IRL-CARLOW-L Archives
Archiver > IRL-CARLOW > 2007-08 > 1186620684
From:
Subject: Re: [IRL-CARLOW] Carlow Registry of Deeds
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 20:51:24 EDT
Hi Gail,
Tom presented some very useful information . Some of my experience is a tiny
bit different but there is one aspect that is important to know. Only a
tiny percentage of deeds (term which covers leases as well) were ever
registered. Most were registered only if there was some underlying reason (possible
litigation for example). Certainly there are instances where deeds were
routinely registered but I think those are in the minority. Another problem is that
generally the socio-economic level of the person registering the deed was
often at a somewhat higher level than many of the people that we are searching
for. Thus there might be a land transaction of some sort covering some
proportion of a townsland but this in turn might be sub-leased to several
individuals. Some families never registered deeds and some routinely did.
For example my family, in Rathanna, held leases for at one time or another
for several hundred acres of land (most of it mountain grazing land ) but in
any even they were at least a moderate level of strong farmer. There are no
registered deeds for any of these leases (over the 150 years that I checked).
Luckily I was able to find the original of a lease (in a book store in Dublin)
from about 1708 and there are mentions of leases in records in the Valuation
Office(but no leases per se) but nothing in the Registry. I have all the
Kavanagh Carlow Registered deeds abstracted and when you compare this number
with the large number of Kavanaghs in South Carlow alone who held leases you can
see that, in this sample, only about 1-2 % of the deeds/leases were ever
registered.
Personally I found the Land Index useful although I agree it's often hard to
read. The problem being that some surnames are very numerous and having to go
through each entry to see if your specific family is listed (often having to
order the microfilm to check) is time consuming. Since you know the
townsland then you can quickly check and see if the index is legible.
Good luck, hope you find something useful.
Gary Cavanaugh
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