Catholic Church Records

 Some of these records are online on www.irishgenealogy.ie At the moment they have Dublin city, Carlow, Cork and Kerry available but it is a work in progress and they hope to have more up soon. The church records would have baptism, marriage and burial details.
The baptism record would have the date of the baptism, this usually occurred within days of the birth. It would also have the name of the child, the names of the parents, the family address and the godparents names. The godparents would often be family members which is handy.
The marriage record generally have the date of the marriage, the names of the spouses and witnesses, the parents names, ages and occupations. You will often find that records only have the basic details but it all helps.
The burial record contains very limited information. Usually only the date of burial, name and address of the deceased and sometimes the age of the deceased.
While the burial record does not contain much, if it helps you locate the grave then that is of huge benefit. Families are usually buried together often with son or daughter in laws as well. You can get the family members and if you are lucky a daughters married name too from a grave. Also buried in the same graveyard would be other family members and relatives so it is well worth visiting the graveyard if you can. If not then a lot of graveyards are on www.Internment.net
Graves from Co. Kerry are available online at www.kerrylaburials.ie
A very exciting new graveyard database that is being constantly updated is historicgraves.com. They have photographs of headstones and their details available on the site. This is a community led project which is hoping to eventually transcribe and photograph all the graveyards in the country. The website itself is very well laid out, be sure to check it out for yourself.