PENSEAR.ORG - R.I.P.

[Andy]

Just tried to get onto the very helpful - used to be free - site. Up pops Ireland-Genealogy.com a pay site.

Won't go into the history, but if an Irish, particularly Catholic, ancestor was born pre-1839 and survived until Pensions started in 1909, because Statutory Records only started in 1864 the 1841 and 1851 census returns were opened to check ages.

For a free site, Pensear was excellent because the kind souls there had transcribed all the Pension Petitions which included entries from the 1841 and 1851 census returns. It was possible to VIEW results from a given County showing the actual location and any other family members in the 1841 and 1851 census returns. If there was a maiden name involved in the search these were cross referenced. It was fairly easy to find who you were looking for.

However, if you KNOW your great-great granny, Mary Stewart, lived to collect a pension in 1909 in Antrim a search on the new site yields 16 results at £2 a pop. There is no way to narrow the search by location - it's a pain in the region about two feet down from the neck! The "Extended Search" for the same name yields 48 results so it may cost £96 to track the individual.

Best of luck!

[Elwyn 1]

Until the 1930s, the pension was means tested and you had to be of good character. So not everyone who had reached the qualifying age of 70 necessarily applied or got a pension. Helpful to know if you can’t find someone who you expect to be listed.

If your ancestor lived in what is now Northern Ireland, copies of the pension census look up requests, and the relevant responses from the Custom House Dublin (where the censuses were held) are now held in PRONI, Belfast and can be accessed there free. However they are not indexed and it takes a while to go through them all.