Family and Local History
[Bill Macafee's Website]

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

Valuation Records

Valuation records provide us with information on properties within a townland or a street. Remember the information on each of the properties was collected for taxation purposes. Despite this limitation, the records provide us with important place information on land, houses and people which:

  • allow us to see, exactly, where our ancestors lived during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries;
  • tell us something about the kind of properties our ancestors were inhabiting;
  • provide us with evidence of change in properties over a period covering c.1860 to the 1990s.
  • act as a substitute census for the missing official census records in Ireland. - read more.

The first general valuation of all houses and holdings in Ireland, officially known as the Primary Valuation of Ireland, was undertaken during the period 1846–64. This valuation became better known as the Griffith’s Valuation after the man in charge - Sir Richard Griffith [1784-1878]. Completion dates for the Griffith's Valuation vary throughout the country. Most in Ulster date from the late 1850s to the early 1860s. The Griffith's Valuation was revised "annually" during the period c.1860 to c.1930. A new General Revaluation of Northern Ireland took place in 1935 followed by subsequent revisions and revaluations up to 1993. There was also an earlier Townland Valuation carried out in the 1830s which, despite its limitations, can be of use to family and local historians - see diagram below.

As the diagram above shows, PRONI holds records relating to the valuation of property in Northern Ireland from the 1830s to 1993. See PRONI Information Leaflets - Valuation Records & Griffith's Valuation Records. The Griffith's 1846-64 Printed Valuation, with accompanying Six Inch Valuation Maps, for all of Ireland is available online at the askaboutireland website - read more. The c.1860-c.1930 Griffith's Valuation Revision Field Books are now available online from PRONI and cover the six counties of Northern Ireland. I have included direct links to these two sites plus the 1901/1911 Census website.

askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation 1846-64. c.1860-c.1930 Griffith's Valuation Revision Field Books. 1901/1911 Census.

Note that the askaboutireland.ie website, as well as providing copies of pages for every townland in Ireland with accompanying maps, is also an "exact match" database providing an important census substitute for the middle of the nineteenth century.

I have, therefore, created Excel and PDF databases for [.Co. Londonderry Excel PDF ] [North & Mid Antrim Excel PDF] [North &Mid Tyrone Excel PDF ] - the area of Ulster covered by this website. Here I have used standardised spellings which group together variant spellings of a name - read more.

For those of you not so familiar with Valuation Records, the tables below contain links to a number of explanatory read more papers on each of the valuations. I have included a rural and an urban example for each of the valuations covering the period c.1830 to c.1973, using the townland of Gorteade, near Upperlands in South Derry and in the case of a street in a town - Stone Row Upper in the Town of Coleraine. These examples should help you to read, understand and interpret the information in the various Valuation Books, link this book information to the Valuation Maps and, most importantly, match the numbering of properties and families in the Valuation Books and Maps to the numbering in the 1901 and 1911 Census Returns. It is probably best to begin with the rural example. Also, if you are a beginner to valuation records, I would recommend that you follow the order of the rural and urban examples as set out in the tables below.

Griffith's Printed Valuation [1846-64] - read more. Griffith's Valuation Field Books [VAL/2/B] - read more.

Townland of Gorteade, Parish of Maghera, Co. Londonderry. Stone Row Upper, Coleraine.

Valuation Revision Books [c.1860-c.1930] [Also known as the Griffith's Revision Books] - read more.

Townland of Gorteade, Parish of Maghera, Co. Londonderry. Stone Row Upper, Coleraine.

If you want to carry on looking for people and where they lived in a locality after 1930 then it will be necessary to switch to the Books and Maps of the General Revaluation of Northern Ireland. Note that these books and maps are only available in PRONI, Belfast.

General Revaluation of Northern Ireland [1935-1972] - read more.

Townland of Gorteade, Parish of Maghera, Co. Londonderry. Stone Row Upper, Coleraine.

If you want to go back in time to the earlier part of the nineteenth century then you will need to consult the 1830s Townland Valuation. Again, these are only available in PRONI, Belfast.

Townland Valuation [1830s] - read more.

Townland of Gorteade, Parish of Maghera, Co. Londonderry. Stone Row Upper, Coleraine.

Also, you might want to look at this webpage 1830s Townland Valuation [Examples of some townlands from Co. Londonderry and North Antrim] which contains copies of some pages from the 1830s Townland Valuation Books for a selection of townlands in Counties Antrim and Londonderry. There are also links on this page to the later c.1860 Griffith' s Valuation for each townland which will allow you to match some names and locations in the 1830s Townland Valuation with those in the later c.1860 Griffith's Valuation.

Here are some more rural and urban examples that I created for earlier versions of this website.

I used the townland of Seacon More, near Ballymoney to illustrate various points about the valuation records in rural areas 1830 to c.1930.

I have also added an urban example - Church Street, Coleraine.

Seacon More Intro. 1830s Townland Valuation. c.1860 Griffith's Valuation. c.1860-c.1930 Griffith's Revision Books.
Church Street, Coleraine. 1830s Townland Valuation. c.1860 Griffith's Valuation. c.1860-c.1930 Griffith's Revision Books. [PowerPoint]
Using the Griffith's Revision Books & accompanying Maps: Townland of Moyletra Toy, The Grove, DED, Co. Londonderry. [PDF]*

Locating Properties and Families within the Townland of Drumadreen, Gelvin DED, Co. Londonderry c.1860 to c.1901. [PDF]*

These two PDF papers* were written in 2012 and 2013, before the Revision Books became available online and, when reading, allowance has to be made for that fact.

 

Copyright 2020 W.Macafee.