Telephone
028 90 534800
Websites
Notes
The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) holds the official archives of public records in Northern Ireland including those from government departments and ministries non-departmental public organisations such as courts, schools and hospitals. In addition, a number of private archives have been deposited with PRONI.
The Family and Local History Archives section provides details of family and local history resources and selected searchable archival materials and digitised records.
The PRONI Guide Library is the gateway to all the guides designed to support your research. Use the category links to browse pre-filtered lists of the publications, which will quickly navigate you to research guides on particular topics. The series of guides is divided into the categories including:
- Family History
- Local History
- Social History
- Women’s History
- Irish History
- Maps
- Land and Property Records
Sources and records of key interest to genealogists and family historians are:
- 1901 and 1911census returns
- Tithe Applotment Books 1823-1838
- Griffiths Valuation
- School records
- Valuation books
- Trade directories
- Estate records
- Wills from 1858-1995
- Emigration records
- Poor law records
- Church records
Transcriptions and indexes some with digital images are available online including:
- Name Search including Surviving fragments of the 1740 and the 1766 religious census returns, Dissenters petitions, 1775, indexes to pre-1858 diocesan wills and administration bonds.
- Will Calendars
- Street directories covering Belfast and Ulster, 1819 to 1900
- Signatories to the Ulster Covenant, 1912
- Freeholders’ Records
- Valuation Revision Books
- Pre-1910 coroners’ inquest papers
The online catalogue of PRONI’s holdings known as eCatalogue is available at the website. The catalogue is fully searchable containing over one million entries for records in the archives.
The PRONI Flickr Photostream contains a variety of subjects from the Allison Photographic Collection along with portraiture from the Cooper Collection. These collections have been digitised from original glass plate negatives dating from as early as 1900.

