Griffith’s Valuation: The Irish Land Survey That Can Pinpoint Your Ancestor’s Exact Farm

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Griffith’s Valuation is a property survey conducted across Ireland between 1847 and 1864 that records the name of every head of household on every plot of land in the country — roughly 1.5 million entries covering all 32 counties. If your ancestors lived in Ireland at any point during that 17-year window, there is a very good chance Griffith’s records them by name, locates their farm or house to a specific townland, and tells you exactly what they occupied and what it was worth. The survey is entirely free to search online via the AskAboutIreland Griffith’s Valuation database — no subscription, no paywall. For the 70 million people worldwide who claim Irish ancestry, it remains one of the single most powerful starting points in genealogical research.

Here is the shareable fact that surprises most researchers: because the Public Record Office fire of 1922 destroyed almost all of Ireland’s 19th-century census returns, Griffith’s Valuation now functions as the de facto substitute census for an entire generation of Irish people — covering a population of roughly 6.5 million people at a moment when famine and mass emigration were reshaping the country forever.

This guide explains what the valuation records contain, how to search them effectively, and how to combine them with companion surveys to build a precise picture of where your family lived. If you are planning a trip to Ireland to visit ancestral areas, this record set is your best tool for identifying the right townland before you arrive.

What Is Griffith’s Valuation and Why Does It Matter?

Sir Richard Griffith was Ireland’s Commissioner of Valuation. The British government commissioned him to produce a complete survey of all rateable property in Ireland — farmland, buildings, quarries, fisheries — so that local taxes could be calculated fairly across each county. The survey ran county by county from 1847 (starting in Munster) and finished in Ulster in 1864, with some counties resurveyed more than once.

Each entry in the valuation records the following information:

• Townland — the smallest administrative unit in Ireland, typically covering 100–400 acres
• Name of the occupier — the person actually living on or farming the land
• Name of the immediate lessor — the person from whom they held the land (often a landlord or an agent)
• Description of the property — house, office (outbuildings), land
• Area in statute acres, roods, and perches
• Net annual value — the taxable value of the property, expressed in pounds, shillings, and pence

That combination of occupier name, lessor name, and townland is extraordinarily useful for genealogical research. Find your ancestor in the valuation and you know exactly where they lived — not just the county or the parish, but the specific townland. In Ireland, many families stayed in the same townland across multiple generations, which means you can often trace a family back from Griffith’s into earlier records that name the same location.

Why the 1922 fire made Griffith’s indispensable

In June 1922, during the Irish Civil War, the Four Courts in Dublin caught fire. The Public Record Office — housed inside — burned for two days. It contained the original returns from the 1821, 1831, 1841, and 1851 censuses, plus vast quantities of church registers and estate papers. Almost everything was lost.

Ireland’s genealogical record base was therefore effectively cut off at the mid-19th century for most families. Griffith’s Valuation, conducted just before and after the Famine, fills much of that gap. The 1901 and 1911 censuses survived the fire intact and are available free at the National Archives of Ireland. Griffith’s bridges the distance between those census records and the earlier church records — baptism registers, marriage records — that survive in county archives.

How many people does it cover?

The full Primary Valuation of Ireland records approximately 1.5 million property holders across roughly 64,000 townlands. Those entries represent the heads of household during the survey years. Multiply outward by the average household size of the 1850s and the records effectively touch the majority of Ireland’s rural population at a critical historical moment: mid-Famine and immediate post-Famine, when millions emigrated to the United States, Canada, and Australia.

How to Search Griffith’s Valuation for Your Irish Ancestors

The easiest place to begin is the AskAboutIreland Griffith’s Valuation search. You can search by surname across the whole country, narrow to a specific county, or — if you know it — search directly by townland or parish. The database digitised every surviving valuation book and is completely free to use.

Step one: start with the surname

Enter the surname and select a county if you have one. Results appear as a list showing the occupier’s name, the townland, the parish, the barony, and the county. Click any entry to see the full record, including the lessor’s name and the property description. Many common Irish surnames return hundreds of results across multiple counties, so a county filter makes searching manageable.

If you do not know the county, search nationally. The distribution of results often reveals a cluster — a family name might appear 140 times in County Mayo and only a handful of times anywhere else. That clustering is meaningful and narrows the search considerably.

Step two: use the accompanying maps

AskAboutIreland links each townland result to the Tailte Éireann historical 6-inch maps produced at the same time as the valuation. These maps show individual buildings as they existed in the 1840s and 1850s. Find your ancestor’s townland, open the matching map, and in many cases you can see the exact outline of the house they lived in — marked as a black rectangle on a hand-drawn landscape.

The Townlands.ie database is another valuable companion. It shows the precise geographic boundaries of every Irish townland, links to historical maps, and provides GPS coordinates. Once you have a townland name from Griffith’s, Townlands.ie lets you locate it on a modern map and plan a visit.

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Step three: read the lessor’s name carefully

The name in the “immediate lessor” column is often overlooked but carries real research value. If the lessor is an estate name or a large landowner, you can search estate records for your ancestor. Many Irish landlord estates — particularly those managed by the Encumbered Estates Court after the Famine — have surviving rental books that list tenants by name, sometimes with notes on arrears, improvements, or family details.

If the lessor appears to be another individual with the same surname as the occupier, this may indicate a sub-tenancy arrangement within the same family — a common pattern in pre-Famine Ireland where a head leaseholder subdivided their holding among sons or brothers. That lessor–occupier relationship can identify additional family members and even an earlier generation.

Combining Griffith’s With the Tithe Applotment Books

The Tithe Applotment Books, compiled between 1823 and 1837, are Griffith’s nearest predecessor. They record landholders who were liable to pay tithes (a tax supporting the Church of Ireland) in each parish. The books predate the Famine by at least a decade, so they show a generation of occupiers before the catastrophic population loss of the 1840s.

Using both records together is powerful. A name in the same townland in both the Tithe Books (1820s–1830s) and Griffith’s (1847–1864) gives strong evidence of long-term residence in that location — potentially going back to the late 18th century. If a name appears in the Tithe Books but not in Griffith’s, famine death or emigration between those two periods becomes a strong inference. If a name appears in Griffith’s but not the Tithe Books, the family likely arrived in that townland during the intervening years.

The Tithe Applotment Books are freely available via the IrishGenealogy.ie portal, which the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media maintains. The same portal hosts surviving Catholic parish registers — baptisms and marriages — going back in many cases to the 1770s and 1780s.

What the Famine did to the records — and to families

The timing of Griffith’s Valuation means the survey captured Ireland in a state of profound disruption. In County Mayo, the population fell from roughly 388,000 in 1841 to 275,000 by 1851 — a drop of more than 113,000 people in a single decade through a combination of starvation, disease, and emigration. In some western parishes, the valuation surveyors recorded entire townlands as vacant or newly consolidated into larger holdings.

For researchers, the absence of a family name in Griffith’s for a particular area is itself evidence. It may confirm that emigration happened in the Famine years, and it helps narrow the window for when ancestors departed. Combined with passenger lists — particularly the digitised Famine-era ship manifests available via Findmypast Ireland — Griffith’s helps confirm departure points and approximate dates of emigration.

Revision books: tracking families across decades

Griffith’s Valuation was not a one-time snapshot. After the initial survey, revision books recorded changes to property holders in each townland — when someone died, sold their interest, or subdivided their holding, the revision book noted the change, often with the date and the name of the new occupier. These revision books run from roughly 1856 through to 1930 in many counties.

The Irish Valuation Office holds original revision books, and many are now digitised via IrishGenealogy.ie and through Findmypast Ireland. Used together with Griffith’s primary valuation, they create a longitudinal record of land occupancy in Ireland spanning nearly a century — a resource with no real equivalent anywhere else in the world for this period.

Planning a Visit to Your Ancestral Townland

Once you identify a townland from Griffith’s Valuation, you have a precise geographic target for an ancestral visit to Ireland. Townlands are still in everyday use in rural Ireland — local people refer to them, road signs in Gaeltacht areas name them, and the postal system acknowledges them. Arriving in a townland where your family lived for generations brings a completely different experience from touring a county or a city. The scale changes entirely.

A number of itinerary options work well for heritage visits:

• The 7-Day Irish Ancestry Itinerary structures a week-long visit around archive access, county heritage centres, and townland visits across multiple provinces
• The Tipperary 5-Day Heritage Plan shows how to combine archive visits with landscape exploration in a single county
• The Galway Roots Heritage Plan covers the western counties where Griffith’s records are especially dense

County genealogy centres are worth contacting before you travel. Most Irish counties have a dedicated heritage centre staffed by researchers who hold local records — gravestone transcriptions, estate papers, school rolls — that do not appear in any online database. The Irish Family History Foundation lists all county heritage centres with contact details.

What to look for when you arrive

If the Ordnance Survey maps from the 1840s show a structure in the position your ancestor occupied, look for its footprint when you visit. Stone foundations survive in Ireland for centuries. In areas with significant post-Famine depopulation — particularly in Connacht and west Munster — roofless stone cottages still stand in townlands that have been uninhabited since the 1850s. The Ireland Famine Ruins guide explains what these structures tell us about the families who left.

Local graveyards are another critical resource. Irish rural parishes typically had a graveyard attached to the old medieval church, and burials in the same townland often span three or four centuries. Headstones from the 18th and 19th centuries frequently name townlands explicitly, which cross-references directly to Griffith’s entries. The Roots Ireland database holds over 22 million Irish genealogical records, including graveyard transcriptions.

Frequently Asked Questions About Griffith’s Valuation

What years does Griffith’s Valuation cover?

The Primary Valuation of Ireland was conducted county by county between 1847 and 1864. The Munster counties were surveyed first, with Connacht and Leinster following through the early 1850s, and Ulster counties completed by 1864. The exact year of your county’s survey matters for research — if your family emigrated in 1848, they may appear in some county valuations but not others, depending on when surveyors reached their area. County-specific survey dates appear on the AskAboutIreland database.

How do I find my ancestor if their name is very common?

Common Irish surnames — Murphy, Kelly, Sullivan, Walsh, Byrne — return hundreds of results in Griffith’s. The most effective strategy is to narrow by county first, using any oral family history or earlier emigration records to guide you. Cross-reference with the Tithe Applotment Books for the same county: a name in the same townland in both surveys is a much stronger match than a single Griffith’s entry. Spelling variants matter too — Irish names were anglicised inconsistently, so search for O’Brien alongside Brien and Brian, or Ó Briain if the Tithe Books predate consistent anglicisation in a particular area.

Is Griffith’s Valuation available for all 32 counties?

Yes, the survey covers all 32 counties — both the current Republic and Northern Ireland. The AskAboutIreland database includes all counties. For Northern Ireland records, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) holds additional valuation revision books and estate papers that complement the primary survey, and many of these are available digitised through PRONI’s online portal at no charge.

Where do I go after finding my family in Griffith’s?

Once you have a townland, the next step is the surviving Catholic or Church of Ireland parish registers for that parish. IrishGenealogy.ie holds the largest free collection. For records not yet digitised, the National Library of Ireland holds microfilm copies of most Catholic parish registers going back to the late 18th century. If your ancestor held land via an estate, search the estate rental books. The revision valuation books then carry the same family forward from Griffith’s primary survey through to the early 20th century, at which point the 1901 and 1911 censuses take over.

October is Family History Month — if Griffith’s Valuation has connected you to an Irish townland or a specific parish, the free ancestry guide below walks you through every next step to trace your family back through those parish registers and estate papers to the early 19th century and beyond.

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