William Roche of County Kilkenny

[denben]

William was my wife's father and he was born about 1907.  He had about ten brothers and sisters - my wife can remember several of them.

Last year we travelled to the register office in Dublin and searched for his birth certificate.  We couldn't find one - for him or any of his siblings!

From what we know about registering births in Ireland it is possible that all of them were Christened in their local Catholic church but the births were not registered. 

We are planning another trip to Ireland but we're not sure where to start looking.  Is there a central 'register' in Kilkenny?  Do we have to go to individual churches?  Would there be an equivalent to the county record offices in England and Wales?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

[leprechaun]

 Kilkenny Ancestry
  Rothe House
    Kilkenny  Ireland.
 There is afull commissioned research service.Not all church records are indexed.

www.kilkennyarchaelogicalsociety.ie
                          Hope this help's. Lep

[Tees]

Hi Denben,

I learnt from my recent experience after many years of getting "no record found" certificates from the Irish GRO.

Do not expect that the surnames would be spelt correctly like your father in law's present surname.

Roche may be Roach, Roch and other variants on it.

That is why I could not find my great-grandmother's birth entry because I continue to use the correct form of her surname. I nearly give up on finding any record on her until I realise that one can be a bit flexible on the spelling--bingo, she is in the indexes!

Also, you would have to be a bit flexible on his birth year. Widen your searches on birth year within five years. Try not be fooled by his birthplace--it may be not what your Father thought he was born in.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck and every success in finding him and his siblings!

Kind regards,

Tees

[aghadowey]

I agree Tees. Have found my Lynds as Lynn, Linn, Lin, Lyn (all of which they seem to have used at some point) and even as Lynch (by someone misread the handwriting I presume) and then there are lots of people I can't find in the index but know when and where they were born. Sometimes searching through the actual birth records I have found the missing people but there are still a lot I can't find.