Media: BOOK - paperback, 184 pages
Author: C. Paton
Year: 2021
ISBN: 978156780218
Other: b&w photos, further reading, index
Publisher: Pen and Sword

The history of Ireland is one that was long dominated by the question of land ownership, with complex and often distressing tales over the centuries of dispossession and colonisation, religious tensions, absentee landlordism, subsistence farming, and considerably more to sadden the heart. Yet with the destruction of much of Ireland's historic record during the Irish Civil War, and with the discriminatory Penal Laws in place in earlier times, it is often within land records that we can find evidence of our ancestors' existence, in some cases the only evidence, where the relevant vital records for an area may never have been kept or may not have survived.

In Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, genealogist and best-selling author Chris Paton explores how the surviving records can help with our ancestral research, but also tell the stories of the communities from within which our ancestors emerged. He explores the often controversial history of ownership of land across the island, the rights granted to those who held estates and the plights of the dispossessed, and identifies the various surviving records which can help to tease out the stories of many of Ireland's forgotten generations.

Along the way Chris Paton identifies the various ways to access the records, whether in Ireland's many archives, local and national, and increasingly through a variety of online platforms.

Contents:
Introduction
Timeline
1. The Lie of the Land
 - National Archives of Ireland
 - Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
 - The National Archives (UK)
 - National Library of Ireland
 - Local archives, libraries and museums
 - Valuation Office
 - Property Registreation Authority
 - Land and Property Services
 - Irish Manuscripts Commission
 - Irish Architectural Archive
 - Other heritage services
 - Place names
 - Gateway websites
 - Commercial websites
 - Family history and local studies societies
 - Professional genealogists
 - Ye don't ask, ye don't get!
2. A Brief History of Ireland
 - Gaels, Vikings and Old English
 - The Tudor Conquest
 - The Plantation of Ulster
 - A War in Three Kingdoms
 - Rebellion, union and more rebellion
 - Land War and Reform
 - The Partitioned Island
3. Boundaries and Administration
 - The island or Ireland
 - Provinces and counties
 - Counties corporate and county boroughs
 - Baronies and civil parishes
 - Townlands
 - Other historic land divisions
 - Poor Law Unions and District Electoral Divisions
 - Civil registration
 - Converting administrative law
 - Religious parishes, dioceses and ecclesiastical provinces
 - Manors and demenses
 - Grand Juries
 - Units of measurement
4. Where Were They?
 - Vital records
 - The 1813 Census
 - Decennial census records (1821-1851)
 - Census Extracts for Old Age Pension Applicatins
 - Decennial census records (1861-1891)
 - Decennial census records (1901-1911)
 - Subsequent censuses
 - Census reports
 - 1939National Identity Register (Northern Ireland)
 - Earlier censuses
 - Early taxation
 - Ecclesiastical censuses
 - Street directories
 - Electoral records
 - Newspapers
5. Valuation Surveys
 - The Down Survey of Ireland
 - Tithe records
 - Townland Valuation
 - Valuation field work
 - Tenement Valuation (Griffith's Valuation)
 - Valuation appeals
 - Valuation Revsion Books / Cancelled Land Books
 6. Tenancy and Ownership
 - Estate records
 - Freeholders
 - Leases
 - Rental records
 - The Quit Rent Office
 - Manor records
 - Inheritance laws
 - Probate records
 - Finding pre-1858 probate records
 - Post-1857 probate records
 - The Registry of Deeds
 - Landowners in Ireland 1876
 - Irish Land Commission
 - The Land Registry
 - Church land commissions
7. A sense of place
 - Irish Historic Towns Atlas
 - Ordnance Survey maps
 - Ordnance Survey Memoirs
 - Gazetteers, journals and parish histories
Further reading
Index