I too have followed this thread with interest and would just like to advise members of the difficulties I encountered. My English father and Irish mother divorced in the early 1950's. Custody was given to my father. Many years after my father's death I tried to trace my mother. I started with their marriage in 1949 in Yorkshire. According to the certificate she was the same age as he was 21.
I had great difficulty locating her but I did eventually. I found she had remarried in England 7 years later, less than 20 miles away and guess what she was still 21! She was using her first married name as though it was her maiden name and said she was a spinster. She had said her father's name was the what in actual fact my father's father's name! To cut a long story short when she died a few years ago her birth certificate revealled that she had been 28 when she married my father and 35 when she married her second husband who was only 21. Neither my father or he knew her true age. When she died her husband thought she was nearly 60 when infact she was 74 and could have been claimimg pension for 14 years. Had it not been for the fact that my father had an unusual surname and my paternal grandfather an unusual middle name I would never have found her on my own.
I traced her by writing to the parish priest and got further family information whom I traced to Manchester and they told me where she was living. I made a donation of £5 and got a long list from the Parish register of the whole family even those that were still living. Also they were a bit notorious so the Parish priest was fully acquainted with them
Just to warn you all out there you may have to ask people in Ireland like the Priest and secondly do not believe all you read on the census and certificates. My mother kept up the charade until her death, and it took me 10 years to get the truth.
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