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Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Topic started by: TunjiLees on Sunday 29 March 20 13:11 BST (UK)
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I've seen the record of one chap who married in 1861 and his age was given as 21. He died in 1896 and his age was given as 80. Meaning he managed to age 59 years in 35 years!
I've seen adult siblings recorded with the wrong ages on census records whereas you would think they should know the order they were born in.
I've seen records of the same people going by multiple surname spellings such as O'Neil/Neil/Neal, McMullan/Mullan, Lees/Leese/Lee even into the early 20th century!
In comparison, Scottish records are much more reliable and spellings and ages are correct in the far majority of cases in civil registration records.
So how come the huge discrepancies in Irish records?
I suppose it could also be to do with the Irish officials being less strict in their record keeping.
I've also heard the argument that people didn't keep track of their actual age much, or may have lied to appear younger or older for whatever reason. But how that rarely seems to have happened over in Scotland?
What do other people think about this?
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I have never looked at an Irish record, but you do find it in Scotland too. The registrar is dependent on what the informant knows. With deaths the informant is often a son-in-law or daughter-in-law or a grandchild who is not always sure about ages or parents' names. I wouldn't be surprised if large numbers of people today were unaware of their grandmothers' maiden names or ages.
Spelling was much looser in the 19th century. I have seen someone spell their own surname three different ways on the same document.
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A lot has also to do with resentment against the English that invaded Ireland and answering their questions on forms such as Census data... even registering Births was treated by many as another case of being watched/counted by our invading English 'Big Brother'
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I've seen the record of one chap who married in 1861 and his age was given as 21. He died in 1896 and his age was given as 80. Meaning he managed to age 59 years in 35 years!
Bear in mind too that marriage records (including licences) don't always give an exact age, but might use "21 and upwards" for an adult. Sometimes when these are transcribed or indexed the software can't cope with the full phrase, so it is misleadingly recorded as simply "21".
I haven't knowingly come across it, but it wouldn't surprise me if some clergy also used "21" as their own shorthand for "21 and upwards".
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When my Gran and Grandad married, it said both "Of full age"
She was just 18! that was in 1920.
Maggsie
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because we don't give a ….., sur' it will do, twil be grand, it's not harming anyone, what they don't know won't hurt them, but most important, tell em nothing and a little white lie never hurt anyone.
I could be wrong but reading stuff in the Common Room here when people are posting about all sorts of rules and regulations on a wide variety of subjects I often think if that was over here we would give a monkeys.
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A lot has also to do with resentment against the English that invaded Ireland and answering their questions on forms such as Census data... even registering Births was treated by many as another case of being watched/counted by our invading English 'Big Brother'
This makes a lot of sense to me. I was also thinking that due to its rough history, literacy in Ireland might have been historically lower than in Scotland or England which meant less accurate records. I had a google but wasn't able to find statistics about this though.
I've seen the record of one chap who married in 1861 and his age was given as 21. He died in 1896 and his age was given as 80. Meaning he managed to age 59 years in 35 years!
Bear in mind too that marriage records (including licences) don't always give an exact age, but might use "21 and upwards" for an adult. Sometimes when these are transcribed or indexed the software can't cope with the full phrase, so it is misleadingly recorded as simply "21".
I haven't knowingly come across it, but it wouldn't surprise me if some clergy also used "21" as their own shorthand for "21 and upwards".
Should have mentioned in my example that all the other marriages on the page have different ages recorded, so I believe the guy really was around 21 when he married.
because we don't give a ….., sur' it will do, twil be grand, it's not harming anyone, what they don't know won't hurt them, but most important, tell em nothing and a little white lie never hurt anyone.
I could be wrong but reading stuff in the Common Room here when people are posting about all sorts of rules and regulations on a wide variety of subjects I often think if that was over here we would give a monkeys.
ahahahaha
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I've seen the record of one chap who married in 1861 and his age was given as 21. He died in 1896 and his age was given as 80. Meaning he managed to age 59 years in 35 years!
I've seen adult siblings recorded with the wrong ages on census records whereas you would think they should know the order they were born in.
I've seen records of the same people going by multiple surname spellings such as O'Neil/Neil/Neal, McMullan/Mullan, Lees/Leese/Lee even into the early 20th century!
In comparison, Scottish records are much more reliable and spellings and ages are correct in the far majority of cases in civil registration records.
So how come the huge discrepancies in Irish records?
I suppose it could also be to do with the Irish officials being less strict in their record keeping.
My Irish great-aunts and uncle aged 2 decades between 1901 & 1911 census. Eldest great-aunt outlived all her immediate family and died 30 years later, aged only 15 years older on her death certificate than on 1911 census. Great-Grandma, their mother, was officially 70 on 1901 census but since she'd been married 60 years by then, the age was underestimated. Her husband's recorded age at death was 88, meaning, if accurate, he may have been born c.1810. I estimate that he was between 80 and 100 when he died.
There were no set spellings of names in 19thC. If a person could write, they spelled their names however they liked. Members of the same family might spell their surname differently. An example of this is a man who informed the registrar of his brother's death. He spelled the surname one way for his brother's name and a different way for his own. When registrar queried the 2 spellings, the man said his brother used a different spelling. People who couldn't write had no control over how their name was written.
Consider that provision of elementary education in Ireland was later than Scotland.
Consider also that English was not the first language for some Irish people.
"O" and "Mc" prefixes might be adopted or dropped, depending on a variety of factors e.g. to seem more or less Irish.
Civil registration for everyone began in Ireland a decade later than Scotland and 3 decades later than England.
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On the 1979 (no census in 1976) and 1981 Census I'm recording as living in a house I hadn't lived in since 1973.
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because we don't give a ….., sur' it will do, twil be grand, it's not harming anyone, what they don't know won't hurt them, but most important, tell em nothing and a little white lie never hurt anyone.
"Tell 'em nothin' " was said by an English-born member of my family & generation, about a local council official. My dad, 2nd generation Irish, was a bit cavalier (or just vague) about official records. His father entered several falsehoods ( mistakes? inaccuracies?) on 1911 census when he was head of household. I knew the facts. GF's age fluctuated. He was same age as his younger sister on 1911 census; their ages had gone in opposite directions and coincided in 1911. His true age was on his death certificate and tombstone.
Note that police constables collected census returns in Ireland. Police were not always popular people.
Knowledge is power so don't let those who have power over you know too much about you, seems to have been the attitude. I've adopted my Irish family's motto to the likes of Facebook in the present day.
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I was also thinking that due to its rough history, literacy in Ireland might have been historically lower than in Scotland or England which meant less accurate records. I had a google but wasn't able to find statistics about this though.
1901 & 1911 Irish census had questions about literacy & language. Results may be collated somewhere.
Btw the surname of my eldest aunt, then a child, was spelled phonetically, with the wrong initial letter, on Irish census. She was staying with her grandfather. He spoke Irish and English and couldn't read or write. I assume someone else completed the census form. I have a letter from him, presumably dictated, written in phonetic English as spoken by an Irish person; e.g. one spelled "wun"; once as "wunse" .
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Wrong ages would often be given on marriages to try and hide that there was a big age gap between to two parties.
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My father in law born Ennis in 1911 has 3 different dates of birth,all during June ;D
They reckon it's because the family lived a long way out of town and when his father went to register the birth,he travelled via the pub. When he got to the town hall he said the missus gave birth to a baby last Wednesday.The registrar didn't know which Wednesday he meant so put what he thought.
His baptism has a different date and he celebrated his birthday on yet a 3rd date.
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On the 1979 (no census in 1976) and 1981 Census I'm recording as living in a house I hadn't lived in since 1973.
Maybe a pile of unpaid bills in your name too.... :o :o
;D
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On the 1979 (no census in 1976) and 1981 Census I'm recording as living in a house I hadn't lived in since 1973.
Maybe a pile of unpaid bills in your name too.... :o :o
;D
;D I was a bit too young for bills :D
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In the Civil records, I have noticed that some people have used the dates of the registration not the birthdates.
Also some Church records show the Baptism date and the actual birthdate.
Maggsie
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"Whatever you say, say nothing"
Seamus Heaney
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"Whatever you say, say nothing"
Seamus Heaney
No comment! ;D
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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 found a letter 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).
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Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh sports commentator who is still very much alive said he remembers people 'writing home for their age' to the parish priest, most would have been men working on building sites in England, so not too long ago people still weren't sure of their age.
There is also the fine for late registration to be taken into account, a busy farmer wasn't going to travel into town to register a new baby until it suited him and a fib about the birth date was a must if it saved the price of the fine. Which of course is why so many Irish children appear to be baptised before they were born.
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Illiteracy and lack of good education were not the only factors. In my part of Ireland there was a very good school system from 1820s onwards but there simply wasn't much need to know an exact date, or even year, of birth.
My father-in-law, born before WWI, was never sure of his birthdate (nearest was in early January) although he'd no trouble remembering his wedding date and even the day he got engaged. A relative of my father's, born in 1920s, had 3 birthdays- one on birth certificate, second recorded in baptismal register and third (one family celebrated) was the day his mother said he was born!
And census confusion isn't a recent thing. My father has, and only ever had, 2 daughters. My sister has always been 4 years younger than me. So filling out census form should be easy, right? No, one year my father started by putting in sister first then me younger! (we fixed it before submitted)
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I did Census in 1970's and knocked on one house and the door was open by a lady who was 100% Black Irish, about 4'6" tall, black dress, shawl etc etc...She was almost blind.
She asked me in to help her with the Form.
She had been born on Connemara coast where her folk were Fishermen. She married there to a fisherman from east coast, after marriage she went with him on trawler to her new home on East coast and had never been home since.
Trying to complete the Form she told me her father was 2 when Michael Davitt was born, one of her brothers was born same year as someone else, she was born when some other Politician was only 5, etc etc...
She had no idea of years for when anyone was Born and it was all years when this happened or that happened.
She couldn't read or write. A remarkable lady that I will never forget, chatted about her life growing up, life on East coast for well over an hour.
Don't think she even knew what the Year was and wasn't important to her ;D I forget which event she gave for the year she was born but had to look it up when I got home to work out her age/birth year! ;D She hadn't a clue as to what age she was!