How to index – Registry of Deeds Index Project

How to index a deed and contribute as a volunteer for the project

Let us start with a memorial of a deed. All the memorials up to 1929 are available through familysearch.org, see the link at the bottom of this page. To see them you will need to register on familysearch.org. This is free and quick to do.

The words in a deed:

Memorial Number: 102701
memorial 102701 part one Volume: 150
Page: 412

This is a transcription of the above memorial

To the registrar appointed by Parliament for the Registering of Deeds, Wills and so forth. A memorial of an indenture dated twelfth of April one thousand and seven hundred and fifty two made between John DILLON of Quartertown in the county of Cork Esqr of the one part and William RYVES of Castlejane and Andrew CROKER of Annitt both in the county Limerick Esqrs of the other part Whereby after Reciting an Indentured deed of Settlement made upon the marriage of the said Andrew CROKER with Elizabeth TAYLOR daughter of Walter TAYLOR Esqr the said John DILLON as surviving trustee in the said marriage settlement mentioned assigned and transferred the said trust unto the said William RYVES his heirs and assigns with full power and authority to act and do in the premises in such a mannor as by the said marriage settlement is directed, Which said deed is witnessed by Edward CROKER the younger of Annett in the county of Limerick Esqr and by John WEBB of the City of Dublin Gent and this memorial is witnessed by Edward CROKER and William LEWIS of Shornell in the county of Tipperary Clerk.

William RYVES (seal)

signed and sealed in the presence of
William LEWIS and
Edward CROKER.

The above named Edward CROKER this day made an oath before me that he was present and saw the deed whereof the above is a memorial duly signed and perfected by John DILLON the perfecting part and was also present and saw the above Memorial duly sealed and perfected the above named William RYVES and deposes that he this Dep[onen]t is a subscribing witness to the said deed and memorial Edward CROKER Taken and sworn before me at Duntrileage in the county of Limerick the 13 day of April 1752 in virtue of a commission to me directed for taking affdts in the county and I know the Dept. Geo BLACK Hu MASSY Francis WHEELER

[I have made bold some of the important things in the memorial]

The following is my indexing of the above memorial. You can see how the bolded data appears below. I have used the letter appearing in the left-most 'No column' as shorthand in the abstract. i.e. intermarriage of C and D is used instead of intermarriage of Andrew CROKER and Elizabeth TAYLOR. The "A" in the righ-tmost column indicates that that person signed the memorial. Note a witness to the memorial (WM in the current role column) has an A in right-most column. A witness to the original deed may may not sign the memorial, although one witness should sign both the original deed and the memorial.

			Type of deed	Date of current deed		12 Apr 1752	Vol	Page	Memorial
			indenture	Date of earlier deed			150	412	102701
No	Role(s) in earlier deed(s)	Role in current deed(s)	Family name	Forename		Place		Occ or title		A
A		P1	DILLON	John	of	Quartertown COR		Esq
B		P2	RYVES	William	of	Castlejane LIM		Esq		A
C		P2	CROKER	Andrew	of	Annit LIM		Esq
D			TAYLOR	Elizabeth	of			daughter of E
E			TAYLOR	Walter	of			Esq
F		WD WM	CROKER	Edward (younger)	of	Annit LIM		[son of C]		A
G		WD	WEBB	John	of	Dublin		Gent
H		WM	LEWIS	William	of	Shronele TIP		Clerk		A
I		Reg	BLACK	George	of
Abstract		deed of settlement on intermarriage of C and D A surviving trustee of MS, trust transerred to B to do as MS requires
MS	MS tidy up		Date registered	13 Apr 1752		Date abstract added		20070401

The following is my notes from another memorial. It follows the format above. (Yes I can read it, mostly!)

My notes

I use an Excel workbook to convert my notes into the database format. What I type in the worksheet is below.

My spreadsheet

These data appear in the following form on the website.

			Type of deed	Date of current deed		9 Oct 1716	Vol	Page	Menorial
			Indented deeds of lease + release	Date of earlier deed			18	103	8570
No	Role(s) in earlier deed(s)	Role in current deed(s)	Family name	Forename		Place		Occ or title		A
A		P1	COOTE	Hon Thomas	of	Coothill, Co Cavan		Esq
B		P2	WILSON	John	of	Coothill, Co Cavan		merchant		A
C		O adj	WILSON	David	of	Coothill, Co Cavan		distiller
D		O adj	LETHAM		of			Mr
E		O adj	BRADDOCK	Thomas	of
F		WD	LAWSON	Epaphroditys	of	Drumin, Co Cavan		Gent
G		WD WM	EVATT	Humphrey	of	Dublin city		Gent		A
H		WD	WARREN	Francis	of	Coothill, Co Cavan		shoomaker
I		WM	MCGUIRE	Brian	of					A
Abstract		A to B tenament in Cootehill occupied by B except for that part occupied by C between D's park and E holdings, containing 6 ac
MS			Date registered	1 Feb 1717		Date abstract added		20100928

Note the information in rows 15 and 19 has been joined together in the abstract on the web site.

What is needed

The important facts that the volunteer should aim to capture for each person mentioned in the are the following fields using the example of person A in the above abstract the Hon Thomas COOTE.

Volume	18
Page	103
number	8570
Year current deed	1716
Month current deed	10
Day current deed	9
Current deed type	Indented deeds of lease + release
MS or W
cd	A
Family	COOTE
Forename	Hon Thomas
Title	Esq
Residence	Coothill, Co Cavan
Role current deed	P1
Role earlier deed
Year earlier deed
Month earlier deed
Day earlier deed
Signed memorial
Date registered	1 Feb 1717
Comments	A to B tenament in Cootehill occupied by B except for that part occupied by C between D's park and E holdings, containing 6 ac
indexer	nickred
Image No	387

Note that not all fields have entries. In the above deed there is no mention of an earlier deed so, for example, "Role in earlier deed" is blank.

If you do not use spreadsheets you can submit your index entries using this form.

It looks like the following:

- - -

Note that there is a tick in the box below the B in the leftmost column. This indicates that Thomas WILSON signed the memorial.

I use the shorthand "P1" for "party of the first part" etc; and "O adj" for "occupier of adjacent land". The link at the top of the form explains more of the codes used. See notes for completing the form

For more information consult the Deeds mailing list. See the archives

If all else does not answer your questions contact the web master using the button below

Number of index entries

Registry of Deeds Index Project Ireland