Townlands turn up in Irish research and nowhere else. It is an unusual term—as I type this article, every use of the word has a red underline. The spell check thinks two words have been run together by mistake. Set out on the trail of an Irish ancestor, however, and you will discover townlands.

It is easy enough to gather some basic facts about townlands. You will quickly learn that they are important for research because certain records were collected or recorded with townland as the basic division. Townlands are an ancient land unit and once numbered more than 60,000. However, finding them on maps can sometimes be difficult.

All of this is essentially true, but it leaves out much of the story—points which were brought home to me during a visit to Northern Ireland in April. Needing a change one afternoon, I abandoned my research and went to the Ulster Museum and there came across the 30 panels of a traveling exhibit, "Celebrating Ulster's Townlands." This explained a lot. The townland existed long before the 14th century, perhaps from as early as the 1100s. It was a meaningful entity, and it was how a small, local community identified itself. Townlands seemed to derive from what defined a family holding, and in some rural areas until recent times, the townland name was the postal address.

Boundaries of townlands were expressed in terms of notable natural or man-made features of the landscape, such as hilltops, rivers and streams, walls, or roads, and very often it was these features that became the names of townlands. Landmarks, trees, plants, and animals all appear among the names; Eglish (church), Fofanny (thistle place), and Rosnamuck (wood of the pigs) are three examples ("Celebrating Ulster's Townlands," by Kate Muhr, Ulster Place-Name Society, 1999).

The townland is the smallest administrative division, and all other divisions are made up of townlands. Anywhere from five to 30 townlands comprise one civil parish. In other words, size varies from the smallest, which is less than two acres, to the largest—more than 7,000 acres. This is an indication of land quality: the better land was divided into smaller townlands.

At the time of the Plantation of Ireland, part of the policy of resettlement was to introduce the English system of land tenure. In their leases, the proprietors described land according to townlands for the simple reason that there was in 1608 no proper survey of the confiscated areas. In addition, for the several general land surveys later in the 17th century, the townland was the basic land unit. Thus it became standard in land transactions, and estates were mapped with reference to townlands.

The first effort to create a generally accepted list of townland names came at the time of the Down Survey, 1655-59. This was the work of Sir William Petty, who took an interest in the ancient names and in retaining them, but who had a preference for expressing them in English. The list was published about 70 years ago as A Topographical Index of the Parishes and Townlands of Ireland in Sir William Petty's Manuscript Barony Maps 1655-59 (edited by Y.M. Goblet, Dublin, 1932).

Nearly 200 years later, the British government undertook a townland survey of Ireland to create a detailed mapping at a scale of six inches to the mile. The maps were to be supplemented with "aide-memoires," or written descriptions of details that could not fit on the plans. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs, completed only for the northern counties, were the result. On the maps, townlands were all marked, including some newly created, generally those identified with prefixes like Upper, Lower, North, South, etc. John O'Donovan was hired to standardize the names so that duplication was avoided. His workbooks survive in Ireland and can sometimes help in the identification of a place name. It was this official mapping that made permanent the townland names found in the various indexes, in particular the widely available General Alphabetical Index to the Townlands and Towns, Parishes and Baronies of Ireland Based on the Census of Ireland for the Year 1851 (originally published in 1861; reprinted, GPC, 1984).

Records based on townlands and commonly consulted by genealogists are census returns, tithe applotments, Griffith's Primary Valuation and subsequent valuations, taxes, deeds, the spinning wheel lists, rentals of estate lands, and maps. Knowing the townland where ancestors lived may prove significant in setting a family apart from others of the same surname. To be useful, however, the townland needs to be in context—what parish, barony, and county is it in? However, sometimes the problem is the reverse: the townland is unknown, and a record must be used to discover it.

To place a townland, begin with the one of the various indexes to townlands published in association with the census returns (one was mentioned above, and others can be found by referring to the Family History Library Catalog^TM under Ireland - Gazetteers). You can search for townlands on the Internet at an Irish townland page. Townlands can also be referenced according to the Poor Law Unions created in the middle of the 1800s (Townlands and Poor Law Unions, by G.B. Handran, Higginson, 1997).

If a family can be positively identified, then records such as valuations and tithe applotment books will indicate which townland a particular family lived in at that point in time. On the other hand, knowing the townland does not automatically pinpoint location. Among the 60,000 and more names, there is duplication. Also (though not such a difficult problem), it may not be possible to distinguish between a townland name and the name of the parish, e.g., Faughanvale Townland is in Faughanvale Parish in County Londonderry.

Knowing the townland focuses research, both geographically and with respect to records. As far as geography is concerned, one example is the modern discoverer/discovery series of maps—1:50,000 sheets issued by the Ordnance Survey offices of Ireland and Northern Ireland; these include townland names. For records, the Registry of Deeds is an example. It has an index to grantors and a place index based on townlands that allows searching by region, whether or not your ancestor was a likely grantor.

This article began with the traveling exhibit "Celebrating Ulster's Townlands," which started its journey in Fermanagh in 1999 and will wander in and out of Wales and southwest Scotland, as well as across Northern Ireland, into next year. It is the work of the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project, which comes under the Department of Celtic Studies at The Queen's University of Belfast. The Institute of Irish Studies at the university has published a Dictionary of Ulster Place-Names (Patrick McKay, 1999) and the first seven volumes of The Place-Names of Northern Ireland (so far covering Down and parts of Antrim and Derry).

Editor's Note: For those planning on visiting Ireland in the next few months, a schedule for the traveling exhibit "Celebrating Ulster's Townlands" is available online.

Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA (Scot) has been researching her British ancestry for thirty years. She founded Interlink Bookshop and Genealogical Services in 1988, and she currently lectures in Canada and the United States and is vice president of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Suggestions for future British genealogy articles can be sent to Sherry Irvine at: sherryirvine55@myfamily.com. Sherry will not be able to send personal replies, but she will feature some questions in upcoming issues of the Ancestry Daily News. She also regrets that she is unable to assist with personal research. Sherry is the author of Your Scottish Ancestry: A Guide for North Americans and Your English Ancestry: A Guide for North Americans.