The census returns for nineteenth century Ireland have mostly been lost, forcing genealogists to rely on ‘census substitutes’ (Griffith’s Valuation, the T.A.B., the Morpeth Roll). To date we’ve relied on ‘best guesstimates’ of how inclusive these collateral sources are.

In this workshop Prof. Winstanley will outline some methods family and social historians can use, to evaluate the sources. Using census fragments (1821-71), he examines census substitutes, and asks how inclusive are they, in terms of householders and population. Then, using case-studies, he demonstrates the wide-variance between different census substitutes for urban and rural communities in Ireland.

Date: Friday 8th of December
Time: 3.00pm – 4.30pm

Venue: Members’ Room, Royal Irish Academy, Dawson St. 

Entry is free but as places are limited, please book in advance on Eventbrite.ie here. 

Bio: Adam Winstanley has academic qualifications in Computer Science, Archaeology and Genealogy from Cambridge, Queen’s Belfast and Strathclyde Universities. He worked as an archaeologist and cartographer with Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland for several years. He has been a postdoctoral researcher in Computer Science at University of Ulster and was a lecturer at Queen's University before taking up post at Maynooth University in 1995 where he is currently a Professor and heads the Computer Science department. He teaches and researches into systems for data analysis, particularly using spatial and historic data.