Category Archives: Census Returns

Who Was Christmas Weeks

Just before the Index of Irish Wills 1484-1858 was published I was working with the editorial team. One of my tasks was to search through the original database for possible errors in the transcription of names. If you order all of the entries alphabetically it is easy to see where anomalous names turn up. In this instance, it was not anomalous, but

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Surprises in the Tithe Applotment Books

The Tithe Applotment Books are a nationwide survey of property undertaken between 1823 and 1838 for the purpose of assessing the rate of the Tithe, a religious tax that was levied for the upkeep of the established church, the Church of Ireland. The Tithe was levied on certain types of agricultural land and as such the survey is certainly not as comprehensive

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DEDs and the Valuation Office

If you have the chance to visit the Valuation Office in Dublin to consult the Valuation Office Revision Books you will have discovered that a large part of their collection has now been digitised and can be accessed using the computer terminals in the public research room. Original copies of the books that have been digitised will not now be produced

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Old Irish Family Letters

Detective work can sometimes be one of the most appealing aspects of Irish genealogy. If you are lucky enough to find old family letters sent from Ireland to emigrant siblings, children, cousins or neighbours, it might be time to put your detective hat on. Old family letters can contain all sorts of clues that could identify your family origins in Ireland.

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The 1916 Children: Death of O’Toole

The team at Timeline carried out some of the research for the Joe Duffy documentary, Children of the Revolution, which aired on RTE on Easter Sunday 2016.  The documentary looks at the circumstances in which children were killed during the 1916 Rising. One child who died during the Rising was a young man named O’Toole (no first name given). On

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