I’m thinking of visiting Ireland and would like to view birth, death, marriage and baptismal records.
The area I want to look at is Cavan and Armagh both have family members that lived in each area.
Would I need to go to different registry offices to view the records or just one that cover both?
Thanks June 🙏
June:
Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths started in 1864 and are available online at irishgenealogy.ie Also, marriages of non-Catholics from 1845-1863 were civilly registered and are also available at the aforementioned site.
For church records, there are subscription sites like Roots Ireland which have existing Roman Catholic records and some records for Church of Ireland and Presbyterian parishes. It all depends on whether you know the parish in question. Also, for Roman Catholic parishes, the National Library site https://registers.nli.ie/ has the actual registers up through around 1880.
Roger McDonnell
Thank you for your reply.
I have two dates for birth for my great grandmother. I have found the record for Mary Catherine Woods 1878 in Cavan. Her birth was registered and her parents were James and Jane Woods nee Mulholland. All Roman Catholics.
When I then work forward to the census of 1911 she should be 33 but her father has her down as 28. Her death was in 1914 and says she was 31 but as for her date of birth she should be 33. Nothing seems to match up.
The second date would be 1873.. this would be correct for the age at the 1911 census and her death but I can’t locate a birth registration for this date.
Would the family have a Mary Catherine and a Mary…surely not!
I have noticed other family members that have such different ages from one census to another. Some adding 14 years to their age from 1901 to 1911 census.
I have paid for ancestry and can see Mary Catherine Woods and a fellow searcher on ancestry has Rootsireland. She can’t locate a Mary of 1873.
All very confusing! June
In general, people in Ireland in the 1800s didn’t celebrate birthdays, didn’t have birth certificates or passports (though they might sometimes have had a baptismal cert) and often had little accurate idea of their ages. Most ages on official documents were just a guess.
Alexander Irvine was born in 1863 in Antrim town and became a Minister living in the US. This extract from his book “The Chimney Corner revisited” perhaps explains why people often had to guess their ages:
“My mother kept a mental record of the twelve births. None of us ever knew, or cared to know, when we were born. When I heard of anybody in the more fortunate class celebrating a birthday I considered it a foolish imitation of the Queen’s birthday, which rankled in our little minds with 25th December or 12th July. In manhood there were times when I had to prove I was born somewhere, somewhen, and then it was that I discovered that I also had a birthday. The clerk of the parish informed me.”
I have attached a letter which I found in parish records in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast from someone in Pettigoe, Co. Donegal in 1908 writing to his Minister, asking for proof of age (ie a baptismal certificate). All he knew was that he was between “70 and 78 years of age.” He clearly had only the vaguest idea and couldn’t narrow it down to within 9 years. (The likely reason for the letter was that the old age pension was being introduced in 1909 for people aged 70 and over. Documentary proof of age was required. Thus, probably for the first time in his life, establishing his age accurately became relevant to him).
Ages tended to shoot up in the 1911 census because folk knew censuses were being used to check your age (to see whether you were now 70 or older). So best add a few years on to make sure I get my pension sooner rather than later. (The censuses actually being checked were the 1841 & 1851 ones but folk didn’t really understand that).
June,
From Mary Catherine's birth, marriage, and death records on the irishgenealogy.ie website, it looks like the 1878 record is the one you want...her father was in the RIC, and that is shown on her civil birth and marriage record to Joseph Mitchell. Regarding ages at death, I always give a five year leeway in either direction because as stated above, folks didn't keep track of births as we do today. You mentioned about there being two girls named Mary in the same family...I am not seeing that in her family, but yes, it is very possible. Daughters or sons could be given the same first name, and then a different second name that they might go by to differentiate each other. Also, in the case of an infant or young child's death, the next male or female to be born would often be given the deceased child's name. It happened in my own family in 1934....my mom was named after a daughter who died at birth in 1929.
BTW, there is a well documented tree on Ancestry for Mary Woods if you haven't already seen it....it is the Bradshaw/McDermott tree by Christine Bradshaw.
Regards,