For a long time, rootsireland had a very bad reputation among Irish family historians. It was impossibly expensive and seemed designed to restrict research access to the absolute minimum. Small wonder that a cottage industry sprang up devoted to ways of extracting information from the site without paying.
As a result, vitriolic criticism of the site is still very easy to find online.
The problem is that it’s no longer justified. Over the past eighteen months, the site has been transformed out of all recognition, guided by what looks like a very good understanding of research and researchers.
First, the clunky pay-per-view unit-based subscription is gone. Now the site offers the online standard, time-based subscriptions, ranging from a year for €225, to (stock up on the black coffee) €10 for 24 hours. Instead of zeroing in on just a few important records, you can now range up and down collateral branches, picking up the kind of secondary information that sheds important sidelights on a family.
And it’s much, much easier to search. The number of obligatory search fields has been slashed. It’s no longer necessary to enter dates, making it possible to retrieve every single record for a surname (and variants) from every record-set on the site in one go: trawl broad, then winnow.
In some circumstances, it’s not even necessary to enter a surname. When in one of the county sections, you can retrieve every record that lists a particular townland or address, irrespective of the family it records. And you can use wild-cards (“%” not “*”) to do that. So it’s possible, for example, to extract every death in a particular townland between 1864 and 1920, or to find place-names that were ignored by the Ordnance Survey but are recorded in rootsireland’s early baptismal registers.
The range of records on the site also continues to expand – it looks as if the threat to its effective monopoly from Ancestry and FindMyPast has galvanised it into action. There are still black spots – Fermanagh, Clare, Wexford, those pesky missing thirteen Catholic parishes in East Galway – but the areas that are good are very, very good indeed. And the chance to test the quality of the Catholic transcripts against Ancestry and FindMyPast has seen rootsireland win again and again.
Even the recent addition of the General Register Office record images to IrishGenealogy has only boosted the usefulness of rootsireland’s database transcripts of local registrars’ records: they are two different records of the same events, each with its own mistakes, but each different to the other’s mistakes. And rootsireland’s version is a searchable full(ish) transcript, not just a name index.
Of course, there are still many flaws. The forename search doesn’t use variants, so searching for a Bridget won’t find you a Brigid. There are undocumented holes in some collections, and unlisted records in others – west Galway appears to have the civil marriages for most of its areas online, for example, but they’re not in the sources-list.
The practice of filling in the county on their map when they have any records at all online is also deeply misleading: Clare appears identical to Sligo, when Sligo has completed almost everything but Clare has just seven sets of baptismal registers.
And above all, there is no library subscription, an option that would democratise access for the many people who just can’t afford their full prices.
Still, no Irish genealogy site is without its flaws.
I’ve never been a booster of rootsireland. In fact, for a long time they saw me as one of their chief tormentors. Now, though, if I’m asked what’s the one essential commercial genealogy site for Irish research, the answer is rootsireland.
Wonderful news. A subscription is now well worth the money.
total bullshit 225 euro is way over the top in 2019. I sometimes regret my Irish past thanks to rip offs like Rootsireland.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your observation. I for one feel more enlightened on a subject which isn’t the easiest to learn.
Yes, I totally agree, much improved and very useful, thanks for this.
Is it possible to buy on a monthly plan?
About a year ago I purchased a monthly plan and I found quite a lot. If you do, make your list and include the varients (Rourke vs O’Rourke and other spellings). I have been doing more research and soon will purchase another month.
Thanks for the wildcard tip! I’ve been using * and get ‘No Records Found’. I just tried it and found one additional baptism for someone!
have you been converted to the dark side? many years ago, I made myself a promise that I would rather go to my grave not knowing some aspects of my family tree, than dealing with Roots Ireland’s bombastic and arrogant statement about their conditions relating to use of their site.
A site, that was set up and funded by the people of Ireland, but then greed took over, and they became a charity. To day they are still one of the most expensive family research sites online.
So John have you gone over to the dark side?
In the immortal words of the great Bertie Ahern, “We are where we are”.
Didn’t help me at all, despite finding some of my unusual Irish names on 3 other sites. The site was easy enough to navigate and you get a chance to back out after a day’s subscription. Obviously the site will help some … but not me …. I did find my grandmother, but knew all about her family. (March 23.)
This site is still expensive but very useful. Couldn’t the Government fund the running costs of the site and allow free access for the same reasons that irishgenealogy.ie is free. Even better between them could they develop an Irish Family Tree allowing found records to incorporated directly into family trees as currently offered by Ancestry, with the eventual aim of building one Master Irish Family Tree?
Absolutely agree that RootsIreland has improved out of all recognition (pity about Clare, though). Their transcriptions are an invaluable index to the NLI’s parish registers, especially since some of the Centres have added the link to the (usually!) appropriate microfilm.
So I don’t agree at all that John has gone over to the dark side …
There are about 40 parishes in Co Wexford yet on their map the impression is given that they have full coverage whereas they have only 11 listed. Why dont they have a different colour for counties that are only partially covered
Is Roots Ireland still charging for searches? I was hoping they would follow Scotland’s People’s example and allow free searches again. They used to be free on Roots Ireland then I think they decided to charge because they saw that Scotland’s People charged their customers for searches. Now that the Scots have embraced the concept of having a free search facility hopefully Roots Ireland will do the same.
Why OH! Why, are we timed Out ?
A horrible interference.
I think this is a lovely site. I have found many of my ancestors in here. Even mother’s names (of children who have married) – which are sometimes as rare as hens teeth. I have had two monthly subscriptions and I will probably have a third. I am going abroad for three months but when I come back I will once again be on the site.
Great work that you do.
Sandra.
Very informative update as usual John, thank you.
What are “those pesky missing thirteen Catholic parishes in East Galway” ?
Have a look at the note under the list of Catholic registers at http://galwayeast.rootsireland.ie/generic.php?filename=centres/galwayeast/sources.tpl
Thank you.
John, You are right about Fermanagh being a black spot in the Roots Ireland records, from the perspective of church records. However, Roots Ireland have the civil birth records for Fermanagh from 1864 to 1920 and the civil marriage records from 1845 to 1920. Although Irish Genealogy has provided the birth records for free up to 1915 and the marriage records from 1882 to 1920, the search functions on Roots Ireland mean that you can find records not as readily available elsewhere. Also IGP have a lot of church records for Fermanagh. Mainly Church of Ireland records. With the Catholic records online, we are not too badly off in Fermanagh!
I am looking for info on 3 MacHugh brothers of Darling St., Enniskillen. They were born in the 1790s. Will I find records for them?
Ursula,
Contact the Fermanagh Genealogy Centre, based at Enniskillen Castle Visitor Centre with more information. You can complete an online enquiry at http://www.enniskillencastle.co.uk/explore-more/fermanagh-genealogy-centre. Alternatively email them on fgc2012@hotmail.com. The Parish Records for Enniskillen Catholic Church records don’t start until 1838. I can’t see any McHughs in the 1832 Tithe Applotment Books for the Parish of Enniskillen, although there are McHughs in the neighbouring parish of Rossory.
Thanks John. The very mention of RootsIreland seems to chill people to the bone. BUT now it is subscription based (there are deals to be had – I got half price for a year – keep eyes open) It is in my view superior to Ancestry and FMP search facilities and Where they say no record I find it on RootsIreland and then search the others with that little nugget I just got from RootsIreland and low and behold the big players can then find the records. It is my first port of call now.
I agree with all the good things being said about the improvements to Rootsireland.
I love being able to do a surname search!!!!
Using Rootsireland in conjunction with the parish records now online at the National Library of Ireland works well.
The most important point I’d like to make is that Rootsireland has records which nli doesn’t. This is true for Co Tipperary north where I search. Not sure about other counties and parishes.
Don’t know how or why this is but it makes a 24 hr session worthwhile, especially if like me you have a notebook full of records to chase.
Well done Rootsireland! Now people can use your site and make it viable.
I agree that it is invaluable for aspects of Irish Historical Records that are not found on any other site but I can’t say it is value for money.
Their prices are the highest on the net and this seems extortionate when you consider they only hold records for one country and those records only begin in proliferation around 1840 and finish almost completely after 1910.
6 months is £ 100 on Roots and £ 99 on Ancestry which covers every country in the world, where records are accessible and stretches from 17th to 20th century.
There is no comparison.
Roots is great if your family never left the Emerald Isle but given the proclivity of the Irish to emigrate to all corners of the known world, it is strictly mono inclusive and vastly overpriced compared to other sites especially given that most of their records are now available for free on the NLI Catholic Parish Registers Site, if you have the time to check.
€ 150 for 12 months is a bit obscene , especially when that is suposedly a “special offer” down from a ridiculous € 225. And this is a charity ? Really ?
Reducing their prices by a further 50% might make it a more competitive alternative.
Still, it’s a lot better than the € 5 a search they used to charge – that was daylight robbery !
I do not agree with the practice of restricting the number of searches per month. A monthly subscription should mean just that.
And it’s now 2023 and they are still doing it. And if you subscribe to 6 or 12 months you don’t really get 8,400 record views to use any way you wish over the six months, you get 6 months with 1400 record views each. If you are on a roll and, like me, prefer to read pages forward and backwards from records that may be your family in order to see neighbours, potential extended family, etc. then you can use up your record searches and have to stop researching until another month starts!
Until they change that I’ll probably just continue to find records elsewhere. Any brick walls I have aren’t going anywhere and as more records come online elsewhere it may make them superfluous.
Roots Ireland only permits a limited number of searches per month. If like me you are looking for family connections in entire parishes it is very easy to use up your allotment of records allowed to be viewed. This is true whether you have a monthly or annual subscription. Ancestry or FindmyPast offer much better value without this artificial restriction.
The fact that they require a subscription to view census results that you can view for free on the national archives website, was enough to put me off their ridiculously expensive site.