The Tithe Maps Project
TheGenealogist.co.uk has announced that it has now completed the launch of searchable Tithe Maps and Schedules for England and Wales with the release of more maps covering 40 counties. This means you can now view a map of your ancestors parish for the counties of Anglesey, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Brecknockshire, Buckinghamshire, Caernarfonshire, Cambridgeshire, Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, County Durham, Cumberland, Denbighshire , Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Flintshire, Glamorgan, Glamorganshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Merionethshire, Middlesex, Monmouthshire, Montgomeryshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Pembrokeshire, Radnorshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, Westmorland, Wiltshire, Worcestershire, York City and Ainsty and Yorkshire.
These maps link to the searchable schedules which contain over 14 million records. The schedules contain detailed information on land use with linked maps that jump to the plot for an individual from the records. The maps can contain hundreds of individual plots with varying levels of detail. They can reveal buildings, fields, houses, rivers, lakes, woods and also cover villages, towns and cities.
The next stage of this project is already underway and is to digitise the many colour tithe maps held by the TNA and partner Archives. These will link to the same schedules in a similar manner.
Let us look for the Leicestershire landowner Lady Noel Byron, the former wife of the poet Lord Byron. We find that she has large holdings in the county at the time of the survey.
We are then able to look at one of the holdings to see the record for some land occupied by Thomas Godfrey. We can see the tithe apportionment with only a single click and this image of the page reveals the amount of rent payable, in this case, to the Rector alone.
The apportionment gives us the measurement in acres, roods and perches and the value of the tithe payable to the Rector. Frustratingly, the size of these units of measurement could vary according to the locality that they were applied.
These records are available as part of the Diamond subscription on TheGenealogist.co.uk
