Geralyn, Not wanting to commit myself to my own answer I put "I would read it". As you say the land could still be leased. But it is the only thing I see in the census that gives any info on who the property belongs to. Christina Geralyn Barry wrote: > Christina, I hate to complicate your answer, which is a good idea in theory. I used to think that was the case myself... > > However, I have since compared many census records with land valuation records and have found that Irish census records often list as the landholder the person who appears in the census when I know that person does not "own" the property. I conclude from this that the term landholder in Irish census records was thought to mean "occupier" (person who paid the tax) rather than immediate lessor or actual owner of the property. At least this seems to be the case for most of the census records I have compared with valuation records - probably several hundred cases at least. > > My conclusion from all this is that if the person in the census is *not* listed as the landholder on Form B1 (someone else is listed instead), then he is probably a tenant of some kind. <snip>

Yes, Christina, I agree that is the only possible place on the Irish census itself that might answer questions about ownership of property. I just wanted to add a warning about interpreting what appears there, based on my own research comparing census information and valuation records for many families. It's not always clear how the person recording the census information actually interpreted the questions on the census. I think everyone who finds a family of interest in the Irish census should look at the "other" pages associated with that census listing, and take a look around the area too. After all, the information is there online, and looking is free! This "other" census information can sometimes be very revealing. It may even overturn a researcher's assumptions about which house in a townland the family lived in or what the family's occupation was. The description of a house & its outbuildings - number of rooms, nature of outbuildings, quality, etc. - can tell you more about how your family lived, beyond their names and ages. In a more unusual example, I found an instance where the "big house" in a townland was vacant at the time the census was taken - not even a caretaker in residence in the house itself, so no one enumerated in that house in the census. The house is not mentioned on the form that contains people's names, ages, etc. I initially jumped to the conclusion that one of the families listed in the census in that townland had to be living in that big house, but when I probed the other online census forms, I discovered I was wrong. The owners (or lessors) in such cases (large rural properties) sometimes had more than one dwelling place, e.g., a house in Dublin or in Limerick City or England even, and a more rural property with a big house. In my case, the family I expected to find in the "big house" was actually enumerated in Dublin (where the head of the household had a business at the time). No one was enumerated in their house in the country. However, tenants in other houses on their property were enumerated since those smaller houses were occupied. I never would have learned that had I not looked at the house and outbuilding descriptions... Comparison with valuation records then confirmed what I had found in the census. Geralyn Wood Barry in Oregon On 6/13/2012 11:31 AM, Christina Hunt wrote: > Geralyn, > Not wanting to commit myself to my own answer I put "I would read it". > As you say the land could still be leased. > But it is the only thing I see in the census that gives any info on who the property belongs to. > Christina > > Geralyn Barry wrote: >> Christina, I hate to complicate your answer, which is a good idea in theory. I used to think that was the case myself... >> >> However, I have since compared many census records with land valuation records and have found that Irish census records often list as the landholder the person who appears in the census when I know that person does not "own" the property. I conclude from this that the term landholder in Irish census records was thought to mean "occupier" (person who paid the tax) rather than immediate lessor or actual owner of the property. At least this seems to be the case for most of the census records I have compared with valuation records - probably several hundred cases at least. >> >> My conclusion from all this is > that if the person in the census is *not* listed as the landholder on Form B1 (someone else is listed instead), then he is probably a tenant of some kind. > <snip> > >