Find Irish Kin
Use a 19th-century tax record to locate your family
If your ancestor was the head of a household in Ireland in the 1850s then Griffith’s Valuation can be used to establish the family’s townland address (the smallest denomination of land in Ireland), exact location of their home, and description of their property.
The valuation is the final part of a survey of property in Ireland that commenced in 1825 with the establishment of the Boundary Department of Ireland, followed in 1826 by the Townland Valuation
Act. The purpose was to create an accurate record of the exact measurement and value of land and buildings in each townland, in order to implement an equitable system of taxing property. The eponymous Richard Griffith was the chief boundary officer and commissioner for valuation.
The records created during these early surveys are the maps, name books, letter books and memoirs of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and the perambulation, field, house, tenure, quarto and rent books of the Valuation Office, which are an important complement to Griffith’s Valuation. The Valuation Office books have been published online by the National Archives of Ireland ( census. nationalarchives.ie/search/ vob/home.jsp), while the printed Ordnance Survey material can be found in the National Library of Ireland in Dublin ( nli.ie) and the maps are online at map.
geohive.ie/mapviewer.html. If you want to see the original 1837 maps, click ‘Base Information and Mapping’ in the ‘Data Catalogue’ panel at the top left of the screen, then select ‘Historic Map 6 inch Colour (1837–1842)’.
‘Griffith’s Valuation’ is the nickname of the Primary Valuation of Tenements, which commenced in 1847 and brought together the information previously collected on the size, quality and value of property. The valuation was organised by tenement and recorded the name of the occupier, their landlord, and the type, size and value of the land and buildings. The data was organised by townland, civil parish, barony and county. Nearly every property was subject to valuation, and the completed valuations were printed and published by barony. The title page for each barony recorded the date of publication.
Griffith’s Valuation is a comprehensive record of nearly every household in Ireland, but publication took 17 years and was only completed in 1864. So Griffith’s is not an accurate record of the population at one specific time, and you could find the same occupier listed in two locations.
The published valuations were one of the first digitised resources for Irish family history to go online, and are at Findmypast ( bit.ly/ findmypast-griffiths) and the free website Ask About Ireland ( askaboutireland.ie/ griffith-valuation). Both sites allow searches by personal name or place name, although Ask
About Ireland requires the exact spelling of personal names. Both also allow you to browse images for each published barony.
You can access Griffith’s maps at Findmypast which in most cases illustrate the boundaries of each numbered lot. The maps on Ask About Ireland are described as Griffith’s maps, but actually date from the 1880s and 1890s, by which time boundaries and lot numbers may have changed.
The valuation recorded the occupier and their landlord. The occupier is the person responsible for paying the tax on the property, usually the head of the household. If your ancestor was living in the house of their father, grandfather or widowed mother, they will not appear. Most women in Griffith’s were widows who took over their husband’s property.
The landlord was described as the immediate lessor, the person who collected rent. However, they may have been a middleman rather than the owner. Anyone who appears in the valuation with their immediate lessor described as “in fee” is the property owner. If your ancestor leased their property from the in-fee owner, it is worth searching for personal estate records that document the tenants.
In a townland where there were several people with the same name, ‘agnomens’ – technically, extra names – were included to tell them
apart. Most often “junior” or “senior” was added to distinguish between a father and son, but other identifiers, such as the personal name of a tenant’s father, the maiden name of a widow, the hair colour or a similar detail about a tenant’s appearance, and their occupation, were also used.
The description is useful too. The occupier of a house with no land was more likely a labourer, tradesman or professional than a farmer. The value indicates a family’s wealth. Comparing the value of similarly sized holdings in different parts of the county can help you to determine the quality of farm land in each area.
NICOLA MORRIS
is the director of genealogical firm Timeline ( timeline.ie) and a regular researcher for WDYTYA?
‘The published valuations were one of the first Irish resources to go online’