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Researchers who spend time tracing their family in Ireland in
the mid-nineteenth century have generally had a chance to scrutinize
the useful survey known as "Griffith's
Valuation" or "Primary Valuation of Ireland, 1848-1864."
Now a new resource has been made available through a collaboration
of Genealogy.com, Heritage World, and Genealogical Publishing
Company. The Tithe Applotment Books cover only fifteen years,
but they are an excellent resource as they cover a time twenty
to forty years earlier than Griffith's Valuation.
The Tithe survey was similar to Griffith's Valuation in that both
were conducted in order to calculate the taxes owed by landowners. Unlike
Griffith's survey, however, the Tithe survey was conducted in order
to fund the Church of Ireland. Each landowner was taxed a specific amount
based on their holdings; the amount of that tax, or tithe, would then
be sent to the church. Information gathered during the survey included
the name of the landowner, parish, town, the size of their property,
the quality of their land, and the type of crops grown, if any.
Not every area was included in the Tithe survey; towns were
excluded, as was land which was occupied by clergymen, or land
which had previously belonged to a monastery. The Tithe Applotment
Books span approximately 2,000 volumes, and include approximately
200,000 entries for the six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry,
Down, Fermanagh, and Tyrone. More than two hundred parishes are
surveyed, and although the original books gathered information
about the landowner's property, the Family Archive concerns itself
with only the individual's name, county, parish, townland, and
year of the survey. Two examples are shown below:
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October
13, 1999
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Related Data on CD-ROM |
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