Ancestry adds 1659 Irish census

Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) has added a database version of the 1659 Irish census, sometimes referred to as Pender's Census, following its publication by Séamus Pender in 1939:

Ireland Census, 1659
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/63257/

Collection in context
The images in this collection were taken from A Census Of Ireland, Circa 1659 with Supplementary Material From The Poll Money Ordinances (1660-1661) edited by Séamus Pender and published in 1939. The book is a secondary historical source that presents information taken from census records that are primary historical sources.

The 1659 Irish Census was directed by Sir William Petty as a side project to the Down Survey, which mapped all the baronies where land was forfeited following the English Commonwealth’s invasion of Ireland between 1649 and 1653. These lands were to be given as rewards to soldiers who fought for England. The census reflected the devastation of a war that led to the deaths of one fourth of Ireland’s population from famine and disease. Because the census was a side project of a larger endeavor, errors in both names and numbers were made during the information collection process. Petty kept the census records for his personal library, and the records were discovered among his family papers in the late 1800s.

For further details visit the link. 

Comment: The records are largely statistical in nature for the most part, providing the names of parishes and their townlands, a total of the number of people within that townland, how many of them were English and Scottish, and how many were Irish. The only names given are those of the 'titualadoes', the definition of which is given in the published volume as follows (Introduction, page v):

The term "Titulado", which appears throughout the returns, is best explained as referring to the principal person or persosn of standing in any particular locality; such a person could have been of either sex, a nobleman, baronet, gentleman, esquire, military officer or adventurer; that from other sources we learn of a particular Titulado, being also a landowner need not surprise us: the landowner is normally the person of standing in a district. Still, it miust not be forgotten that "Titulado" and "Landowner" are not necessarily synonymous terms.  

There are indexes of places and of persons named at the end of the book. The book itself can also be browsed, rather than searched.  

Chris 

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