Irish Translation Forum

Hello everybody!

I am trying to transcribe a valuation survey taken in 1826 so people can use it for genealogical research purposes. This was taken in the civil parish of Dromdaleague, in the Skibbereen district.

I have a page uploaded for you to view at:

http://www.sjbar.com/publicgenealogy/tithe6.jpg

I hope you can see it. If I try to blow up the part in question the file gets too grainy.

Listed under the townland of Cludagh (now Clodagh), the part I can't read says,

William & John Kingston

front of (????)

Tim Leary & Michael [maybe Grey or Carey]

John Richard & Francis Kingston

front of (????)

Joseph Cain

The (????) looks like cunisth, or cunirth, or ounisth, or something like that! This document has many location references, like "west of road", "north", "south", etc.

Does anybody know what (????) is!

Thanks in advance! Somebody here will have an idea! Wish I could travel to Ireland right now and ask the locals!

That's as good a guess as any, Brendan!

These valuation surveys typically listed those who held a land lease. They were typically the heads of households.

It is very common in these old documents for the listing for a particular lot to contain a notation like "John Leary & partners" or "John Leary & sons" .

Even worse, names and notations were abbreviated. Timothy shows up as Timy, with the final -y as a superscript. In that same notation, Danl looks a lot like Dens. Al<blurry smudge>r can be Alistair or Alexander. If the assessor was using a very cursive script or the bottom of his B was not well-defined, Patk can be mistaken for Batw. No wonder people do not know their Irish ancestry.

Back in those days some s's were written as f's. "sons" looks like "fons." A notation like "partners" is often shown as partr, with the final r as a superscript. Sometimes that initial p has a high top and can look more like an f. Even now I'm wondering if "front of" is "partner of."

Any other suggestions are welcome!

parish of?

scoobytyson wrote:parish of?

That gets my vote.

Breandán wrote:Looks like "past of ..." to me. Could it mean "formerly of ..." perhaps?

Looking at it again, it looks just as likely to be this. I wish I hadn't posted anything at all now as I have added nothing constructive. Ooops!

Anybody care to fathom a guess as to what the ???? after "of" is?!?

Here, I managed to blow it up slightly, hopefully it is not too grainy:

http://www.sjbar.com/publicgenealogy/tithe6cropped.jpg

MYSTERY SOLVED !!

I emailed somebody I am acquainted with out of Dunmanway Heritage Centre, and he says the part I can't read is:

part of Ounirth

"This is a ploughland - part of Clodagh - on the north-east corner of Clodagh townland adjoining the townlands of Acres and Knockeenwee Upper"

Thanks for pitching in everybody!

Thanks for letting us know the outcome. I had tried googling lots of possible place names but had got nowhere. I don't think I was ever very close to the actual one. Good luck with it all; it sounds really interesting.