We can find your Personal Townland in Ireland

Using Griffith’s Valuations, we can find your family’s townland and maybe even the precise field and location of their homestead.

Griffith's Valuations Explained

The Griffith’s Valuation records have survived to date, and remain an incredible source of information from the 1850’s. Griffith’s Valuations are a complete record of the tenants and landlords, the property they occupied, the taxable valuation of every piece of land in Ireland around the 1850’s. Crucially, reference numbers are provided on the valuations and these references are then marked on ordinance survey maps used in the survey which have also survived intact.

All of these records can be searched for free at askaboutireland.com.

Not only can you find out the occupants of each townland, but also the precise site of their house, or the exact fields they farmed. The Griffith’s Valuations are therefore an incredibly important reference for what we are creating at Creeore.com. We are preparing 1901 Census records by location, and once you have that information when your purchase our GEDCOM files, you can use Griffith’s Valuations to see if the families in the towns and townlands in 1901 lived in those townlands fifty years earlier when the valuations were completed.

Here is an excellent 12 minute video from Youtube’s Roam Your Roots channel explaining exactly where to find Griffith’s Valuations online and what the reference numbers mean on the Griffith’s Valuations.

In the second video, you are shown how to find the specific precise location on the map of the person named and referenced in the Griffith’s Valuation. Watch the video to the end (it’s only 12 minutes) and you’ll be shown special features for searching towns and also for finding descriptive references included in the Name Books.

Google search can be used to find the townlands, and the narrator of this video does just that. But there is a more precise resource available which is also free. I have provided the details below. The maps are great too.

The Free Source for precise Townland identification

I use the free source at www.townlands.ie to find my townlands, some of which have alternative spellings. Here is a link Townlands in Ireland

You can search by county, and then within each county it will provide maps, either by Barony, Civil Parish, Electoral Division or just the townland, like Ballyfarsoon townland outside Monasterevin Co. Kildare. Everytime you drive on the M7 motorway bypass of Monasterevin, you’ll spend a few seconds in the townland of Ballyfarsoon. So now you know!