RootsChat.Com
Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Topic started by: M_ONeill on Monday 15 December 14 12:44 GMT (UK)
-
Hello all,
A very quick question regarding Irish parish records. On a number of transcripts I see the note 'Father/witness' first name E'. Can anyone tell me what this means?
Many thanks! :)
-
Difficult to answer without more details from you. What church is it? period? and where is the transcription from?
-
So these are all transcriptions from Roots Ireland from the 1890's. The first is a marriage in the R.C. church of Moneymore in 1895 - there is a note saying 'Husband's father's first name E'.
The second record is a marriage in the R.C. church of Drummullen in 1898 - there is a note saying 'Both fathers' and first witness name E'.
-
I'm doubtful that it's something from the actual register. Probably best to ask the site for an explanation of what their transcription means (and do let us know what the answer is).
-
Is the note in addition to the fathers' names?
Are there just those two?
Do you have the names of the people concerned- they are not called Edward or Edmund etc, are they?
I hope that is not too silly a question. :)
-
Probably best to ask the site for an explanation of what their transcription means (and do let us know what the answer is).
I agree the best course. It may stand for [or be an abbreviation for a latin word for] illegible, unclear or missing.
-
It may mean "out of" or "from" in Latin.
-
In Latin "e" and "ex" have the same meaning with the former used before a consonant and the latter before a vowel.
-
Hey everyone, thanks for the replies!
I think it's definitely something that has been added by the transcriber, rather than being on the record itself. In every case where the note appears there is a name present:
First record:
Michael O'Neill (father of groom)
Second record:
James Bell (father of groom)
James McCann (father of bride)
William Corr (witness)
I have sent an Email to the Tyrone County genealogy centre, hopefully I'll get a response. If anyone else has any other suggestions as to what they might mean, I'd be very grateful.
Many thanks! :)
-
So I got a reply from a researcher at the genealogy centre:
On some marriage records there appear marginal comments entered by the priest. Sometimes it could be a townland name or maybe a note to the effect that permission had been granted due to the bride and groom being distantly related – i.e. a degree of consanguinity.
Sometimes a witness’ names or a father’s forename might initially be entered wrongly, and would have to be amended. This could be done just after the service – or on occasion when the priest was revising his entries later. In some cases he might have nothing more to go on than an initial, hence ‘first name E’.
So I guess it could be any number of things, perhaps an erroneous name entry.
-
Don't think the explanation is very satisfactory- if there's been an amendment they should be providing ALL the details in that record.
-
Doesn't seem like much of an explanation to me either - however when the digitised images of the RC parish register are placed on line by the NLI next summer, we'll all be able to see what was in the original register entry and check what RootsIreland have transcribed. ;)
H