Thomas and Frances Mc Cann. Any Help At All Please

[liverbirds]

Hi , I wonder can some one help please. My Dad was Patrick Mc Cann b. 18th June 1904 the youngest child of the couple named above. He had a brother named James and a sister Mary and I have the family on the 1911 census for 15 Lower Dominick St, Dublin were
Thomas is age 39 yrs b. Dublin City Bricklayer
Frances is age 38 yrs b. Dublin City
James is age 12 yrs b. Dublin
Mary is age 8 yrs b. Dublin
Patrick is age 7 yrs b .Dublin

Why would there be a difference shown between them for the birth area? On searching this census I realise there was St Mary's national school about 5 doors from their home would any one know any thing about the school, i.e age groups etc, wonder was it the school used by my Dad at that age?
The only certificate I have for my Dad is his Baptism at the Pro-Cathedral on 1st July 1904, his sponser was Ann Lalor. A search that I did personally in Dublin shows no birth registration for him, the people in the office did two search's and they said this was a common occurrance for the period he was born in and a search of marriage index did not come up with his parents marriage and the huge problem there is that his Mum shows as a Nee' Mc Cann on his Baptism certificate, i.e Mc Cann marrying a Mc Cann.

I believe she died when my Dad was about 11 yrs and his sister went in to a convent dont know were, but she is said to have died at a young age through coming off a swing while she was there.

I spoke at one point to my cousin who was born in Dublin but she knew as little as I did on the family. Until the 1901 census comes out I will probably know nothing else unless some one can point me in the right direction, all help would be greatly appreciated Thank you, Bye L.B

[aghadowey]

The 1911 census gives the mother's name as Fanny (not Frances) and states she's been married for 15 years which should pinpoint the marriage date to search for. It's possible that the surname was a different spelling on the certificates which is why you haven't been able to find births, etc.

[shanew147]

I've noticed the same detail about the Dublin / Dublin City place of birth for some of my ancestors. Birth certs for them have shown that they were all born in what would now be Dublin City.

It's possible that the children born in a slightly different part of Dublin that true 'Dub' parents didn't consider Dublin City.

I have a case where the family lived in South County Dublin but the children were all born on the North Circular Road - so they showed up in Dublin City registration district of Dublin North.


Shane

[Purpeller]

Re: differentiation between city and county - the city was much smaller then.
I have ancestors who came from Ballsbridge and it was considered county in 1911 - just a 20 minute walk from the city centre and very much part of the city today.

If anything, it's helpful because you know to look at parishes outside the city centre. 

School was compulsory up to the age of 14 then.

Have you tried searching for the births of the other children?  The Family search pilot site should help you narrow it down...
http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=2;t=searchable;c=1408347

[liverbirds]

Thank you all for your replies and interest to the posting about my grandparents. I have just looked at Family Search but there are no records for the family. I went over to Dublin a year ago to search records and came up with nothing as I said and then was told at the office that it was more important to baptize the babies rather than civil registration as the people of the city did not want the numbers of children to be knowledge to the authorities because of the unrest of the times that they were going through.

I was considering asking City churches if they had entries of marriages that had possibly never been through civil registration for similar reasons, I suppose it is possible.

As the information on the census was written by the house holder I would think that Fanny was the name my grandmother was called by her husband, but she certainly shows as Frances on my Dad's baptism certificate, my Dad had got this as a copy in 1922 so I suppose thinking about it, it was used as a form of identification. In hindsight I suppose I thought Mc Cann marrying a Mc Cann would jump out of the index at me. You have all given me a lot to mull over, thanks once again L.B

[Purpeller]

Hmm, there was no special unrest in the period 1895 - 1911.  The King even visited in 1904 and the monarchy was popular with the ordinary people.  There were always groups who wanted to agitate but nothing particularly bad happened around the time these children were born.  In 1913, there were a lot of strike problems and then came the war and the Rising in 1916.

It's very unlikely that all the children at this late stage were unregistered.  It was against the law not register births within 3 months and there was a fine.  This did lead to people pretending their 3 month old baby was only 2 months but according to research done by my college lecturer, by the late 1890s, we had almost total coverage with the civil registration for births.

City churches are almost always going to ask for a letter of permission to view the records (in person) from the Bishop of the relevant diocese.  The national library has parish registers but they only go to 1880 for St. Andrew's baptisms.

Sorry I can't be more helpful!

[aghadowey]

Would agree with Perpeller that it's unlikely the marriage and all the births would not have been registered in that period which is why I'm wonderinf if they are indexed under a different spelling of McCann or different surname.

[Marc Mc Namara]

Hi Liverbirds
Just a consideration you might give when looking for your family, aside from the many variations a name can have (Being a McNamara, i know this ONLY too well) is that children were obliged to be registered, but nor necessarily named and hence the number of records that will state MALE / FEMALE as the given name.
To illustrate the point, you Da is born circa 1903/4 - so the following could apply :

Name: Male M'Cann
Registration district: Dublin North
Record type: BIRTHS
Registration date - quarter and year: Jan - Mar 1903
Volume: 2
Page: 492
Collection: Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958

Again, James born circa 1899 could be:
Name: Male M'cann
Registration district: Dublin North
Record type: BIRTHS
Registration date - quarter and year: Jul - Sep 1899
Volume: 2
Page: 504

and to follow the logic on for Mary :
Name: Female M'Cann
Registration district: Dublin North
Record type: BIRTHS
Registration date - quarter and year: Jan - Mar 1903
Volume: 2
Page: 483

I am not suggesting these are the records, but consider that fines were handed out during this period for unregistered births, it is an avenue worth considering. Not that is the samples above all births are for North Dublin, does that match the Baptism cert?
  I have found two family members this way, and whilst it could prove expensive to do endless random searches, i put a note on my fax request to the GRO and advised that if the parents names were not X or Y, then not to copy, and as a result i am generally charged 2euros each which is not prohibitive in itself.

Good luck with your search

Marc

[liverbirds]

Thank you all for the last 3 answers, you have given me lot's of advice and plenty to think on, I did think when I was given the reason of registration that it sounded a strange thing to say but did not query it further thinking they had looked twice and that was it, also not realising that fines were due for non registration.

So I take it now as I cant see the indexes for myself that I should  write to Joyce House with the info as I have it i.e name, birth date , parents names and state that I only want the cert if it has the two parents names on, which is similar to applying in England and then you only pay a search fee, having not seen an Irish certificate would you get an address on it? Sorry for these extra questions but you certainly have given me a lift with your knowledge and the interest you have shown, thanks once more. Liverbirds