Using the Online Griffith’s Revision Books

1. Using the Online Griffith’s Revision Books

2. Go to: www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives/val12b.htm Click on the Search Valuation Revision Books link to start your search. Note that this page also contains an introduction to the Revision Books plus links to Further Information. Certainly worth reading.

3. This Search Box will then appear on your screen. If you want a townland in the countryside, in most cases, typing in the name of the townland in the placename box is often sufficient. If you are having difficulty with the spelling of a townland or street have a look at the Search hints and tips on the PRONI website. My tip - it is well worth looking at the exact spelling of “your” townland in the Printed Griffith’s Book – as you will see later. You can narrow the search by selecting the County and the Parish in which your townland is situated. Certainly in the case of streets in a town you will usually need to select at least the County and the Parish – particularly if it is a street name like Church Street – see Urban Example. With villages - the name of the village usually produces a positive result. If all else fails and you are familiar with DEDs, you can type in the PRONI reference e.g. VAL/12/B/4/23A. The books in PRONI are actually organised by PLU and DED. Remember if you want adjacent townlands they will be in the same book, providing they are in the same DED. Finally click on Search. See example of a search for the townland of Seacon more on the next slide. See also Steven Scarth's paper "Valuing the Past: PRONI's online Valuation Records" in the most recent edition of the journal Familia [Ulster Genealogical Review], No. 29, 2013, pp.83-95.

4. We are looking for the townland of Seacon More. I have filled in all three search boxes. Putting Seacon, only, in the Placename Box would produce the same result.

5. The results of the search are shown in the screenshot below. The last column on the right contains the PRONI Refs. for the books that cover the period 1864 to 1929. The years covered by each book are shown. You can choose whichever book you want and simply click on the link. Note that there is a book 23A for Seacon Lower and Seacon More, but not Seacon Beg. This is because parts of Seacon More and Seacon Lower are located in Co. Londonderry. Before embarking on a search of the Griffith’s Revisions Books you should have a look at the Griffith’s Valuation Map which is available on the askaboutireland.ie website . I then clicked on Book VAL/12/B/4/23B covering the period 1864-1866 and the next screenshot shows the result.

6. To find your townland in the book click on the Index Image. You can click on any of the links in the Related PRONI Refs box to access related books. When you click on one of these links the book will open in a separate window or tab. Note that the Related Books pages do not contain this list of links. You will have to come back to this page each time that you want to see another Book. Note that all of the tabs will stay open and you can switch between them. However, if you have too many tabs open, the application can freeze. I would only use this method if I am looking a couple of books. If I am working with a large number of books and papers, I save any pages within a book that I want to use. Then I go to the next book that I want to consult by clicking on the Search Results Tab. This takes me back to the full list of books where I can select the book I want. This method only uses one tab and rarely freezes.

7. If you click on View you will get a much larger picture of the Index page that you are viewing and “one that stays still”. When you are finished with the enlarged picture – click on the Back Button in your browser to return to this page.

8. If you click on View you will get a much larger picture of the Index page that you are viewing and “one that stays still”. When you are finished with the enlarged picture – click on the Back Button in your browser to return to this page.

9. The Index page shows that the pages covering Seacon More begin on page 3. Go back to the normal size page and use the Next Image button to navigate to page 3. Note that if you had to go, for example, to page 56 you would use the Forward Ten Images button to speed up the process. An alternative is to go to the Last Image button and work your way back.

10. We have now reached page 3 of the 1864-1866 book . Moving the arrow over the page will enlarge it . If you have difficulty reading a page you can also enlarge it by clicking on View, and the image will stay still. To be honest I usually save a page by right clicking on the page and left clicking on Save picture as. This means that I can give the file a name that means something to me. If I want to save a number of pages I create a folder to hold the files..

11. This page confirms that Andrew Pinkerton was really Adam Pinkerton. Also shows that James Hamill was replaced by a Nancy Hamill in 1866. This was probably his wife. Unable to find a marriage for this couple in earlier church records.

12. No change at 4Ba . Change at 6Ba. No precise date for this change – 1864-66. It looks as if a house numbered separately as 6Bb has been singled out for a John Mooney. It is valued at £1.50 and the rest of the buildings in this complex are valued at £1. John Mooney may have been living in this house in 1861 but the valuer simply valued the entire complex which included a weaving house in 1833. According to his marriage certificate, John Mooney was a weaver as were his brother Henry and his father Daniel – see Relevant BDMs paper.

13. Next book covering period 1867-85. Note that at 2A & 2B the name Adam Pinkerton is stroked out and the name John added in purple. The date 71[also in purple] appears in the Observations column. This means that this property has passed to a John Pinkerton by 1871. The date records the event after it happened, not necessarily the exact year in which it actually happened. Interestingly the valuer does not record John as the immediate lessor of Robert McAnal until the following year 72. Note this date and the name change are in blue. Each visit necessitates a different colour. Adam had died in 1870 and this farm had passed to his nephew John Pinkerton who would later become an MP.

14. No change in farm No. 4 - James Pinkerton Sen. still there.

15. Change in 6B. This property was taken over by James Pinkerton Sen. who, as far as I know, was not a close relative of James Jun. who lived in Moneygobbin. The date in the Observation column is 78 [it actually is 78, if you do not believe me go online and look at an enlarged copy of this page.] James of Moneygobbin had died in 1876 – see his will online. Obviously James Sen. became John Mooney’s landlord at the same time. However, if you look at the information on the Mooney family in the Related BDMs paper you will see he was no longer living here – certainly by 1870.

16. John Pinkerton in farm No. 2 has become an MP for Galway 1886-1900. He has built a new house which is recorded in 1890 but would have been built some time between 1886 and 1900. The valuers classified the house as 1A which means it was brand new and slated. The measurements are in yards and the height in storys. Note the old dwelling house has become a byre. See photo of house and the “byre” on next slide.

18. Here we find changes at No. 4 the farm of James Pinkerton Sen. The inclusion of the word Reps and the date 93 [1893] in purple indicates that James is dead. We know from his will [online at PRONI] that he died on the 9th August 1892 and his will was probated 28th November 1892.

19. Here we find the same changes at farm No. 6 which James had taken over in 1878. If you look at James’s will you will see that he died childless and his wife died a few years later. On the death of his wife his estate was divided amongst his nephews and nieces. Three of the nephews - John MP of Seacon More, John of Coldagh and Robert Dick of Ballaghmore were the executors and trustees. Clearly the farm would have to be sold, or more accurately, the tenant right would have to be sold. The outcome of that sale will become clearer in the next few slides.

20. From now on there is so much change. I will only be referring to some it. The first point to note here is that Reps appear again. This time against the name of John Pinkerton MP in farm No. 2. and the date for this Reps. 1912. John had actually died in 1908. Note that farm No.1 had passed from McCrelis to Saml. Pinkerton Jun. who lived at 7Aa. I point this out because of the fact that this change is recorded in green, a notoriously difficult colour to see sometimes. I have seen examples which are even worse than this one and on more than one occasion I have missed a change, only to discover it later .

21. It goes without saying, that this page is very difficult to interpret. Using this page and the page on the next slide concurrently [you would need to print them], I have come to the conclusion that this is what happened. John Pinkerton MP bought plots of land 4B [including house 4Ba] and 6B except for a small part of 6B which was renumbered 6C . This plot 6C contained the house complex 6Ba. 6C appears to have been bought by Samuel Pinkerton Sen. who lived at 3Ba. This same Samuel bought plots 4A, 4C & 6A which adjoined his own plots of land 3A and 3C – continued on next slide. This shows Martha Crawford’s name from 1897. She is listed in the 1901 Census House No. 2. Her name is stroked out in 1904 and replaced by Robert Elder whose family is listed in the 1911 Census House No. 5. The Crawford family are listed in the 1911 Census House No. 10 in the townland of Dunderg in Co. L/Derry. You will also find Martha in the Revision Books..for Dunderg , County. Londonderry, Parish of Macosquin. - VAL/12/B/30/11E [1899-1910] page 51, house 10e.

22. Later Samuel Sen. is joined by a John Pinkerton. Before I had a reasonable genealogy of the Pinkerton families in Seacon More, I thought that this was John Pinkerton MP. Now I am sure that it was not John MP, in fact it was Samuel’s son John. Samuel was 70 by 1901. This highlights the importance of actually knowing who the people in the valuation records really are. This time my comments are on the copy of the page. Note that on the previous page and this page a new plot number and lettering appears 6C. To be sure of the exact location of plot 6C, I needed to look at a later valuation map which you can see on the next slide. Note that here the valuers say - Now grouped with the farms to which these lots belong with the date 01 in red/purple. This shows William McKinley’s name from 1897. He is listed in the 1901 Census No. 5. His name is stroked out in 1909. The family are in the Heagles in 1911 Census No. 3 – William deceased. I think that the valuers, initially, made a mistake in renumbering the 6C houses in 1897. It looks as if they first numbered the old 6Bb [John Mooney’s house valued at £1.50] as 7Ac with the immediate lessor a Samuel Pinkerton. This means that they must have thought that John Mooney’s old house now belonged to Samuel Pinkerton Jun. who lived on farm No.7, but they did not identify him as Jun. Farm 7 already had a house 7Aa & a house 7Ab. So the 7Ac is logical. In 1900 they corrected the mistake by adding Senr. to the immediate lessor Samuel Pinkerton and, in 1901, renumbering it to 6Ca, still valued at £1.50. We know from the 1901 Census that William McKinley was living there. By 1905 the house is vacant. William McKinley dies in 1903 and the family turn up in the 1911 Census living in the nearby townland of the Heagles. I realise that the last three pages are more difficult to work with than the previous eight pages. I would not want to leave you with the impression that reading and interpreting the revision pages is always easy. Nor would I want to leave you with the impression that everyone coming and going in a townland or street was always recorded.

23. VAL/12/D/1/11G[ 1914-1935] Ideally I would have preferred the 11F map dated 1895 -1914 , but it was not very clear.

24. At this point I stopped. There is a further book VAL/12/B/4/23F covering the years 1912-1929. There are more changes with some farms being taken over by “outsiders” from adjoining townlands. I have included the page below because it shows what happened to the houses in 4B and 6C [previously 6B]. 4Ba is now occupied by a Robert Elder. This family was living in the nearby townland of Heagles in 1901 but were in Seacon More by the time of the 1911 Census. The James Elder listed against 6Ca is the son of Robert and was listed in the 1911 Census despite the fact that his name does not appear in the valuation book until 1923. Incidentally in 1901 Robert Elder was not listed in the 1911 Census for Seacon More, but his wife and family were. He was listed as a farm servant in the house of a William Fullerton in the adjoining townland of Tullaghgore. This last example, and those in the previous slide, illustrates the problems of keeping track of cottiers. You can look up these families in the 1901 & 1911 Census yourself.

25. You should now be able to see who was living in 4Ba and 6Ba in 1901. 4Ba = 1901 Census [House No. 2] Martha Crawford [Linen Weaver] and her sisters. One sister was married and her name was Murdock. 6Ba by 1901 had been renumbered to 6Ca = 1901 Census [House No. 5] William John McKinley [Surfaceman] and his family. The period c. 1860 to 1901 saw the number of inhabited, working farms reduced from 6 to 3. The three Pinkerton farms had swallowed up the McCrelis farm and the farms of James Pinkerton Sen. and Jun. The cottier population was still high. This townland had been heavily engaged in linen weaving in the earlier part of the nineteenth century but decline in this domestic industry would have led to some people leaving e.g. John Mooney who emigrated to America probably in the late 1860s. There were still two weavers amongst the cottier occupations but most were agricultural labourers. The days of the handloom weaver were virtually gone by 1901. It is interesting that Martha Crawford left Seacon More after 1901 and moved to Gribben’s bleach green in Dunderg near Macosquin. Gribbens had a linen weaving factory on the Strand Road in Coleraine. The farm consolidation led to a surplus of cottier houses. One of these, 4Ba ,would have been much better than the usual cottier house. I suspect the offices or outbuildings of 4Ba would have been used by the occupant of 2Aa.