Cavan Heritage and Genealogy Centre

Cavan Heritage and Genealogy Centre, also known as Cavan Genealogy, is the dedicated family history research service for County Cavan, based in the town of Cavan. Established in 1987 as a not-for-profit organisation, it is the Irish Family History Foundation’s designated centre for the county and offers a professional and confidential service to anyone tracing their Cavan roots.

The centre holds a database of close to one million records relating to people who lived in County Cavan, the great majority of them pre-1920. These include computerised church records of baptisms, marriages and burials from Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist parishes across the county, along with civil records of births, deaths and marriages, census returns, land and estate records, gravestone inscriptions, directories and school registers. The staff bring many years of experience in sourcing and interpreting local, national and international genealogical material.

Alongside its research work, the centre supports people writing local histories, studying particular topics and carrying out graveyard surveys, and it offers genealogy workshops and a range of local history publications, including the journal Breifne. It is located on the first floor of the Johnston Central Library on Farnham Street, beside the Tourist Office and a short distance south of Cavan Cathedral, making it a useful stop for visitors exploring the town as well as those researching their ancestry.