Historical records

Historical documents, especially birth, death and marriage certificates, can provide vital information when you're tracing your family tree.

As a council, we do not conduct genealogical research and cannot provide practical help with your research. However, there are many other organisations which can help to track down historical registrations. These are listed below.

Birth, death, adoption, marriage and civil partnership certificates

Our Registrar's office, located in Belfast City Hall, holds computerised registration records from 1997 to the present day. It holds details of marriage certificates from 1 January 2004 onwards.

find out more about ordering certificates from our Registrar's office

Records from before these dates are held by the General Register Office, based at Oxford House, 49-55 Chichester Street, Belfast, BT1 4HL. They also have a public research room where you can search through computerised records for a particular event.

The office can help to find information about:

births registered in Northern Ireland from 1 January 1864
adoptions recorded in the Adopted Children Register Northern Ireland from 1 January 1931
deaths registered in Northern Ireland from 1 January 1864
non-Roman Catholic marriages from 1 April 1845, and all marriages from 1 January 1864
civil partnerships registered in Northern Ireland from 5 December 2005
World War II death indexes from 1939 to 1945.

For more information, including details of fees and the types of searches available, call the General Register Office on 028 9151 3101 or visit the NI Direct website

You can also order certificates online from the General Register Office (Northern Ireland) through the NI Direct website

Additional records of births, deaths, adoptions and marriages are held by the General Register Office, based in Dublin. These include:

births registered in Ireland between 1 January 1864 and 31 December 1921, and in Ireland (but excluding Northern Ireland) from 1 January 1922
deaths registered in Ireland between 1 January 1864 and 31 December 1921, and in Ireland (but excluding Northern Ireland) from 1 January 1922
non-Roman Catholic marriages from 1 April 1845, and all marriages from 1 January 1864
marriages registered in Ireland between 1 January 1864 and 31 December 1921, and in Ireland (but excluding Northern Ireland) from 1 January 1922
legal domestic adoptions registered in Ireland from 10 July 1953.

For more information, including details of fees and the types of searches available, call the General Register Office on +353 90 6632900 or visit the General Register Office website

Burial records

We are responsible for maintaining burial records for the following cemeteries:

Balmoral Cemetery
Belfast City Cemetery
Clifton Street Graveyard
Dundonald Cemetery
Friar's Bush Graveyard
Knock Burial Ground
Roselawn Cemetery
Shankill Graveyard.

This information is currently held in large registers and burial order books in our Cemeteries and Crematorium Central Office, located in Belfast City Hall.

You can also look up some records using our online burial records search facility which includes around 360,000 entries relating to burials in Belfast from 1869 onwards for Belfast City, Dundonald and Roselawn Cemeteries.

Census records

General information about individuals, including their age, occupation and religion, can be obtained from census records, which are compiled in Northern Ireland every ten years and made available to the public a century later.

Historical records for 1901 and 1911 can be viewed online through the NI Direct website

Other records, including church and parish registers and land and court documents

In Northern Ireland, most information is held by the Public Record Office for Northern Ireland (PRONI) which contains archives dating back to around 1600. This includes church and parish registers, landed estates records, court records and wills, all of which could help with your research.

Some material can be searched online through the PRONI website