Belfast City Council has made burial records for three prominent cemeteries in Belfast available online.

Currently Burial records from the following cemeteries and time periods are available:
•Belfast City Cemetery - records from 1869 (including the Jewish, public and Glenalina extension sections)
•Roselawn Cemetery - records from 1954
•Dundonald Cemetery - records from 1905.

This is the first stage of plans by the city council to make more than 360,000 records easily accessible to professional historians, genealogists and anyone interested in family history.

Chairman of the Parks and Leisure Committee, Councillor Peter O Reilly, said: “This information will be of great value to professional and amateur historians as well those tracing their family history.
“It has been hard work but it is not yet complete, we need the public to use the site and report back on any information which might still need to be added to the online search facility.”

At present the information on the site includes the name, age, sex, date of death, date of burial, cemetery, grave section and number as well as last place of residence.
The council holds only limited records on Balmoral Cemetery, Clifton Street Graveyard, Friar`s Bush Graveyard, Knock Burial Ground and Shankill Graveyard and these cannot be accessed via the website. However, information on these sites is available by contacting their Cemeteries and Crematorium Office by emailing cemeteries@belfastcity.gov.uk for further help.

Burial records from Milltown Cemetery are also not included because the City Council is not responsible for looking after this cemetery.

Belfast City, Roselawn and Dundonald cemeteries are available by logging onto www.belfastcity.gov.uk/burialrecords