Griffith's Valuation, 1847-1864
Richard Griffith
What is this record collection and when was it published?
Let's start with the man. Sir Richard Griffith [1784-1878] was engaged to survey all of Ireland with respect to boundaries and land values in the 1820's as Ireland attempted to reform local taxation and in particular implement the Poor Law rate. He was in fact a geologist and was keenly interested in the quality of the agricultural land in order to arrive at his valuations. He strictly managed a team of valuers who scoured the country gathering the requisite information and published it on a county by county basis to form what is more correctly known as the Primary Valuation of Ireland, but has become labelled more colloquially with his moniker as Griffith's Valuation (GV).
It is very important to note the publication date for any county as the data could have been gathered over a period of perhaps several years before this date and all later updates will have to be searched for elsewhere (See Valuation Revision Books, 1847-1864+.) Most of the dates below come from Claire Santry's useful GV Publication Dates map on her website. This pictorial representation also illustrates how the valuers roughly worked their way anti-clockwise around the country (although Co. Tyrone appears to be a bit out of step?)
Let's start with the man. Sir Richard Griffith [1784-1878] was engaged to survey all of Ireland with respect to boundaries and land values in the 1820's as Ireland attempted to reform local taxation and in particular implement the Poor Law rate. He was in fact a geologist and was keenly interested in the quality of the agricultural land in order to arrive at his valuations. He strictly managed a team of valuers who scoured the country gathering the requisite information and published it on a county by county basis to form what is more correctly known as the Primary Valuation of Ireland, but has become labelled more colloquially with his moniker as Griffith's Valuation (GV).
It is very important to note the publication date for any county as the data could have been gathered over a period of perhaps several years before this date and all later updates will have to be searched for elsewhere (See Valuation Revision Books, 1847-1864+.) Most of the dates below come from Claire Santry's useful GV Publication Dates map on her website. This pictorial representation also illustrates how the valuers roughly worked their way anti-clockwise around the country (although Co. Tyrone appears to be a bit out of step?)
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John Grenham published a neat little trick to getting to Griffith's Valuation volume title pages on his blog, which you can also use to check publication dates when you find a page of interest on AskAboutIreland (see below.) With a little help from a kind correspondent, this is how I arrived at the proposed revised date above of 1860 for Co. Tyrone.
Where can you access these records online?
There is apparently some debate as to who has the most complete set of records for this collection, with Find My Past claiming first prize. Several of the other main online subscription sites also have transcripts including RootsIreland. However, if you want free access to transcripts, original images and maps then the AskAboutIreland Griffith's Valuation is the best site to use. You can search by name or by place and there are some good help pages on the same site. The search interface is a bit unforgiving and you will have to plug away with different variants of place names for example as wild cards are not implemented.
There is apparently some debate as to who has the most complete set of records for this collection, with Find My Past claiming first prize. Several of the other main online subscription sites also have transcripts including RootsIreland. However, if you want free access to transcripts, original images and maps then the AskAboutIreland Griffith's Valuation is the best site to use. You can search by name or by place and there are some good help pages on the same site. The search interface is a bit unforgiving and you will have to plug away with different variants of place names for example as wild cards are not implemented.
What can you expect to find in the records?
There are several excellent articles online that explain the history and composition of these records in much more detail - e.g. John Grenham for AskAbout Ireland, Claire Santry's Griffith's Valuation pages and a paper by James Reilly on the Leitrim-Roscommon genealogy page.
Briefly, the records are organised by townlands within parishes within baronies within counties, listing the current landholder and from whom they directly leased the land if they did not own it themselves. There will also be a very general description of the land in a few words (House, Land, Yard, Garden etc.), its extent in Irish acres(A), roods(R) and perches(P) and an indication of the estimated annual income for taxation purposes. There will also be a map reference - more on that below.
Things to look out for;
There are several excellent articles online that explain the history and composition of these records in much more detail - e.g. John Grenham for AskAbout Ireland, Claire Santry's Griffith's Valuation pages and a paper by James Reilly on the Leitrim-Roscommon genealogy page.
Briefly, the records are organised by townlands within parishes within baronies within counties, listing the current landholder and from whom they directly leased the land if they did not own it themselves. There will also be a very general description of the land in a few words (House, Land, Yard, Garden etc.), its extent in Irish acres(A), roods(R) and perches(P) and an indication of the estimated annual income for taxation purposes. There will also be a map reference - more on that below.
Things to look out for;
- Your relative may appear as an "Immediate Lessor".
- If you are related to an aristocratic land owning family then seeing "Earl Fitzwilliam" for example, listed in this column makes sense.
- However, many large land-holders delegated the leasing of their land through land-agents who handled the sub-letting of smaller plots, so you may find the agents' names repeated many times in this column.
- Your relative may also have sub-let a small section of their leased land to others for subsistence purposes and you will generally find them listed as a tenant and then as a lessor immediately below.
- There may be no Immediate Lessor listed and instead you may find legal terms such as "In Fee" (owned outright) or "In Chancery" (subject to a current legal process.)
- If the tenant is listed as "Reps. of {name}", then the last land holder named has died and his estate is being looked after by his administrators or executors - try to hunt for a burial or monumental inscription nearby in the preceding years to publication.
- One person's land holdings might have been spread around a parish or even in the neighbouring county - look out for the tenement that has a house built on it for where your relative actually lived as the other holdings may just be fields ... or in the case of one of my ancestors, most of a mountain in Co. Wicklow!
Contemporary map for Griffith's Valuations - image sourced via www.askaboutireland.ie
Where can I locate the land holding on a map?
Each record will have a map reference associated with it consisting of an Ordnance Survey of Ireland (OSI) Sheet Number with a number and optionally a letter. Chose one of the map view icons and you will be able to zoom in on historical maps that have the townlands outlined in thick red lines and the land holdings within them outlined in fainter red lines and with the corresponding numbers and letters assigned to them. The picture will flicker between this version and a modern version as you zoom in and you can use the slider to go to a modern map if you are struggling to locate a parish or townland on a bigger map.
Unfortunately on the historical maps, you'll have to squint a bit at the underlying faint text to make sure you're looking at the right townland and the maps are littered with parish names writ large across many townlands in bigger fonts too. However, you will be able to see the detail of buildings, field boundaries, roads etc. Note, that although these maps accompany the Griffith's Valuation which was published between 1847 and 1864, these maps are believed to be a bit older (latter decades of the 19th Century), but they are better than nothing and even better because they are free!
Find My Past does have a separate collection entitled Griffith's Surveys Maps and Plans, 1847-1864 (£=FMP) which apparently contains the original maps used by the valuers complete with some edge annotations. However, personally, I have struggled to use these as they are very faint black and white images.
How should you work forwards or backwards from Griffith's Valuation?
The most obvious next collection to work forward into are the Valuation Revision Books, 1847-1864+, which I have written about on the Valuation Office page. This is where you will find out whether the land stayed in the family or was sold off or the leases not renewed. Unfortunately, you won't find out easily if your relatives acquired new lands or leases as names are not indexed, but you could try exploring the wider parish to see if you can find anything.
If you cannot access the Revision Books, then try exploring the Return of Land Owners, 1876, to see if the same person is named, again carefully bearing in mind the publication date for the county because the gap could be up to 30 years.
To establish how long the land has been in the family try working back into the Registry of Deeds Memorial Deeds, either via the Grantors indexes searching on the Immediate Lessors' names or perhaps more successfully, via the townland indexes.
The Tithe Applotment Books, 1823-1837 were compiled approximately 20-40 years prior to Griffith's Valuation (GV), depending upon when the county valuation was published and / or had the tithe responsibilities recorded. So, notwithstanding the Names Health Warning I gave you, is it the same person in both sources or was it their father or grandfather? If a woman is listed for a small sub-let plot in a townland, could she be a widow and her now deceased husband is listed as liable for the tithe on a larger plot?
The most obvious next collection to work forward into are the Valuation Revision Books, 1847-1864+, which I have written about on the Valuation Office page. This is where you will find out whether the land stayed in the family or was sold off or the leases not renewed. Unfortunately, you won't find out easily if your relatives acquired new lands or leases as names are not indexed, but you could try exploring the wider parish to see if you can find anything.
If you cannot access the Revision Books, then try exploring the Return of Land Owners, 1876, to see if the same person is named, again carefully bearing in mind the publication date for the county because the gap could be up to 30 years.
To establish how long the land has been in the family try working back into the Registry of Deeds Memorial Deeds, either via the Grantors indexes searching on the Immediate Lessors' names or perhaps more successfully, via the townland indexes.
The Tithe Applotment Books, 1823-1837 were compiled approximately 20-40 years prior to Griffith's Valuation (GV), depending upon when the county valuation was published and / or had the tithe responsibilities recorded. So, notwithstanding the Names Health Warning I gave you, is it the same person in both sources or was it their father or grandfather? If a woman is listed for a small sub-let plot in a townland, could she be a widow and her now deceased husband is listed as liable for the tithe on a larger plot?
(c) Irish Geneaography - 2021
