Townland: This is the smallest land division, but they vary widely in size. There are over 64,000 townlands in Ireland. They are still in administrative use today. It is the smallest land unit in Griffith's Valuation. A number of townlands, varying between 5   and 30, make up a civil parish. Many townlands from different areas have the same name. A major hurdle for anyone to overcome to finding information about their Irish   ancestors is finding the townland where they lived. A good start is    www.seanruad.com.   A townland is an old Irish land unit that has been in existence since the early 1100s. There are 64,462 of them in Ireland with 168 of them in the barony of Kinalea and 11   in the civil parish of Ballyfeard. Townland has the same meaning as “bally” or “bailie”    in Irish and means “settlement” or “the place where you live”. Their names were    derived from some prominent man made or natural feature in the area. That is how communities in each area identified themselves. A townland is now the smallest administrative land unit in Ireland. All larger administrative units are made up of multiples of them. Generally their boundries follow some physical features of the landscape. Such as roads, hedges, rivers, streams etc. Depending on the quality of    the land their sizes range from about 2 acres to more than 7000 acres. The better       the land the smaller the townland. ________________________________ From: robert hargreaves <robert@hargreavesr.fsnet.co.uk> To: COUNTY CORK <COUNTYCORK@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 11:53:09 AM Subject: [CO CORK] Advice or Help I am trying to complete my family tree from my Irish grandfather's family. The details I have are fairly sketchy, but here goes. My grandfather Martin Murray gave his age as 36 in the 1911 census, 27 in the 1901 census but 40 when he married in November 1911. He came from a farming family born in Wilton, Co Cork according to the 1911 census. His father was named Patrick. It was said that the farm was called 'Murray's Model Farm'. Martin was estranged from his family over his reluctance to enter the Priesthood and I assume that he was in Lancashire, England due to this. I understand that letters sent home to Ireland were returned unopened. I would dearly like to know more of his background but really don't to know where to begin. What is a Townland? Any help or advice would be very much appreciated. Bob Check out the Ireland GenWeb County Cork Website at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~irlcor/ It is a good place to find information related to your family research. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COUNTYCORK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message