Tithe Applotment Books

The Composition Act of 1823 established that mandatory tithes to the Church of Ireland would henceforth be paid in money, rather than goods. This created an immediate need to conduct a land valuation of the entire country, at the civil parish level, to determine the tithe amounts due from each landholder. This survey was undertaken over the next 15 years, and tithes were then abruptly abolished in 1838.

The applotment surveys identified every landholder, and lists of townland, landholder and landlord names, size of holding, land quality (farming productivity), types of crops, and tithe amounts due. With census data for this period missing, the applotment surveys are as close as you can get to a census of pre-Famine Ireland.

Unlike so many other Irish records, the Tithe Survey does not omit the poorest citizens, who actually ended up paying a disproportionate share of the tithes. The value of the Survey is that it constitutes one of the few surviving sources of information on Ireland's large underclass.

Access to the full Tithe Books data is through microfilm copies held in the National Archives and the National Library of Ireland. The LDS Church also has copies of these records.

There is also an index to the Books, which omits some of the information, but lists the landholder's full name, plus his townland, parish, and county of residence. To determine whether your ancestors are listed in the Tithe Survey, you have the option to search the index to the Tithe Books at home: a CD contains the index results from 233 parishes, totaling approximately 200,000 entries. Visit www.genealogical.com for details. Data from this CD can be imported directly into the Family Tree Maker genealogical software.