GRIFFITH'S VALUATION, the most detailed guide to people and property in mid-19th century Ireland, has gone online for free for the first time.
One of the most important surviving genealogical sources from the era after the Famine, the valuation is likely to be of use to family history researchers in Ireland and throughout the world.
The version available on the askaboutireland.ie website is searchable by family name and place name; copies of the original document can be printed off; and the website also includes maps from the mid-19th century and contemporary maps from Google Earth.
The document has been available on a number of Irish and US websites for a number of years, but information could only be accessed on payment of a fee.
Over the past year, however, the Library Council of Ireland has spent €230,000 on digitising its copy of the document and making it available online. The work was also undertaken to ensure the document remained in the public domain.
"We're committed to retaining and enhancing public access to important source documents such as Griffith's, and ensuring they do not go back to private copyright," said Annette Kelly, assistant director of the Library Council.
Griffith's Valuation was the first full-scale valuation of property in Ireland.
The work was overseen by Richard Griffith, a Dublin geologist, and published between 1847 and 1864.
It delivered the information necessary for local taxation by providing a uniform valuation of all property in Ireland based on the productive capacity of land and the potential rent of buildings.
The document lists every landholder and householder in the 32 counties, and is arranged by county, barony, poor law union, civil parish and townland.
The valuation was never intended as a substitute for the census, and has limited significance for genealogists.
However, because of the subsequent destruction of so many other source documents, including the 1851 census, it remains the only detailed guide to where in Ireland people lived in the mid-19th century.
Census returns from 1821-51 were destroyed in the Public Records Office then located in the Four Courts in Dublin during fighting in the Civil War in 1922.
The Library Council plans further enhancements to the site in the autumn, including searchable maps and layers of information showing the population changes in an area over time.
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Griffith's Valuation is available to view at askaboutireland.ie
