Registry of Deeds could be made available online.

BowWow

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/five-million-plus-property-transaction-documents-may-be-digitised-1.4215224?mode=amp

Hermy

In case anyone isn't already aware of it, unindexed images of the collection of the Registry of Deeds are currently available at Family Search.

pinkypinky

And there's also the long running volunteer-led Index project.

KildareFan

pinkypinky wrote: »

And there's also the long running volunteer-led Index project.

I've been indexing the transcriptions of the memorials of deeds for the IGRS indexing project for a couple of years - I try to do a few every day.

The memorials summarise the content of deeds and some were produced years after the actual deed, before being lodged in the Registry Office - the first memorials were lodged in 1708 but many early memorials refer to deeds from the 1600s. The memorials were transcribed into the 'Tomes' - so ample chance for transcription errors. A copy of the memorial costs €20 from the Registry of Deeds - the transcriptions are freely accessible on the FamilySearch site https://bit.ly/2JuxcwW in a series of microfilms which can be browsed but not searched.
I have found incredible detail about my ancestors on my mother's side in the memorials. Some were descended from English soldiers who were granted land in Wicklow & Carlow in the 1600s. Most of my ancestors weren't particularly wealthy - the first generations were farmers and then became merchants, chandlers, coopers, shoemakers & various tradesmen; and they left a trail of leases, marriage settlements and wills etc. (Unfortunately the trail runs cold in the late 1800s as the family fortunes dwindled into obscurity)
The IGRS Index project involves volunteers going through the memorial transcriptions and inputting details on a spreadsheet, which is sent to Nick who manages the database. He uploads the information on the index which is searchable by memorial number, name of participants & location.

It can take anything between 10 minutes and an hour to extract the information for the index.Reading the memorials can wreck your head - the handwriting may be legible, but for the index, you have to be able to weed out the redundant legalese and concentrate on:
a) date of the lease & date of the memorial [the memorial summarises the content of the deed and may have been created years after the deed]
b) names, addresses & occupations & roles of the parties to the deed, people mentioned, witnesses to the deed & memorial
c) type of deed e.g. lease of land & premises, mortgage, marriage settlement, wills etc

d) produce a brief abstract summarising the content

I'm wondering what the new initiative intends to do - it's not clear if there is an army of people somewhere producing a searchable index, or are they going to digitise just the memorial transcripion tomes [this time in colour], or the memorials themselves - that would be great as the memorials contain the original signatures and seals of the parties involved.
Looking forward to hearing more about this initiative.

pinkypinky

The IGRS was due to have a talk from Ellen Murphy (archivist in the PRAI) in a couple of weeks but obviously we have had to postpone.

My understanding though is that they would create a searchable computer index. I don't know if they'll put it online or just make it available on computers, like they already have for post-1970 records. The Valuation Office is computerising their records but they are just images that you go through.