The Relevance of Townlands

While it is of course interesting to see the position of a townland within its parish, the purpose of inclusion of the set of maps on this site is that I believe that the location can often be a clue to possible family connections.

To take an example, research on this site will show a number of McGarry families in the townland of Bellageeher in Bornacoola Parish. By selecting the Bornacoola map we can see that one of the adjacent townlands in Clooncarreen. By looking at the Places Index and searching for Cloonarreen townland we an see that a number of McGarry families lived there. This, at the very least, suggests a possible relationship with some of the McGarrys of Bellageeher. Unfortunately, as I know from personal research, there seems little or no documentary evidence to prove or disprove any such relationships, but the same may not always apply to other such coincidences of occurrence of surnames.