Irish Marriage Notices in American Newspapers

Find for your ancestors’ marriage announcement through the 2,500 wedding notices in American newspapers. The marriage announcements are of Irish men and women who were married around the world (America, England, Ireland and Australia). The years of the announcements are significant because they include marriages almost three decades before civil registrations of Irish marriages (1864), which means these records are a very unique resource for ancestry tree.

Each record includes a transcript taken from an American newspaper marriage announcement. The announcements are from four American newspapers: New York Herald, The Brooklyn Eagle, New York World and Phoenix.

These are announcements of marriages which occurred all over the world from England to Australia of people originally from Ireland and of various religious denominations. The amount of information listed varies, but the Irish Marriages in American Newspapers usually include the following information about your ancestor:

  • Names of Bride and Groom
  • Marriage year
  • Marriage date
  • Place of marriage
  • Newspaper
  • Newspaper date
  • Groom’s county and country (birthplace)
  • Bride’s county and country (birthplace)
  • Bride and Groom’s parents
  • Minister

To help you explore the records you have the options to search by both spousal names and year of the marriage. Most records even include the name of the minister who performed the ceremony and the birth place of both the bride and the groom.

Discover more about the Irish marriage notices in American newspapers

The announcements are from four New York newspapers: the New York Herald, The Brooklyn Eagle, New York World and Phoenix. The first three were daily newspapers and Phoenix was a weekly paper. At their height, the New York Herald and the Brooklyn Eagle were considered the most popular papers in the United States, which can help to explain why someone would choose these papers for wedding announcements. All four newspapers are no longer in print today.

The newspapers included in this record set and their publication dates:

  • The Brooklyn Eagle (1841-1955)
  • New York Herald (1835-1924)
  • New York World (1860-1931)
  • Phoenix (1859-1861)

Each wedding notice would have been written by a member of the bride or groom’s family. The notice was printed in the newspaper at a cost to the family. We find that the couple’s family felt that it was important to notify people in America of the newlyweds. Each family may have had their own motive for creating an announcement.

To further your exploration of your family history, you can search through more newspapers in the country the marriages took place. For example, if you found an announcement in the New York Herald of your ancestors’ marriage in Melbourne, you can then use the findmypast Australian newspapers to discover more wedding announcements.