DEEDS
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Types of Transactions

The transactions in the Registry fall into a number of broad classes. These are:-

Leases
Marriage Settlements
Mortgages
 Bills of Discovery
Wills
Rent Charges


Leases

By far the most common of the records in the Registry, leases could run for any term between 1 and 999 years, or could depend on the lives of a number of persons named in the document, or could be a mixture of the two, lasting three lives or sixty years, whichever was longer. Only leases for more than three years could be registered. The most genealogically useful information in leases is to be found in the lives they mention. The choice of lives generally rested with the lessee or grantee, and in most cases those chosen were related. Often, the names and ages of the grantee's children can appear, which is extremely valuable information on families in the eighteenth century.

Marriage Settlements

Any form of pre-nuptial property agreement between the families of the prospective bride and groom was known as a marriage settlement, or marriage articles. A variety of transactions can therefore be classed in this way. Their aim was to provide security for women. The information given in settlements varies, but in general it should include at a minimum the names, addresses and occupations of the bride, groom and bride's father. In addition, other relatives, brothers, uncles, etc. also put in an appearance. For obvious reasons, therefore, marriage settlements are among the most useful of the records to be found in the Registry. The period for which they were most commonly registered appears to have been the three decades from 1790 to 1820. In searching the Grantors' Indexes for them, it should be remembered that they are not always indicated as such, and that the formal grantor may be a member of either family, making it necessary to search under both surnames.

Mortgages

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these were very commonly used as a form of investment on the one hand, and as a way of raising short-term cash on the other. They do not generally provide a great deal of family information but, since they were an endless source of legal disputes, they form a disproportionate number of the deeds registered. It was quite common for mortgages to be passed on to third or fourth parties, each hoping to make money, and the resulting deeds can be very complicated.

Bills of Discovery

Under the Penal Laws, Catholics were not allowed to possess more than a very limited amount of land, and a Protestant who discovered a Catholic in possession of more than this amount could file a Bill of Discovery to claim it. In practice, most Bills appear to have been filed by Protestant friends of Catholic land-owners to pre-empt hostile Discovery, and as a means of allowing them to remain in effective possession. Registered Bills are not common, but they are extremely interesting, both genealogically and historically.

Wills

Only those wills likely to be contested legally, in other words those which omitted someone, almost certainly a family member, who might have a legitimate claim, would have been registered. Abstracts of the personal and geographical information in all of the wills registered between 1708 and 1832 have been published in P.B. Phair and E. Ellis (ed.) Abstracts of Wills at The Registry of Deeds, (3 vols), Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1954-1988. The full provisions of the wills are only to be found in the original memorials.

Rent Charges

These were annual payments of a fixed sum payable out of the revenue from nominated lands. They were used to provide for family members in straitened circumstances, or to pay off debts or mortgages in instalments. Once made, they could be transferred to others, and were valuable assets in their own right. Depending on the terms, they can provide useful insights into family relationships and family fortunes. Other miscellaneous classes of deed also appear. As outlined above, the only common feature is that they record a property transaction of some description; any family information they may contain is a matter of luck. More than most other repositories, research in the Registry of Deeds provides a very vivid sense of the past. The sack-covered, cumbersome transcript volumes, dusty and yellowing, smell of accumulated time, of lives long finished. It is a place to be approached in a spirit of patient exploration.