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Book of Survey and Distribution - Owney & Owneybeg

Not in copyright - dates to the 1680s

Why Transcribing the Civil Survey of Owney & Owneybeg into a Spreadsheet Matters

The Civil Survey of the 1650s is one of the most valuable historical sources for understanding land ownership in Ireland before the Cromwellian confiscations. For the baronies of Owney and Owneybeg, it records who owned land, where that land was located, and how much was held.

However, in its original manuscript form, the survey is difficult to analyse. Transcribing it into an Excel spreadsheet transforms the document from a static historical text into a powerful research tool.

Turning Historical Records into Usable Data

The Civil Survey was written as a series of descriptive entries. Each entry usually includes:

The landowner’s name

The townland

The type of land

The acreage

When this information is transferred into a spreadsheet, each detail can be placed into its own column. This allows the data to be sorted, filtered, and analysed in ways that are not possible when working directly from the manuscript.

Calculating Land Ownership Accurately

Many landowners appear multiple times throughout the survey, often holding land in several townlands. Without transcription, it is very difficult to work out:

How much land an individual actually owned in total

Whether their land was concentrated in one area or scattered

How their holdings compared with others in the barony

Using an Excel spreadsheet, land can be filtered by owner name and total acreage calculated instantly. This reveals the true scale of ownership that is otherwise hidden within the text.

Revealing Patterns Across the Barony

Once the survey data is organised, wider patterns become visible, such as:

Which families held the largest estates

How land was distributed among different social groups

The balance between arable land, pasture, and other land types

These patterns help explain how wealth and influence were structured in Owney and Owneybeg in the mid-seventeenth century.

Supporting Local History and Genealogy

A searchable spreadsheet is also invaluable for:

Local historians researching specific townlands

Genealogists tracing family landholdings

Identifying families who disappear from the record after the 1650s

By making the data easier to access, the Civil Survey becomes useful not only to historians, but also to the wider public.

Preserving the Record for the Future

Digitally transcribing the Civil Survey helps preserve its information for future generations. A well-checked spreadsheet:

Reduces the need to handle fragile original documents

Allows errors to be corrected and notes to be added

Makes the data easy to share and build upon

In this way, the survey is protected while also becoming more useful.

Conclusion

Transcribing the Civil Survey of Owney and Owneybeg into an Excel spreadsheet is not just about copying text. It allows land ownership to be measured accurately, patterns to be identified, and history to be explored in new ways. By turning a seventeenth-century manuscript into structured data, we gain a clearer picture of land, power, and society on the eve of dramatic change in Irish history.


Book of Survey & Distribution - Owney.xlsx

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