| Census Of Ireland | |
| The first successfully completed census of Ireland took place in 1821. Unfortunately it, and almost all the census returns after that up to and including 1891, were destroyed, either by government order during the First World War or were lost in the destruction of the Public Record Office in Dublin, in 1922. A few remnants remain of the 1821 - 1851 censuses, but that of 1901 is the earliest and most complete census of Ireland that survives. | |
| The 1901 census can be an invaluable source of information and may contain the names of those who were born before the Great Famine. For those born before the introduction of Civil Registration in 1864, the census can be used to determine their date of birth. For example: someone aged 51 in 1901 would have been born in 1850 - fourteen years before birth certificates would have been available. This assumes, of course, that the person concerned knew what age they were when they filled in the form. | |
1901 Census of Dreenan For other townlands in the area email me If Its further back you want to go then you could try
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| Civil Survey of Ireland | |
| Sir William Petty's Civil Survey of Ireland, compiled between 1655 and 1667, contains lists of the principal landlords of each townland as well as their predecessor before the Cromwellian confiscations of 1641. It contains a great deal of topographical information arranged by county. barony, parish and townland. Unfortunately very little of this survey survives, although Co. Derry and Co. Tyrone are available
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| Books of Survey and Distribution | |
| Compiled around 1680 as a result of the wars of the mid-seventeenth century when the English government needed reliable information on land ownership throughout Ireland to carry out its policy of land distribution. The Books of Survey and Distribution are laid out on a barony and parish basis and includes a record of land ownership before the Cromwellian and Williamite confiscations as well as the names of the individuals to whom the land was distributed
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| Muster Rolls 1630 | |
| These contain lists of the principal landlords in Ulster, and the names of the men they could assemble in an emergency. They are arranged by county, and district within the county. | |
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Counting since Aug 2008 | |