Wednesday 27 April 2016

Unindexed Valuation Books are on Family Search

Peramblation Book for the parish of Killedan,
Barony of Gallen, County Mayo - on FamilySearch
You know the Valuation Books I keep having to mention – the House, Quarto and Field books that have been in the Promise Pipe for a couple of years but still haven't made it to the open end...? (See the most recent blogpost on the subject.)

Well, while I've no update on the likely date of their release in a digitised and indexed format on the National Archives of Ireland's free Genealogy website, I've been reminded (many thanks, John Schnelle) that the House, Field, Quarto and Tenure books were microfilmed back in 2001/2 by the Genealogical Society of Utah/Family Search and are available to view online via the Family Search catalogue. The films are arranged by county, barony, parish and townland.

Having spent a good part of last evening browsing through the sets for the books for the Barony of Ibane & Barryroe, where my paternal family originate and still live, I can tell you that exploring these books is a slowish process. But if you're really eager to see what's coming, or simply can't wait any longer, AND you know the locality you want to view, it's fairly easy to work your way towards the correct section of images.

After quite a bit of too-ing and fro-ing through the images, I got my reward, finding a clue (quite a good clue, I think) to the name of my great great grandmother's father. I've not explored beyond church records before for this particular ancestor; my casual browse may well have delivered an extra generation. Verifying it may require a more determined effort!