Hi Pete, I appreciate you comments here. I have been somewhat confused that Griffiths shows Rooghan has part of Rathgreah Parish, but by 1901, Rathreagh Parish is actually Kilfian East. Perhaps the townland borders didn't change, but it seems like the parishes may have. (btw I have ancestors that were from county Sligo at the time, but now the same place is in county Mayo ...) It is totally probably that either my ancestors could have reported their location based upon the church they want to rather than where they physically reised. john -----Original Message----- From: ext [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 6:59 AM To: Loughney John (Nokia-SD/SiliconValley); [email protected] Subject: Re: [IRL-MAYO] Help with Rooghan and Kincon in Mayo Well, John...... === Griffiths map, the plot of land that my 2ggfather lived in seems to just into what is Kincon now, so maybe borders have shifted ... === I don't think so. Richard Griffith, a respected geologist and engineer who had overseen the Bog Survey of 1810-14, was placed in charge of the Ordnance Survey Boundary Department in 1825 - with the task of delineating the townland boundaries for all of Ireland. There's a lot of documentation on all of this, but the end result was that by the very early 1830's, the townland boundaries had been determined and, as far as I know, not a single one has been altered since (there may have been some minor alterations due to small-stream flow changes, but in principle, the townlands haven't changed borders). There were several parish and county boundary changes in later years (even consecutive changes in Mayo around the Lung River near Ballaghaderreen in 1840 and 1898), but the townlands remained intact. Griffith, of course, went on to the Valuations department and there he closed-out over 40 years of dedicated service to the government. As for myself, after 15 years of wandering around the Republic, photographing, etc., Early Christian and some Medieval sites, I have encountered several local people who have "different" ideas about the actual boundaries of their own townland (even some disagreements within families [gr]). I could babble-on about townlands and the Ordnance Survey for hours, but I'll just stop here. I think my general guide would be that when it appears that a record is incorrect regarding the townland location, it could be a result of lack of knowledge of the person entering (or recording) the record, or someone using a nearby townland or village as their address - perhaps for postal purposes -, or someone just stating a better-known location as their address - for whatever reason. Etc., etc., etc.. That's it. Pete - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pete Schermerhorn, in the glorious Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts </HTML>