Intermediate Irish Records

Researching land and deed records can be a bit frustrating due to the difficulty in access and use. In addition, researchers fail to understand their indirect significance when correlating and connecting family members, when determining pre-emigration identity, parentage, and origins of the emigrant.

This course discusses:

• issues when using land records which began in 1708 
• the historical background of land tenure
• general contents of records and availability
• strategies for effectively researching and accessing record collections

You will learn about deeds, valuation surveys, records involving landed estates, encumbered estates, freehold records, land commission, registry records, some special collections, and some collections which precede 1708 to early 12th century. Several examples are provided.

Many sources referenced are available through FamilySearch and Irish repositories.

Course Length: 7 weeks

Historical: This course was formerly Irish: Land Administration Records, originated July 2002, final version copyright August 2022. Current version is titled Irish: Land and Property Records, copyright is August 2025. 

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Optional Print Course Material: Irish: Major Printed Sources

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

Printed sources can be contemporary to the period documented and often more reliable than later secondary sources for the same period. However, few are indexed and there tend to be large periods where even the printed sources themselves are not available. In Ireland, where many of the records have been destroyed or lost, what have survived are sporadic and incomplete. Contemporary-period printed sources by way of newspapers, directories, journals and local histories, occupational and society records often help establish human life events that may not be documented anywhere else. This course will discuss these printed sources available, information contained and their value, the challenges in accessing or using these records, locating source records, and discussing available bibliographies, indexes, and abstracts. 

Optional Print Course Material: Irish: Monumental (Gravestone) Inscriptions

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

An excellent record source that connects major life events of birth and death to known and unknown family members is transcriptions of tombstones or what are more globally known at ''monumental inscriptions'' and in Ireland, ''memorials of the dead''.  They often provide the only clues as to births and deaths of family members as they precede or out-survive other forms of primary and secondary source information. 

The course will discuss the value of these records, the time periods of their existence and use, an important review of the contents found in them as well as a discussion on their availability and access to them in, and outside of, Ireland.  In addition, we will seek to discuss and uncover some of the more indirect elements of monumental inscription understanding.  Several examples will be examined.  A case study will also be presented.

Optional Print Course Material: Irish: Testamentary Source Records

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

Probably no record group is more important to pre-civil registration research in a country than wills and estate administrations. More than any other record, wills can provide both ancestral and descendant accounts of family groupings. In Ireland we tend to see less documentation than in other countries due to the way personal and moveable property descended over time.

This course addresses this record group, both pre-1858 before the system of administration changed, and post-1858 to the present date. We will discuss the value of these records during both these time periods, historical background to their development, examine the contents and availability of the records in both periods, and research strategies for these collections.