Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
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Onsite guides and indexes

Selection of guides available in the PRONI search room Volumes in a PRONI strongroom Visitors conducting research in the PRONI reading room
Selection of guides available in the PRONI search room.

PRONI Indexes

Personal Names Index

An extensive personal names index is held in drawers around the search room.  The personal names index can be useful if you do not know where in Northern Ireland your family may have come from and can sometimes be a means of linking names to a specific area.

Place Names Index

The place names index for townlands is held in black binders in the search room.  The placenames index for larger areas - towns, parishes and other countries - is in the form of a card index in drawers at the end of the personal names index.  This index can be a good starting point for local history studies.

Subject Index

The subject index, with over 25,000 entries, is held in black binders in the search room.  Some of the subjects that can be researched in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)’s archives include:
  • Architecture and building
  • Arts and entertainment
  • Crime and punishment
  • Education
  • Emigration
  • Estate ownership and management
  • Industry
  • Manufacturers, crafts and trades
  • Medicine
  • Poor Law
  • Religion
  • Sport and recreation
  • Transport
  • Wars and campaigns
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PRONI Guides Series

The PRONI Guides Series has been designed to help those visiting PRONI find relevant documents quickly.
Guides to sources relating to popular research topics and a number of county guides have been produced.
Some guides have been published - see PRONI books and publications - and are currently available for sale.  Those that are out of print are available in the search room.

Guide to Church Records

A major problem in using church records is identifying what churches exist in a particular area, what records are available for each church and for what dates.  This guide lists the churches in each parish alphabetically by denomination, describes the range of records and their covering dates for each church and lists the main PRONI reference numbers.
If the records are not available in PRONI, either in copy or original form, the guide indicates where the records can be accessed.
It includes all of the main religious denominations in Northern Ireland, in the three border counties of Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan and also some in other parts of the Republic of Ireland.

Guide to Northern Ireland Cabinet Committees, 1921-1958

A general introduction explains how the Cabinet Committee system originated and its procedures and development.  This is followed by descriptions of the papers of each Cabinet Committee.
These papers provide a valuable insight into the decision-making process in key areas such as transport, employment, conscription and post-war reconstruction.  They also highlight the role played by civil servants in the decision making process.

Guide to Cabinet Conclusions, 1921- 1943

Standing at the apex of the decision-making process and receiving papers on a variety of policy matters, the Northern Ireland Cabinet had a unique perspective of the entire devolved administration.  Thus the Cabinet Conclusions (the minutes of the Cabinet meetings) and related memoranda provide an insight into the very heart of government and civil service activities.  This guide lists the topics covered at each Cabinet meeting with an index to persons, places and subjects.  A searchable digital copy of all the Cabinet Conclusions (from 1921-1972) is available in the PRONI search room.

Guide to Sources for Women’s History

The sources available in PRONI for women's history are arranged into 17 themes to facilitate research.  These include:
  • women at war
  • crime and punishment
  • welfare, etc.
In addition, a list of all references to women in PRONI’s catalogues, arranged numerically by the archive reference numbers, is available in the search room in a series of white binders.

Guide to Educational Records

This guide lists the sources for education in PRONI under 20 different themes, each with an introduction.  The themes include:
  • educationalists
  • government policy on education
  • pictorial material and statistics etc.

Guide to Landed Estates

This guide is arranged firstly by county (Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone) and then alphabetically by landlord/estate.
For each estate there is a description of the records found in PRONI with the appropriate main PRONI reference numbers.  Additionally, for each county there are separate sections on maps and on the Irish Land Commission/Land Purchase Commission papers deposited in PRONI by Land Registry.

Guide to Records of the Irish Society and the London Companies

This is a guide to records relating to the Irish Society and the London Companies from the 17th to the 20th century who acquired land in Ulster during the Plantation.

Guides to County Sources

PRONI has produced the following county guides:
  • Guide to County Fermanagh
  • Guide to County Tyrone
  • Guide to County Armagh
  • Guide to County Monaghan - this is the only published county guide and is available for sale in PRONI.  It gives more detailed information on the ‘big house’ archives, either deposited in or copied by PRONI, and the families who created them.
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Further Information