Grandparents Irish birth certificate - howwwwww?!

[TotalPerspectiveVortex]

Hi all, I'm hoping for some guidance on the Irish registrar system if possible? My Dad and I are doing some family history research ( and I am looking to get myself on the foreign births register). My Grandad died abroad, in Africa in 1982 and my Dad didn't really know that much about him, he worked abroad a lot. My dad knows nothing about his grandparents - my grandads parents - apart from they didn't really bring him up, and my great Granada wasn't a nice man. I have found the info for my grandads birth but only the details of the entry into the births register. I can't work out if this is enough information to order a birth certificate - I don't know anything about his parents and neither does my dad, so I can't fill out the standard request form, but the idea was that the birth cert would also help us find more about my grandad and his parents (as well as support my citizenship application). I know where my grandads birth was registered and what year, and his name of course, but that's about it. Is that along with the GRO folder name enough to order a certificate? And if so how?

I have no clue at all how to go about the copy of a foreign death certificate, but that's for another day.

It's also possible that one of my aunt's has all my grandads documents but there a bit of uncomfortableness with that particular aunt so would prefer avoiding that route if I can.

My dad and I have his family history as our little project for the year, and there little snippets of some really interesting stories that we'd both love to find out more about, but his wider family have never been forthcoming about history and there have definitely been some strained relationships that have made it more difficult to find out things that should be relatively easy.

Any help at all on being able to get hold of a birth certificate as a starting point would be gratefully received!

[stiffstink]

I think there was some problem with the centralised records of Ireland due to a fire. You can probably try to search for records on the Irish equivalent of the UK's gov.uk, whatever that might be!

[BoysaDearyMe]

If you know where the birth was registered could you check with the local churches for baptism records? If you know the denomination then you can narrow your search to that religious sector. The baptism record should / might show your granddads parents names, giving you more info for the birth certificate order? Worth a few phone calls to parish secretaries perhaps?

[TotalPerspectiveVortex]

Thanks stiff, I think you're right the dublin post office was set on fire in 1922, in the fight for independence, I believe which destroyed a lot of records. I have the details of the entry - so things like which microfiche roll, and the digital record number of the record & I hoped that would be enough. But the form I've found only asks for things like his mother's name and maiden name, which I don't have, we wanted the certificate to give us that information! I don't even know his DOB - just that it was between October and December 1922. It's so frustrating I feel like I'm just going round in circles!!

[orflaaaa]

the dublin post office was set on fire in 1922, in the fight for independence

The Custom House went on fire in 1921 during the civil war. A lot of records were lost. My great-grandad had to use his baptismal cert instead of birth cert.

[TotalPerspectiveVortex]

Ok, so it looks like baptism cert is the easy to go first then! I'll start taking a look and seeing what I can find there! Thanks for your suggestions!

[hollyisalovelyname]

Yes the records were kept in the Customs House and that was burned in 1921/1922- not sure whether during the War of Independence or the Civil War.
Was your relative from Northern Ireland ( now ) or the Republic of Ireland/ Free State ?

[MarDhea]

Was your grandfather born before 1911? If so, you might be able to find him on the census records at the National Archives and find out his parents' names that way.

Or if born before 1915, have you tried birth records at the Irish Genealogy site? Coverage is meant to be complete, though I've found some gaps (prob due to spelling errors etc.). It also has some baptismal records.

[MarDhea]

Ah - just saw his dob was 1922 so those sites won't help unless you have info on an older sibling.

[Yerwanoverthere]

If you go into the hse.ie (certificates section) website you can order a birth certificate for €20. You only need the name, place and date of birth. I'm not sure if it works from the uk but can't see why not. Beware that you are on the correct site as there is another third party one that charges €40 per certificate.