Irish Census Records

A notation from - edmondsallan

Irish census records . // BDM records in certain date areas have always been difficult to find or to have accurracy . This journal is to explain and assist researchers to understand and where to search for the substitutes

Burned 1821, 1831, 1841, 1851 Irish Census Records & Substitutes

Apr 7, 2010 Jennifer Jensen
Substitues for Irish Census Records - Joel Dietle
Substitues for Irish Census Records - Joel Dietle
Early Irish census records were burned in the 1922 Four Courts fire. What substitutes will recreate this genealogical information to trace your family tree?

When religious records are scarce due to historic persecution, census records are even more important to genealogists. When those censuses have been destroyed, what substitutes are available?
Early Irish Censuses Burned During Civil War

War leaves many kinds of casualties, and archives and other records are no exception. In 1922, in the course of the Irish Civil War, there was an explosion and fire in the Four Courts Building where the Public Records Office was located. The vast majority of records were burned, but the following census fragments exist:

* 1821: parts of Counties Cavan, Fermanagh, Galway, Meath and Offaly (known as King’s County then).
* 1831: a few fragments for County Derry.
* 1841: only the Killeshandra parish, County Cavan.
* 1851: some parishes in County Antrim.

Transcriptions of 1841 and 1851 Irish Censuses

The good news is that when Great Britain instituted the Old Age Pension of 1908, some people used the 1841 and 1851 censuses as proof of age. These forms, taken from the original censuses, have survived and are available at the National Library of Ireland (NLI) for current Irish counties, and at Belfast’s Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) for the Northern Ireland counties.
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Also, some family historians prior to World War I used these two censuses for research, as well as some of the 1821 and 1831 Irish censues. Many of their transcriptions and abstracts were donated after 1922 to replace records lost in the fire. Two are notable: the Walsh-Kelly notebooks pertain largely to families in County Kilkenny, and the Thrift Abstracts have details on a variety of families and places. Both are held in the National Archives of Ireland (NAI) in Dublin.
Irish Census Substitutes

Records kept for other reasons become very valuable when census records are not available. The following are some of the main census substitutes. They may contain only names, but provide a location at a particular time, or they may also show details of religion or land, and occasionally family relationships.
1796 Spinning Wheel Survey of Ireland

To encourage farmers to grow flax, households were provided with spinning wheels or a loom, depending on how many acres of flax were planted. In 1796, the Irish Linen Board published the Flax Growers Bounty List (or Spinning Wheel Survey), with nearly 60,000 recipient names and their parishes. A microfiche index is available at PRONI, NAI and some major libraries around the world.
Read on

* How to Use Griffith's Valuation to Trace Irish Ancestors
* What is Griffith's Valuation, the Primary Valuation of Ireland?
* Destroyed Irish Census Records and Substitutes

Charleton Trust Fund Marriage Certificates

From 1792 to 1862, some of the working-class Protestants in Ireland were given gratuities to encourage marriage to build up the Protestant population. The fund covered County Meath and County Longford, as well as a few other areas. These certificates show not only the bride’s and groom’s names, but their occupations and their fathers’ names. An index is available in the NAI.
Reproductive Loan Fund Records

Short, frequent famine periods were common in Ireland, long before the Great Famine of the 1840s. Concerned groups in Great Britain set up local loan funds and gathered donations to loan to poor Irish families, the repayment of which would fund other loans – hence the title “Reproductive Loan Fund.” Hundreds of thousands of loans were made between 1824 and 1848, when the local records were returned to the Reproductive Institution headquarters in London.

Most of the records deal with Counties Clare, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Tipperary. Information in the records includes at least the recipient’s name and address, but also may include notes on their family, occupation, circumstances, and emigration, making them valuable for genealogy. This large collection of papers is now held at the National Archives in England, series T-91, but is not indexed.
Tithe Applotment Books

Irish landholders were required to pay tithes to the Church of Ireland, regardless of their own religions beliefs, from 1823 to 1838. The Tithe Applotment Books list these payments, showing the farmer, location, number of acres, and payment. In the 1830s, many non-conformists rebelled at paying tithes to the established church, and the resulting list of defaulters includes name, location, amount due, and sometimes occupation.

The Tithe Applotment Books are available on microfilm at the NAI and through the LDS Family History Library. PRONI also has copies pertaining to Northern Ireland counties.
National School Records, Irish Freeholder’s, Voter’s & Electoral Lists

National Schools were set up in 1831 for the elementary grades, and records into the 20th century are available. Freeholder lists, voter’s lists and electoral records were created throughout the 19th century. For information on these records, as well as other census substitutes for the 1861-1891 censuses, please read Destroyed Irish Census Records and Substitutes.
Sources: * Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors, Gill & Macmillan, 200* “Irish Pensions (1908-1922),” accessed 4/2/10.

• National Archives of Ireland
• The National Archives (England)

- Regards - edmondsallan