Blakes/McIllrees/Kennedys of County Galway

TITHE APPLOTMENT BOOKS / GRIFFTH?S VALUATIONYou could try checking the land records called the Tithe Applotment Books (1823-38) http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp or the later Griffith's Valuation (1848-64) http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/ or the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) https://familysearch.org/ The Tithe Applotment List might be of use to you, or at least interesting for you. These listsconstitute the only nationwide survey for the period, and are valuable because the heaviest burdenof the tithes to the Established Church, the Church of Ireland, fell on the poorest, for whom fewother records survive. The information in the Tithes is quite basic, typically consisting of townlandname, landholder's name, area of land and tithes payable. Many Books also record the landlord'sname and an assessment of the economic productivity of the land. The tax payable was based on. CHURCH OF IRELAND:Church of Ireland parish registers for the period up to 1870-are publicrecords. Registers are available for about one third of the parishes, however many were destroyedin the Public Records Office in Dublin in 1922. Most are still held by the local clergy, althoughsome are in the National Archives of Ireland and others are in the Representative Church BodyLibrary in Dublin. A list of all surviving registers is available in the National Archives. http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42 and http://www.nationalarchives.ie/. The Anglican Record Projectis has created an index to their records: http://ireland.anglican.org/cmsfiles/pdf/AboutUs/library/AngRecord/bunclodyunionindex.pdf The next thing you could do is find the counties and places in Ireland your family names are mostprevalent. Look at the website http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname/ and perhapssomething will match some other clue you may have found elsewhere? If nothing turnsup ? it is advisable to try different variations of the spellings of the names. If you have a possiblefirst name you could try the Irish Census 1901, 1911 at www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ or the landvaluation record called Griffiths Valuationhttp://askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml Also sir you could try these links in your seach;Irish Lives Remembered offers a free genealogy forum at:http://www.irishlivesremembered.ie/ British & Irish Genealogyhttp://bi-gen.blogspot.ie/ Irish Military Archives:http://www.militaryarchives.ie/

VALUATIONS OFFICE Valuations office in Dublin (http://www.valoff.ie) will have a record of the landregistry from 1855 to modern times. This will assist in seeing what happened to (name) and whathappened to his land (as it usually passed on to a relation). The National Archives of Irelandhttp://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/ The National Library of Irelandhttp://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx