The PRONI eCatalogue is your main tool for exploring over a million archival catalogue entries held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. Whether you’re researching family history, local places, organisations, or broader historical themes, this guide will help you make the most of the system.
This companion guide to the eCatalogue will help you learn how to:
- carry out text, date, and reference searches
- use the wildcard tool
- sort and view results
- access digitised records
- browse archives hierarchically
About the PRONI eCatalogue
You can access the eCatalogue through the PRONI website by selecting “Search the eCatalogue” tab from the homepage or from the PRONI eCatalogue webpage under the Explore Archives Online tab.
Once on the main page of the eCatalogue, you can choose between two main functions in the top-right corner:
- Search to find entries with text, dates or PRONI references
- Browse to explore the hierarchical structure of archives
Text searches
Text searches are the most common way to use the eCatalogue. You can use this field to search for:
- names
- places
- organisations, public authorities or companies
- events
- other keywords
It is best to avoid overly broad searches. Any search returning more than 5,000 results will trigger an error. For instance, instead of simply searching for “Belfast”, try narrowing to a parish, townland, or street name.
Try multiple searches to account for variations spelling, punctuation and the use of abbreviations.
Optimising text searches
All eCatalogue entries for an archive, series, sub-series or item will have a title and usually a more detailed description. You can choose to view results for your search that appear in:
- Title and Description (default)
- Title only
- Description only
You can also choose if you want to see results that match all words, match any words or match the exact phrase. The table below describes when you might use each of these:
| Match option | Best used for | What it does |
| Match all words | General searching | Finds records containing all your words, but not necessarily together or in the same order |
| Match any words | Names/places with variant spellings | Returns results containing any of the words entered |
| Match phrase | Specific terms, names or events | Searches for the exact words, spelling and punctuation in the order entered |
Date searches
Date searches refine your results to a specific time period. They rarely work on their own and are best combined with text or PRONI reference searches.
How to use the date fields
At minimum, you must enter a four digit year in the From or To fields. You may add months and days for more precision. Note that you cannot search by month alone or by day without a year and month.
Date search results
Searching for a single year, e.g. 1920, may return:
- records dated with an exact date of 1920
- records covering a range that includes 1920 (e.g. 1919–1921)
Searching for a date range returns:
- records within the range
- records that overlap the range
- records that start or end on the boundary dates
More precise date searches usually return fewer, more accurate results.
Searching by PRONI Reference
Every PRONI archive, series, sub-series and item has a unique alphanumeric code known as a PRONI reference. For more details on these references, you can view our online guidance to PRONI references. Below is a basic overview of how references are structured:
| Level | Example | Meaning |
| Archive (prefix) | CR1 - Church of Ireland Parish records | A full archival collection or deposit. |
| Series | CR1/1 – Records of Derriaghy Parish Church | A subdivision of an archive, grouped by themes, record types, dates or other categories. |
| Subseries | CR1/1/A – Baptismal Registers | Further divisions of a series based on more specific groupings. |
| Item | CR1/1/1/1 – Register of Baptisms (29 May 1771-16 February 1806) | Lowest level of an archival tree, usually an individual document, file or volume. |
Important notes:
- A standard reference search returns only the exact reference entered.
- To explore records above or below that level, you must the Browse function.
If you're unsure of the full reference, you may find it useful to use the wildcard tool (see below).
The Wildcard tool
The wildcard (*) expands the scope of your search and you can use it with text or a PRONI reference. Note that you cannot use the wildcard tool in the Browse function (see below).
Text search wildcards
It’s helpful to use the wildcard tool with a text search when:
- you know how a name or word starts, but are unsure how it ends
- you know that your term can vary in spelling, punctuation and abbreviations
- you want your search to be as broad as possible
To use the wildcard, enter the part of the word you are sure of or want to see followed by an asterisk (*). If you are searching multiple words, you can use the wildcard with any of them.
Important: you cannot use the wildcard with the Match phrase option.
PRONI reference wildcards
You can also use the wildcard tool with PRONI references. This can be useful when:
- you know the beginning of a record’s reference but not all of it
- you want to search for your terms within a specific archive, series or sub-series
For example, if you wanted to search for Church of Ireland records relating to the parish of Aghaderg, you could enter the name in the text field and CR1* in the PRONI reference field. This would show results for all catalogue entries of all archive levels within Church of Ireland collection.
Sorting and Viewing Search Results
Sorting
Before submitting your search, you can optimise how results are displayed.
Firstly, you can choose if catalogue entries are displayed from 10 up to 50 results per page.
Additionally, you can use the drop-down menu to change how the results are sorted. The table below explains each option:
| Sorting option | Detail |
| PRONI reference (default) | Lists results in alphanumeric order of archival reference. |
| Date | Orders results chronologically by a singular date or date range. |
| Digital record | Displays results that are available to view online first, followed by the remaining entries in alphanumeric order of PRONI reference. |
Viewing results
Once you submit your search, you will see a results table with four columns:
- PRONI reference
- Date(s)
- Title/Description
- Digital Record (indicates if a record is available to view online)
From the results table, select More in the Title/Description column to open an expanded view, where you can:
- read the full description
- view access information
- browse the results in expanded view using the Next and Previous buttons
- jump to the first or last result
Accessing digitised records
If a record has been digitised and is available to view online there will be a blue highlighted View button in the Digital Record column.
To access the digital copy, you must select the View button, accept the Copying & Copyright Declaration and download the pdf to your device.
Browsing the eCatalogue
On the main page of the PRONI eCatalogue, you can switch from the Search function to the Browse function. Browsing is ideal when you want to understand how records are arranged or explore collections without a specific query.
On the homepage of the browse function, you will see:
- a search bar to jump to any archive, series, sub-series or item
- a horizonal alphabet menu list to view all archives beginning with a particular letter
Searching for a full PRONI reference in the browse function can be useful if you want to contextualise a record within its archival structure.
Remember that you cannot use the wildcard tool in the browse function.
Exploring the archive tree
When you have searched for a particular reference or selected one of the letters at the bottom, you will see a results table with the same columns as the search function.
If the PRONI reference is blue and underlined, it means you can click on it to move to the next level of the archive tree. Once the reference is greyed out it means you have reached the bottom level, usually an item.
You can use the highlighted breadcrumb trail at the top to move back up to any level of the archival tree.
As with the search function, from the More button in the Title/Description column you can open the expanded view and navigate through results in the same archive level using the next and previous buttons.
Further information
The PRONI Guide Library has many useful resources that will help you understand collections found in the PRONI eCatalogue.
If you want to explore our other online applications, you can visit our Family and Local History Archives page.
If you have more specific queries we can help you with, feel free to contact us by email at proni@communities-ni.gov.uk.