Landed estate records, particularly the rent rolls which list the tenants on the estate, are a useful source of genealogical information. Although they do not often include information on the smallest tenants, due to the fact that most of these had no right of tenure, the records of the landed estates are of great importance as a result of the destruction of the nineteenth-century census returns.
If you do not know the name of the local landlord in a particular area you can normally find it by looking at the printed Valuation Books for 1860, which are available on the shelves of the Public Search Room, where the landlord's name normally appears in the column headed 'lessor'. When the name of the landlord has been identified, the references to any records held in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland can be located by;
- Consulting the Guide to Landed Estate Records which is available on the Search Room shelves. Estate names are arranged alaphabetically within county, with a description of the records together with the relevant reference numbers.
- Checking the Personal Names Index in the Public Search Room under the landlord's name.
The rent rolls are the earliest estate records to use, but they are not the only type of record in landed archives which are useful for genealogical purposes. Leases, wages and account books and often maps, all contain names of tenants occupying land on an estate or of people working on or connected with the estate in some way.
In general the best order in which to consult the different types of estate records for genealogical searching is;
- rent rolls; which normally list the tenants, townland by townland;
- leases; which give the tenant's name and probably those of some of his children, with their ages;
- rent ledgers; showing how much and when each tenant paid his rent;
- maps; which are usually on a large scale of about 6" to 1 mile and plot tenant's holdings;
- wages books; in which will be found the names of estate labourers and household servants and gardeners who may not appear as tenants;
- land agents' note-books; where sometimes a page is devoted to a tenant and his family;
- Militia, Yeomanry and Muster Records can often be found in landed estate archives. They consist of lists of men liable for service in local defence forces.
