Searching for my Grandmother's home and birth certificate

Sometimes mistakes get made in recording births, deaths & marriages in the on-line indexes. Names get mis-spelled and perhaps the odd entry is overlooked. So you could write to GRO Roscommon, enclosing a photocopy of the baptism and ask them to look up the original registers to see if the birth is there.

If it’s not there, there’s a couple of possible explanations. One is that the birth was in a different place to the baptism. That’s not very common with RC births because baptism normally follows within a few days of the birth, but it can happen. If the family were travelling or if the mother had gone to visit someone when she gave birth. And with other denominations (you haven’t said what denomination this family were) baptism can be 6 months later. I recently came across some Presbyterian records where a whole family was baptised at the same time and the children were aged 4 to 16. So one baptism was 16 years after the birth. (Rare for RC, but it happened with other denominations). And with RC you get adult baptisms when someone changes denomination, usually in anticipation of marriage. So there the baptism date will obviously be 20 years or more after the birth.

Another possibility is that the birth was registered after the baptism. There was a penalty for not registering a birth within the specified period (6 weeks or something like that). But if you lived in a rural area it was often a bit of a journey to the local registrar and people sometimes didn’t get around to it for months. Then, instead of giving the real date of birth, and incurring a financial penalty, they just changed the child’s date of birth to one within the past week or so. So you might find a child “born” 6 months after it was baptised. The Registrar would have been none the wiser. So check after the baptism date as well as before it.

Finally there is the possibility that the birth just wasn’t registered at all. Nowadays you need to register a birth to qualify for certain state benefits, so all births are likely to be registered, but there were none in the 1800s and so little urgency in registering a birth. Some were never registered.

Peggy:

Elwyn provided you with a number of suggestions and explanations regarding why the civil birth record is not available. Can you provide your grandmother's name? We can take a look. Also, you are in a border area and possibly the family lived in Co. Roscommon.

Roger McDonnell

Peggy:

Well it was worth a try but I did not find the record. I assume her parents were Michael and Mary and they lived in Curraghmulmurry townland in Ballynakill civil parish? The only two records I located were on the same page. Both shown as Ellen Donelon and they were registered in October 1896. The parents of one of the Ellens were Michael and Bridget.

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_retur…

Roger

If I'm looking at the correct transcript on RootsIreland the parents to your Ellen/ Eleonora were Michael Donnelan & Bridget Trears, date of birth and baptism match the details you have. Place of birth is given as 'Curragh' - likely a reference to Curraghmulmurry , and the parish is Glinsk aka Kilbegnet and Dunamon etc

There's a matching civil birth as a late registration in Glenamaddy District on the 10th October, parents Michael Donelan and Bridget Trears, residence and place of birth 'Curragh' (entry 408).

EDIT ; just realized that's the same register page that Roger just linked...

is this your 'Donlan' family at Curraghmulmurry townland on the 1901 census with parents Michael & Mary, also in the household is a Bridget 'Trayers',Mary's mother

There's also a good match for Mary/Maria's birth in 1895, parents Michael Donnelan & Bridget Trears, and place of birth Curragh... wonder if there was a mix up with the names - the informants for the births were Michael & Bridget (snr), and both signed with their mark

I suspect that Michael's wife was actually born Bridget but went by the the name Mary.,,. as there's a marriage that fits very well of a Michael Donlon and Bridget Trayers in Glynsk Chapel on the 24th February 1894, and the bride's residence is Curragh

Peggy:

All the best!

Roger

John,

This might be the birth. Registered in August, 6 months after the date of birth you have, with a date of birth in May 1897. But the father’s name and townland fit. Mother seems to be Catherine Kerrane. Kerrane presumably being an alternative version of Carr. Late registration, with a random date of birth, was very common, as mentioned previously in this thread. Nobody really cared much.

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/files/civil/birth_returns/births_1897/02113/1804052.pdf

John,

Use this link here:

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-social-protection/services/birth-death-marriage-and-other-certificates/

John,

The mother signed the birth registration form with her mark, indicating she was probably illiterate. She’d have little interest in how the name was spelled. Variations like that are very common.

It’ll be Boggauns. Here’s the family in the 1901 census:

https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Galway/Creggs/Boggauns/1380098/

Boggauns here:

https://www.logainm.ie/en/18961

There were just 4 households in the townland in 1901:

https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Galway/Creggs/Boggauns/