This Irish Genealogy site offers the Irish descendant (from New York, Canada, UK, Australia...) the chance to trace their Irish family tree and search for their surname origins and the records of their Irish ancestor's birth, marriage or death.

Kyle J. Betit is a professional genealogist, lecturer and author residing in Salt Lake City, Utah. Kyle specializes in Irish and immigration research. Kyle Betit is Research Director of ProGenealogists, Inc., in Salt Lake City and the author of the Irish Genealogy Pages at http://ireland.progenealogists.com

Landholding in Ireland
Many of our Irish ancestors were tenant farmers who rented or leased their land directly from a landowner or indirectly from a "middleman." Only a small proportion of people in Ireland (perhaps about 2% in the nineteenth century) owned their land outright (referred to as holding your land "in fee."). They consisted primarily of the nobility and landed gentry. There could be several layers of middlemen engaged in subleasing, between the individual who actually owned the land and your ancestor. Tenants’ arrangements with their landlords were vitally important in the tenants’ lives. Land holding arrangements affected economic prosperity, the nature of farming, inheritance and emigration patterns.

One type of lease that was common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, having great potential for genealogical information, was the "lease for lives." A "lease for lives" remains in effect as long as the specific person(s) named in the lease are still living. As soon as all of the "lives" named in the lease have died, the lease ends. Alternatively, a lease could be granted for a set number of years (such as 31 years, 100 years, or 999 years). A tenant could also rent from year to year without holding a lease of any kind.

The “lease of lives” was also important because if you held such a lease and your land was of enough value, you had the right to vote as a “freeholder.” You can find extensive information about freeholders, freemen, and voting records on this web site: http://ireland.progenealogists.com/freeholders.htm . Also available there is an inventory of many of the freeholders, freemen, and voting records that survive and are available to researchers, for each county in Ireland.

During the period of the penal laws in the 1700s, Roman Catholics in Ireland were restricted in terms of the kinds of land holding into which they could enter. They were restricted from purchasing land or taking our leases longer than 31 years. They were not, however, restricted from continuing to own land that they had in their possession prior to the institution of the penal laws. In the chronology below, you can find some of the important dates in the history of the penal laws.

The Registry of Deeds was set up in Dublin in 1708 for the recording of deeds, although it was not compulsory to register them, so many went unregistered. The Land Commission assisted many tenant farmers in purchasing the land they occupied from the large landowners, through the various Land Purchase Acts, 1881 to 1923. In 1892, the Land Registry was established to provide a system of compulsory registration of land titles. Once under the jurisdiction of the Land Registry, records of a particular plot of land are no longer found in the Registry of Deeds. Many unregistered deeds (pertaining to ownership and leasing) from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, in addition to rent rolls and other materials, can be found in the private papers of the landowners of Ireland, many of which have been deposited in various repositories in Ireland and Britain.

The Penal Laws

1695 -- Anti-Catholic legislation began in Ireland.

1704 -- The Irish Parliament, exclusively Protestant, enacted a Bill "To Prevent the Further Growth of Popery" which restricted Catholics from purchasing land or taking out leases longer than 31 years.

1772 -- An Act of emancipation allowed Catholics to reclaim and hold 50 acres of bog under lease for 61 years but it could not be within a mile of any city or market town.

1774 -- An Act was passed to permit the King's subjects of whatever religion to take an oath to testify their loyalty and allegiance to him to promote peace and industry in the kingdom. Records were kept of those who took the oath, referred to as the Catholic Qualification Rolls.

1778 -- A Relief Act was passed for Catholics who took the oath prescribed in 1774.

1782 -- A Relief Act allowed Catholics who took the 1774 oath to purchase lands in fee, that is, outright ownership.

1793 -- A Relief Act gave Catholics the vote on the same basis as Protestants and admitted them to the university and government offices.

1829 -- The Catholic Relief Bill was passed. Catholics were admitted to Parliament and local government corporations. Further, the franchise was raised to ten pounds, so the forty?shilling freeholders no longer could vote.

Registry of Deeds

Land transactions in Ireland were registered with the Registry of Deeds in Dublin beginning in 1708. Because registration was not mandatory, not all land transactions were registered. In the Registry of Deeds you may find deeds of sale, lease agreements, marriage settlements, and wills, among other kinds of transactions. The massive collection of records of the Registry of Deeds from 1708?1929, and the corresponding Surname Index and Lands (or County) Index, are available on microfilm from the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City. The Registry of Deeds on Henrietta Street in Dublin holds books of deed memorials dating 1708 to present and microfilm copies from 1930 to present.

Surname Index: There is a personal name index to the grantors of land (those who sold the land or leased it to others), but not to the grantees.

Lands Index: The other index, called the Lands Index or County Index, is arranged geographically, divided by county or city and time period and then grouping townland names together by first letter. Using this index, you can examine all of the deeds relating to a particular townland.

Further Reading

Agnew, Jean. "The Registry of Deeds: A Beginner’s Guide." In Aspects of Irish Genealogy III: Proceedings of the Third Irish Genealogical Congress, edited by Christopher Ryan. Dublin: Irish Genealogical Congress Committee, 1999.

Grenham, John. Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide. 2nd Ed. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan Ltd., 1999.

Maxwell, Ian. Tracing Your Ancestors in Northern Ireland: A Guide to Ancestry Research in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. Edinburgh: The Stationery Office, 1997.

Radford, Dwight A. and Kyle J. Betit. “Land Records.” In A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your Irish Ancestors, 231-238. Cincinnati, OH: Betterway Books, 2001.

Trench, Richard Chenevix. Grace’s Card: Irish Catholic Landlords 1690-1800. Cork: Mercier Press, 1997.

Vaughan, W.E. Landlords and Tenants in Mid-Victorian Ireland. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.

Web Sites for More Information

Registry of Deeds (Irish Ancestors, The Irish Times)
http://www.ireland.com/ancestor/browse/records/deeds/

Registry of Deeds (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland)
http://www.proni.gov.uk/records/deeds.htm

Irish Land Records, by Kyle Betit (2001), in The Global Gazette
http://globalgenealogy.com/globalgazette/gazkb/gazkb68.htm

Land and Property (The Northern Ireland Online Genealogy Centre)
http://www.nireland.com/genealogy/land_and_property.html

Irish Penal Laws, by M. Patricia Schaffer (2000)
http://www.law.umn.edu/irishlaw/

Addresses

Family History Library: 35 North West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84150, USA; British Isles Ref Tel: (801) 240-2367; Internet: http://www.familysearch.org
Registry of Deeds: Henrietta Street, Dublin 1, Ireland; Tel: (01) 6707500; Fax: (01) 8048408; Internet: http://www.landregistry.ie/

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