What is Down The Road?
Down The Road is a free Irish genealogy tool that makes it easy to search, browse, and explore census records from 1821, 1901, and 1911. It covers all 32 counties of Ireland, nearly 10 million people, 2 million households, and over 60,000 townlands.
The site lets you search by name, browse by county and townland, read AI-generated biographies of the people in the census, save your favourites, leave comments, and connect with other researchers. There's also a native iPhone app so you can take your research with you.
The name "Down The Road" comes from that familiar Irish phrase. When you're tracing your ancestors, you're always looking just a bit further down the road — the next townland, the next household, the next connection.
Who's behind it?
My name is Mark Duffy. I'm a software developer and amateur genealogist from County Derry. My grandparents are from Tyrone and Derry, and I grew up hearing stories about townlands and people that I wanted to know more about.
I built Down The Road because the existing tools for exploring Irish census records didn't work the way I wanted them to. I wanted something fast, modern, and focused specifically on Ireland — not a bolted-on feature of a larger platform.
This is a one-man-band operation. I design it, build it, maintain it, and answer the emails. It's a labour of love, built in my spare time alongside a day job.
Your data, your trust
I believe genealogy is personal. The research you do here is yours.
I will never sell your data. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to anyone. Your searches, your saved records, your messages — they stay between you and this site.
There are no ads on Down The Road, and I have no plans to change that. I'd rather build something people genuinely enjoy using than clutter it with banners and trackers.
Direct messages between users are encrypted at rest in the database. I take your privacy seriously, and you can read the full privacy policy for the details.
Keeping the lights on
Running a site with nearly 10 million records, AI-powered features, and a growing community isn't free. There are server costs, search infrastructure, API fees, and the time I put into building new features.
Right now, Down The Road is completely free. My goal is to keep it that way for as long as possible. But to sustain future development and keep the site running, I may introduce an optional premium tier down the line.
If that happens, the core experience — searching records, browsing by place, reading about your ancestors — will always remain free. A premium tier would unlock additional tools for serious researchers, and help fund the development of everything listed below.
Coming soon
There's a long list of features I'm working on. Here's what's on the roadmap:
- Family Trees — Link people across census years and build out your family tree directly on the site.
- Griffith's Valuation — Add Griffith's Valuation records to complement the census data and extend coverage back to the 1840s-1860s.
- Historical Maps — Overlay census data onto Ordnance Survey maps so you can see exactly where your ancestors lived.
- Townland Deep Dives — Detailed pages for every townland with history, population trends, land use, and neighbouring areas.
- Record Corrections — Allow users to suggest corrections to transcription errors in census records.
- Export & Sharing — Export your research as PDF or GEDCOM. Share individual records or collections with family members.
- Advanced Search Filters — Filter by age, occupation, religion, literacy, and more — across all census years.
- Household Timelines — See how a household changed between 1901 and 1911 — who arrived, who left, who aged.
- Immigration Records — Cross-reference Irish census records with emigration and ship passenger lists.
- Android & Desktop Apps — Native apps for Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux.
- Notifications — Get notified when someone comments on a record you've saved, or when new features launch.
- Research Journals — Keep private notes and journals attached to people, places, and households.
Get in touch
If you have questions, feedback, feature requests, or just want to say hello, I'd love to hear from you. get in touch.
If you find a problem with a record or spot something that doesn't look right, use the report button on any page — it comes straight to me.