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Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Topic started by: kob3203 on Friday 17 February 17 13:41 GMT (UK)
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I've come across this a couple of times. E.g:
Bridget Brown, baptised 23 May 1869, born 24 Jun 1869 (birth registered on 5 Aug 1869)
- Civil birth record: https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/8457154262994 (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/8457154262994) (the second entry)
- Baptism record: http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632227#page/101/mode/1up (http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632227#page/101/mode/1up) (halfway down right hand page)
What's the most likely explanation ?
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Maybe the dates are the wrong way round. Don't think a baptism of an unborn is possible.
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The events have been swapped -- so born May, bpt June
In those days there was no way of telling the sex of a baby before it was born, so naming / baptising the child would be difficult even if it was allowed by the church!
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Here's another.
William Brown, baptized 19 Feb 1871,born 5* Mar 1871,birth registered 10 Mar 1871:
- Baptism: http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632227#page/110/mode/1up (http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632227#page/110/mode/1up) (second entry on left hand page)
- Birth: https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/94ca441899756 (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/94ca441899756) (third entry)
*I just edited the date of birth -I'd originally written 15 which was wrong,5 days before registration!
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Hi,
Yes it's the wrong date.
Also on one record it says Fammer and on another it says Fanning as the mothers maiden name.
I have sent the docs. via Private Message.
Maggsie
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Maybe the dates are the wrong way round. Don't think a baptism of an unborn is possible.
I was recently informed that a stillborn baby couldn't be baptized (http://'http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=764450') (at least not back then). So my guess would be that baptism of an unborn was not possible, as you say.
Regarding getting birth/baptism dates swapped - I can imagine that the father, on registering the birth, might give the date of baptism. But is it likely that the priest would write "baptized such-and-such a date" in the parish baptism register and record the date of birth,not the date of baptism ?
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The events have been swapped -- so born May, bpt June
In those days there was no way of telling the sex of a baby before it was born, so naming / baptising the child would be difficult even if it was allowed by the church!
Good point about the sex of the baby.
Getting the dates of birth/baptism swapped sounds feasible,but I have my doubts (as mentioned in my previous post).
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Hi,
Yes it's the wrong date.
Also on one record it says Fammer and on another it says Fanning as the mothers maiden name.
I have sent the docs. via Private Message.
Maggsie
Thanks for that. Which date would you say is wrong - birth or baptism (or both)?
Seeing the Private Message you sent I note the priest's name is J.Crotty - I chuckled when I imagined a Father Jack (from "Father Ted") like figure writing the baptism entry (wrongly) with a bottle of whiskey in his hand !
P.S. I've seen too many bad transcriptions to put much reliance on them. I always prefer to look at the original documents. I've already seen the mother's maiden name written/transcribed as both Fanning and Fannen, which are apparently common variants of the same name. To me the civil birth record looks like Fannen, not Fammer - count the little humps on the n/m bit in the middle - there's not enough for a double m!
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The main point of this question is that:
1) If I already have a civil birth record I don't look for a baptism record before the date of birth.
2) If I already have a baptism record I don't look for a birth record after the date of baptism.
Unless this is just a case of drunken father Jack Crotty of Craggy Island Powerstown getting the dates wrong in the register, then I need to rethink those assumptions.
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There were fines for late registrations not sure of the time allowed to do so.
see Administative divisions and procedures here
near bottom of paragraph sentence starts
''it is widely acknowledged that for a variety reasons''
http://pwaldron.info/CivilReg.html
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Here's another one, same family:
Michael Brown, bap 20 Oct, born 10 Nov 1867, birth registered 6 Jan 1868:
- Bap : http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632227#page/94/mode/1up (http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632227#page/94/mode/1up) (bottom of left page - you need toincrease contrast and brightness,but it's fairly clear when you do)
- Birth: https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/a6a7183643487 (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/a6a7183643487) (first entry)
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There were fines for late registrations not sure of the time allowed to do so.
see Administative divisions and procedures here
near bottom of paragraph sentence starts
''it is widely acknowledged that for a variety reasons''
http://pwaldron.info/CivilReg.html
Thank you ! That's the sort of explanation that makes sense of it. The enlightening sentence reads:
"It is widely acknowledged that for a variety of reasons not all births, marriages or deaths were registered, and others were registered incorrectly. There were fines for late registration, which acted as an incentive to lie, so it is very common to find that the birth date on a birth certificate is later, often considerably later, than the christening date on the corresponding baptismal certificate. This was one way of avoiding the fine. This failure to register or to register truthfully is the first of the several steps where there is scope for errors."
(I hope that Father J.Crotty will forgive me for any aspersions I may have cast on his good name! :-)
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possibly 6 weeks time allowed
http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/Ireland-birth-records.html
edited to add see bottom cert for Patrick Tierney
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There were fines for late registrations not sure of the time allowed to do so.
see Administative divisions and procedures here
near bottom of paragraph sentence starts
''it is widely acknowledged that for a variety reasons''
http://pwaldron.info/CivilReg.html
Thank you ! That's the sort of explanation that makes sense of it. The enlightening sentence reads:
"It is widely acknowledged that for a variety of reasons not all births, marriages or deaths were registered, and others were registered incorrectly. There were fines for late registration, which acted as an incentive to lie, so it is very common to find that the birth date on a birth certificate is later, often considerably later, than the christening date on the corresponding baptismal certificate. This was one way of avoiding the fine. This failure to register or to register truthfully is the first of the several steps where there is scope for errors."
An uncle of mine was born in Ireland and probably baptised there. Family then returned to England. When parents got around to registering baby it was past the allotted time, so his official DOB was 2 months later than the real date. DOB of my mother in baptismal register was different from the date she said she was born. One of my brothers has 2 DOBs. We used to joke that nobody in the family knew their real DOB. To our surprise Dad's official DOB was what he thought it was, and Grandad's age on his tombstone was correct.
Take into account parents' attitude to : 1. officialdom ; 2. church.
My granddad was a religious man, but apparently saw nothing wrong with "alternative facts " on state records. His 1911 census return, for instance, includes several "inaccuracies".
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I've got quite a few people 'born' after they were baptised, I put it down to mother having enough to do with a new baby and lots of other children to care for and father busy on the farm because of the time of year, who had time to bother with registering a birth.
There is one I wish I could solve though. My mother's father said he was born 4 July, FamilySearch extracted record says the 16 July but no christening date, his birth cert says the 16 July, as such it doesn't matter which is correct but if he is the 16th than my mother has a father, husband and first born child all born on the 16 July. Which would be pretty cool.
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We celebrated my dad's birthday on 22nd January, we had a baptism certificate for 26th of the same month and when he checked his birth details for his pension, his date of birth was 2nd February.
He was registered towards the end of April more than two months after the alleged date of birth.
I know of several Irish people with similar stories.
The most important thing would be to have the child baptised. Registration was, I suppose when it could be arranged.
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I have come across this too. The baptism would take place quickly, within couple of days, the registration could be a good deal later. People probably had enough to do with work, looking after the children etc, and if they lived out in the country, it could be some time before someone got around to registering the birth. (And sometimes they didn't get around to it at all, lol)
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So it sounds quite common then to be officially (according to civil registration) born after one was baptized. With Ancestry's free UK/Irish records this weekend I've been searching through the temporarily free Irish baptism records (http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=61039)* and I've already found missing baptisms for a couple of people before they were officially born. So it's a good thing to know.
*N.B. the scans are permanently free on the NLI website as noted in sinann's post below. It's the transcriptions which aren't usually free.
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Temporarily free transcribed Irish baptism records, they are permanently free on http://registers.nli.ie/
Just in case anyone happens on this thread who doesn't know.
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Temporarily free transcribed Irish baptism records, they are permanently free on http://registers.nli.ie/
Just in case anyone happens on this thread who doesn't know.
Yes indeed - I should've been more specific ;D.
The transcriptions, which I'm not usually keen on as mentioned in an earlier post, make the search process much easier. Manually searching the NLI scans when you're not sure of month or parish isn't my favourite pastime !
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Temporary free access to Ancestry's transcribed RC parish records just expired.
I've been busy making the most of it, and found that most of the baptism records of my Irsih ancestors were dated earlier than their official birth. So it does seem to be a rather common practice.
On a sidenote there was one 1865 baptism for which I couldn't find a matching civil birth.The curious thing was that I noticed there was a '+' at the start and end of the entry in the RC baptism register, and I'd read that '+' was an abbreviation for Latin defuncti, i.e.deceased...
More here "Does a + against a child's name in a baptism register indicate the child died ?" - http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=765684.0 (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=765684.0)
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see last paragraph ''Other information'' near bottom of page
http://www.understandingyourancestors.com/ar/parishbirth.aspx
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Interesting link - thank you Dathai
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Thanks - nice to see confirmation that it's really a possibility (i.e. the + against the entry indicating that the child died shortly after baptism).
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I've come across this a couple of times. E.g:
Bridget Brown, baptised 23 May 1869, born 24 Jun 1869 (birth registered on 5 Aug 1869)
- Civil birth record: https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/8457154262994 (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/8457154262994) (the second entry)
- Baptism record: http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632227#page/101/mode/1up (http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632227#page/101/mode/1up) (halfway down right hand page)
What's the most likely explanation ?
In your case - there are 42 days between claimed date of birth and the date of registration - the maximum you can have without a fine.
I suspect the mother lied to avoid it (my own great, great grandmother did - but confessed to her son in his 20s why his birth certificate was wrong compared to the date he celebrated on) - but didn't lie to the priest
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1) If I already have a civil birth record I don't look for a baptism record before the date of birth.
2) If I already have a baptism record I don't look for a birth record after the date of baptism.
Unless this is just a case of drunken father Jack Crotty of Craggy Island Powerstown getting the dates wrong in the register, then I need to rethink those assumptions.
I think the Priest either had too much wine or was dyslexic & forgot which column was for which event ??? ;D ::)
Annie
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I know of a case in my own family whether the father of the child was so excited he registered the wrong date which was later. The mother registered vthe next sibling and no doubt reminded him of his error for the next 30 years!! Like Last of the summer wine sometimes!
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I know of a case in my own family whether the father of the child was so excited he registered the wrong date which was later. The mother registered vthe next sibling and no doubt reminded him of his error for the next 30 years!! Like Last of the summer wine sometimes!
Similar to my family.
If the Queen can have an official birthday and an actual one why can't ordinary people.
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Why not indeed? Only problem would be we would have to pay for our own, as indeed we pay for the Queen's.
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The baptisms posted by kob were in chronological order on the pages in the register so I regard them as correct.
Civil registration of births was a recently introduced procedure then. Like dog licences. One of my GGF's missed one of each and was fined for not buying a dog licence.
I posted today on kob's other thread about births and baptisms. A family in Ireland who were friends of my dad's family had: a daughter's baptism predating official birthday; a son who was given a name at baptism but registered with a different name; a daughter not registered; a son with 2 birth registrations 3 months apart and consequently 2 official birthdays. ??? The first of the double birth registrations was done by the mother, probably as soon as she was able to go to town; the father was informant at the second registration.