the transcribed household records and the old links to the digitized microfilm census images (i.e. the original records).

In addition, the new links to census images generated through the new system are temporary only because each link contains a timestamp that expires after one hour. Once that link expires, users will no longer be able to view the image through this link and will instead encounter an “access denied” message. (More on this issue – and the potential problems it may cause – below.)

(Edited: As of 5pm on Thursday, 27 February, the issue with time-sensitive URLs for census images appears to have been resolved, with links no longer displaying apparent expiration timestamps. This may be a temporary fix, so we will check periodically.)

A F F I L I A T E  A D

– New search form

The new search form presents a fresh, clean look that is clear and easy to use.

The basic search options remain the same as those available in the old system: census year, surname, first name, county, townland / street, DED (district electoral division), age (+/- 5 years) and sex. Additional search options are also still in place: relation to head of household, religion, literacy, occupation, marital status, county / country of origin, language proficiency, specified illnesses, number of years married, number of children born and number of children living. Users can combine these fields to refine their searches, with many options available through dropdown menus.

– Soundex

According to professional genealogist Claire Bradley, Director of Irish Studies at the International Institute of Genealogical Studies, a new addition to the search functionality is the inclusion of Soundex, which identifies variant spellings of surnames. Soundex is a phonetic algorithm that encodes names based on their pronunciation rather than their spelling, allowing for matches between similar-sounding names despite differences in spelling.

While this technology holds promise, our experience with the new system suggests its effectiveness is currently limited in practice (more on that below).

– New design and layout of search interface

The new search interface employs larger text and more generous spacing, so you’ll find yourself scrolling more than ever. When entering details in the search form, you must scroll down through the fields before you can click “search”. If you need to tweak any details, additional scrolling is required.

The generated search results automatically display 10 entries per web page, with options to show 25 or 100 entries. On the old system, the choices were 10, 50 and 100 per page. On the new system, the search results are spaced out so widely that it becomes difficult to quickly scan for relevant records that might pop out at you. For example, on a 16-inch laptop screen, the new system displays only about three results at a time before you have to scroll, whereas the old system could show up to 20 results on a single screen. In the old system, the list was much more manageable and easier to skim.

While the presentation of the search results is very clear, this increased need for scrolling significantly slows down the overall user experience.

– Pre-populated search fields

When you reopen the search page, the details you entered during your last search remain in the search fields. While this is obvious for the search fields at the top of the search form, such as surname or first name, you must scroll down to other fields, like age or sex, before you can view and update them.

Since not all of the search fields are visible at once on a standard laptop screen, it’s easy to overlook pre-populated fields. Currently, there is no “reset search” button, so users must manually clear or update the pre-populated fields before conducting a new search. If you forget to do this, it will inevitably lead to the wrong search results or no results at all. Again, it is time-consuming and not particularly useful.

– Browse by location / place

The option to search by place or location remains available, allowing users to focus their research on specific districts, explore areas where their ancestors lived and learn about their neighbours. While this search option is not immediately obvious on the new system, it can be accessed here.

From this browse page, users must first select the census year they wish to search. Then, they are presented with a list of counties. After choosing a county, a list of District Electoral Divisions (DEDs) is displayed. Unlike the old system, where the DEDs were listed alphabetically on a single web page, the new system spreads them across several pages, requiring users to click through multiple pages to find the relevant DED. This makes browsing slower and more time-consuming, particularly for DEDs starting with letters further down the alphabet

Currently, there is no option to sort surnames alphabetically once you’ve navigated to a specific townland or street – a limitation carried over from the old system.

– CSV files

One notable change introduced with the new system is the ability to download search results as CSV files. While casual users may have little need for this, it will be particularly useful for professional historians, genealogists and historical geographers analysing larger sets of results.

However, the main limitation of this feature is that search results are capped at 100 entries per page, and only the visible results from the currently displayed page can be downloaded as a CSV file. This means that if a search returns more than 100 results, users must navigate through multiple pages and download separate CSV files for each page. There is currently no option to export more than 100 search results in a single CSV file, making it a somewhat inefficient process for those working with large amounts of data.

It is also possible to download details relating to all members of a single household as a CSV file (more on this below).

– Filters and sort by

The sort-by options are the same in both the old and new systems: relevance, surname, first name, townland / street, DED, county, age and sex. The “relevance” sort-by option is automatically selected and prioritizes results based on their relevance to your particular search parameters. Selecting any of the others will organize the results alphabetically by that category, with the exception of age, where the results will be displayed in increasing numerical order.

The new system introduces additional filters – located on the left side of the screen in desktop view – to further refine the search results. These filters are: county, surname, townland / street, DED, age, religion, occupation, county / country of origin and language proficiency. Each filter presents a dropdown list with available options, along with a number in brackets after each option indicating how many entries match that option. For example, under the occupation filter, users might see a list like this: General Labourer (8), Linen Weaver (6), Factory Worker (9). One drawback is that these lists are not alphabetized, making longer lists more challenging to scan quickly. However, a useful feature is that you can type into the filter to narrow down the options.

– Individual records

In the old system, the transcribed details for every person in the same household were displayed together on a single web page with its own URL. Now, in the new system, each individual recorded in the census has their own separate web page with a unique URL. There are no longer distinct pages for entire households.

On an individual’s web page, their details are displayed in a clean and easy-to-read format. Clear links are provided to the census images (front and back of census) and other relevant images (enumerator’s abstract, house and building return, out-offices and farm-steadings return). These open in separate tabs when clicked.

>>> READ MORE: What the census tells us about Ireland’s first president, Douglas Hyde

In theory, assigning each individual their own page with its own URL might seem like a good idea, but in practice, many researchers start by scanning all of the names in the household in an effort to ensure they have the right person.

Scrolling down the individual’s page, you’ll find the full household transcription beneath the individual’s details. Each person in the household can be clicked on to navigate to their unique web page at its own URL.

You cannot see all the household details without using a side-scroller. While some side-scrolling was necessary on the old system when “show all information” was selected, even less information now fits within the screen width, resulting in significantly more side-scrolling on the new system. This makes it harder to take a screenshot that effectively captures the most important details of all household members at once. There is an option to download the information on all household members as a single CSV file by clicking the “download household” button, which may make it easier to view the full details.

– Improved mobile experience

The new system offers a fully responsive design, providing a much better mobile experience compared to the old one, where users constantly had to pinch and zoom. This is good news for casual users accessing the system on their smartphones or tablets. However, most dedicated genealogical researchers, particularly professional historians and genealogists, conduct the vast majority of their research on laptops and desktop computers. For these users, the new design presents new challenges.

– Updates and corrections

The new system incorporates updates to corrections and additional scanning – all future updates will be made exclusively on the new system. To date, 6,331 entries in the 1901 census and 23,067 in the 1911 census have been corrected. You can find a list of the counties and townlands with newly added transcribed census returns here.

Issues with the original scanned microfilms have resulted in missing townlands and DEDs, while transcription errors – such as blank fields, unclear text or damaged returns marked with “?” and partially transcribed Irish language returns – have complicated searches for users. The National Archives plans to fully transcribe these returns and add them to the website after the 1926 census is completed.

On the old system, reporting transcription errors was a simple process, as an automated feedback facility was available for each transcription. Currently, there does not appear to be a similar option on the new system, making it more onerous for users to report errors.

– Pre-1901 census fragments

The new system provides access to the 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851 census records, but users are directed to a different web page to search these records. These include additional search options, such as for deaths that occurred since the previous census. You can search the 19th-century census fragments here.

>>> READ MORE: The 1749 Census of Elphin

A separate resource – census search forms – helps locate details in the 1841 and 1851 censuses. Submitted by old-age pension applicants to verify their age using census records, these forms often list all household members at the time of the census. Even when a search was unsuccessful and the form was marked “not found” or “no trace”, they still provide valuable family information as supplied by the claimant. These records are still available to search at the old URL here.

What do the changes mean for my research?

– Updating old URLs (links)

All URLs from the old system have changed, meaning any saved links in your own records will need to be updated before the old system is taken offline. If you’ve added links to family trees on genealogy platforms, those must also be updated. This issue affects both online and offline publications as well.

There is a solution: Irish software developer Daenis has created a handy (free) link conversion tool, which is available here.

Sites like FindMyPast, Ancestry, MyHeritage and Townlands.ie will also be impacted, as they link directly to census images on the old system. It remains to be seen how these sites will adapt.

A F F I L I A T E  A D

Temporary links to images

Perhaps the biggest problem is that links to census images are now temporary. Unlike the old system, which used permanent direct image links, the new URLs for images include expiring query strings. These links expire after just an hour – a very short period of time when conducting research.

If the tab with the temporary link stays open, you can still view the image, but refreshing the tab will cause the link to expire. This means it no longer makes sense to share, bookmark or save links to the census images due to their short lifespan.

Instead, we recommend that you save the URL of the individual’s web page containing the transcribed record or download the images as PDFs and save them directly to your device.

(Edited: As of 5pm on Thursday, 27 February, the issue with time-sensitive URLs for census images appears to have been resolved, with links no longer displaying apparent expiration timestamps. This may be a temporary fix, so we will check periodically.)

– Conducting searches

Conducting searches in the new system presents both familiar and new challenges, with some features showing promise but others leaving room for improvement.

Variant spellings

As with the old system, the new search interface allows for variant spellings of names, unless “exact matches only” is selected. This was intended to be enhanced with the use of Soundex. However, our testing revealed some limitations with this functionality.

We searched for Mary O’Brien from Acres, Castlehyde, Co. Cork, in the 1911 census. Her record only appeared when her surname was spelt “O’Brien” or “Brien” but not “O Brien” or “Obrien”. On the old system, her record appears with the “O’Brien”, “O Brien” and “Obrien” spellings but not for “Brien”. Other variant spellings, such as “O’Brian”, “O Briain” and “Bryan”, did not yield results in either system. We conducted similar tests for other individuals with comparable findings.

Our experiments indicate that while neither system is perfect, the old system tended to pick up more variant spellings – at least in our tests. This seems to suggest that the search functionality in the new system has not improved as expected.

Therefore, you may still need to conduct multiple searches using different spellings and should not rely solely on Soundex to pick up all the possible variants.

Time impacts

While the new system offers some improvements, its overall usability is challenging. The need for constant scrolling, the lack of easy-to-skim search results and the pre-populated search fields significantly slow down the research process. While familiarity with the new system may improve your speed over time, the increased time required to use and navigate it will always make the process unnecessarily time-consuming.

Reactions online to the changes

The major redesign of the National Archives’ census record system has sparked discussion among professional genealogists and family history enthusiasts on platforms like Reddit and WikiTree, as well as in various Facebook genealogy groups.

In these discussions, many have expressed frustration with the new system. Some have described it as more complicated and harder to use than the old system. Common complaints include difficulties performing searches without a name and searching for records relating to occupants of institutions.

Some have suggested that certain data is missing. Initially, we shared concerns about individuals who seemed to have disappeared from the new system. However, after conducting tests with variant spellings, we now believe the issue is not one of missing data but rather the new system’s failure to recognize certain name variants that the old system could pick up.

Perhaps the most widely shared grievance is the loss of the old URLs – with no redirection to the new ones – and the introduction of time-sensitive URLs for census images. As Conor Maguire, of Daenis, pointed out in a post in the Irish Genealogy Facebook group:

“Like many people here, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed by some of the changes to the census search site. It seems like a major oversight to not do more regarding link preservation given so many individuals and organizations reference this data all over the web.”

We tend to agree with much of the feedback, particularly the general feeling that aesthetics have been prioritized over usability. We also agree with genealogist Claire Bradley that maps should have been included in the new overhaul, particularly for the DEDs. Incorporating maps would be especially helpful for people outside of Ireland and those unfamiliar with the locations they are researching, offering better context.

The lack of communication with the public about the changes to the census record system has only compounded users’ frustration. What’s particularly puzzling about this major refresh is that it seems that no one in the professional world of Irish genealogy was consulted or asked to test the new system before it went live.

Watch a detailed video from Claire Bradley where she outlines the changes to Ireland’s census record system here.

Feedback

As we all grapple with the new system, we can only assume it is still very much a work in progress. The National Archives’ web developers will need feedback from the public. Currently, there is no automated way to submit feedback, so we recommend emailing them directly at query@nationalarchives.ie, outlining what’s good about the new system and what you’re struggling with. Hopefully, many of the issues raised here are just teething problems and will soon be resolved.

Quick links

• New census record system
• Old census record system
• New: search the 1901 and 1911 census
• New: browse the censuses by location
• New: search the 1821–51 census fragments
• Search 1841 and 1851 census search forms

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Ireland’s historic censuses: a quick overview

A government census was conducted in Ireland every 10 years between 1821 and 1911. The first four – 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851 – were largely destroyed in the 1922 fire at the Public Record Office, though fragments survive. The 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891 censuses were destroyed before 1922 by government order.

>>> READ MORE: 102nd anniversary of Public Record Office fire marked with release of thousands of historical records

The 1901 and 1911 censuses are the only surviving full censuses of Ireland open to the public. Taken on 31 March 1901 and 2 April 1911, these censuses record the following details for every member of each household: name, age, sex, relationship to the head of the household, religion, occupation, marital status, county / country of birth, literacy and Irish language skills. The 1911 census recorded additional information for married women, and both censuses recorded details about houses.

Both censuses cover all 32 counties of Ireland and were released to the public in 1961. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (LDS), better known as the Mormons, microfilmed the 1901 and 1911 censuses, as well as surviving fragments from earlier censuses – these form the basis of the digitized collections, which the Irish government made available online for free in 2009.

No census was taken in 1921 due to the Irish War of Independence. The first census of the Irish Free State was conducted in 1926, so it does not include the six counties of Northern Ireland. The 1926 census will be released to the public next year, and the records will presumably appear on the National Archives’ new census records system launched earlier this month.

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