Tuesday 17 July 2012

Coming soon - Irish 1841 census substitute

The 1841 census for Ireland largely no longer survives, with the exception of a few entries used for pension applications after 1908, and a handful of entries for parts of Galway and Cavan. In April 2010 I reported on a document discovered by Dan Jones of Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk), which may well help to plug some of the gap left by that census' destruction. That document is now being worked on and will soon find its way onto Ancestry.

Lord Viscount Morpeth’s Testimonial Roll was a document signed by 300,000 people, namely heads of households, along with their addresses, upon the departure of aristocrat George Howard as Chief Secretary for Ireland (see http://scottishancestry.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/1841-document-with-300000-irish-names.html). It remained in the archive of Castle Howard in North Yorkshire until 2009 when it was sent to the National University of Ireland at Maynooth for conservation and study.

Ancestry has now digitised the document and is indexing it through the World Archives Project. To view an example of the document and the details it contains visit www.ancestry.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=World_Archives_Project:_Ireland%2c_Lord_Viscount_Morpeth%27s_Testimonial_Roll%2c_1841.

The project has so far been 40% transcribed. I look forward to seeing it online in due course!

Chris

Check out my Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)

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