Griffith’s Valuations

What is Griffith’s Valuations ? As a result of the potato famine of 1845-1849, a law was passed allowing for the collection of real estate taxes so that those well off could take care of those who were not.  Thomas Griffith and his team of assessors conducted a real estate assessment of all of Ireland, which took most of the 1850s. The Roscommon Survey was completed in 1856 and published in Jan. 1857.  It is of great use to researchers due to the fact that most Irish public records were burned in 1922 during the Civil War. They were housed in the Four Courts  and the Free Staters shelled the building which was held by the Republicans…This event is depicted in the movie  “Michael Collins”, staring Liam Neeson Fortunately for us, the Leitrim-Roscommon web site has exhaustively entered the Griffith’s valuations for most of the parishes and townlands of County Roscommon.  Below I have included the output of a database search I performed on the surname Finan. For a more complete listing, or if you wish to search other surnames, go to their database search page. Special thanks go out to Ed Finn who was responsible for the data entry effort.