Record Masterclass
Regular WDYTYA? researcher Nicola Morris explains what these records from the first half of the 19th century can reveal about your Irish kin
Nicola Morris tells us what we can learn about our Irish relations from 19th-century Tithe Applotment Books
Tithe Applotment Books (TABs) were compiled in Ireland between 1823 and 1837 for the purpose of assessing the monetary rate of the Tithe, a 10 per cent religious tax on the agricultural output of land in the country that was levied for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland. All of the agricultural lands in Ireland were surveyed and the name of the occupier, the size of their holding and the rate of the tithe were recorded.
Although they are not a comprehensive record of all households, the TABs are the earliest all-island source that documents occupiers of property in 19th-century Ireland. The relevant TAB can be used to determine whether a family, identified in Griffith’s Valuation (1847– 1864), was found in the same townland a generation earlier. By comparing the acreage and names of the neighbours from Griffith’s with the occupiers in the TAB, you can identify the lands of an earlier generation.
Note that only the head of the household was recorded and the Tithe was applied solely to agricultural land, which largely excludes urban areas and landless labourers and tradesmen.
Online Availability
There are a variety of indexes and images of the TABs available online. Unlike other 19th-century sources for Irish genealogy, the books have been divided between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
For the Republic of Ireland (ROI) there is an index of names and places published
‘There are a variety of indexes and images of the TABs available online’
at Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk)
in the collection ‘Ireland, Tithe Applotment Books, 1805–1837’. This index does not include the acreage, quality and valuation or other annotations from the original record. Half of the 26 counties for the ROI have been similarly indexed at Roots Ireland; see rootsireland. ie/help/help-census-substitutes.
The original TABs for the ROI were microfilmed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the images are freely available to search and browse on FamilySearch: familysearch. org/search/collection/1804886.
This same dataset was donated to the National Archives of Ireland where it can be freely accessed online at genealogy.nationalarchives.ie. This is one and the same collection transcribed by volunteers, and it contains a significant number of errors. Parishes have been listed in the wrong county and there are some serious mistakes in the transcription of townland and personal names, which makes the search function
very unreliable. Even accurate transcriptions of place names can pose problems, because their spelling was not standardised until the 1837 Ordnance Survey of Ireland. The use of wildcards is very much recommended, but the best approach is to browse the images for names and details.
For Northern Ireland there is an index for all six counties published at Roots Ireland where you can undertake an all-Ireland search or target a specific county. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has recently published digital images of the TABs for Northern Ireland, which can be accessed, via some complicated steps, through its online catalogue at apps. proni.gov.uk/eCatNI_IE. A guide to accessing these digital images, with links, is on
my website at timeline.ie/tithe-applotment-books-online. There is no option for a name search; researchers must instead download the book and browse for relevant entries manually.
The TABs were not exactly uniform, and the quality of information gathered varies. One book might only record the landlord as the Tithe payer, while another may contain detailed notes on each occupier. The common terms “& Co.” and “& partners” do not refer to a business arrangement, but to a group of tenants farming common land. Occasionally, the occupiers of urban property were enumerated and one surveyor recorded the trade or profession of each individual in a town. Some of the books include townland maps. There are also parishes for which the books do not survive. It is worth taking the time to fully investigate what details were recorded for your ancestor’s parish. The Tithe was a very unpopular tax because it was levied on Catholics for the support of a church to which they did not belong. Farmers began withholding their Tithe payments in 1830, and as this movement gained momentum there were outbreaks of violent conflict between tenants, Tithe collectors and clergymen. The ‘Tithe War’ was ended by the 1838 Tithe
Commutation Act, which transferred the burden of the Tithe from tenant farmer to landlord. Findmypast has a list of more than 29,000 Tithe defaulters for this period at search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-records/the-1831-tithe-defaulters.
NICOLA MORRIS is an Irish genealogist and the director of Timeline Research: timeline.ie
‘There was violent conflict between tenants, Tithe collectors and clergymen’