Disproportionate amount of bachelors and spinsters

[JAKnighton]

Sometimes I like to do a broad search of civil death records in registration districts my ancestors resided in to see what I can find.

One thing I have noticed is the sheer amount of people who have died in their 60s and 70s and are being recorded as bachelors and spinsters.

Frankly, there are too many. I am not sure these people are actually bachelors or spinsters at all. If I had to guess, these people are actually widows/widowers, and the registrars are recording them incorrectly.

Is this a known phenomenon?

[CaroleW]

Are you referring to a particular index of deaths as neither freebmd or the GRO index record marital status. 

[eadaoin]

Irish Death Certs certainly give marital status. OP is probably looking at irishgenealogy.ie

[heywood]

Is it a particular time period?

Have you looked for marriages for those people?

Could it be ‘the curse of emigration?’

[JAKnighton]

Is it a particular time period?

Not really, I'm just doing broad searches of surnames in my family tree just to see what comes up. I have noticed this in records from 1864 all the way to the 1920s.

Have you looked for marriages for those people?

This is partly why I am asking if it is known that widows/widowers were recorded erroneously. I would like to look for marriages, but don't want to waste my time if the answer is already there.

Could it be ‘the curse of emigration?’

This is closer to the information that I was looking for. If there were indeed a lot of unmarried adults in Ireland because communities were dilapidated by emigration, that would explain what I am seeing.

[frostyknight]

After the famine in the 1840s, Irish society changed. Apart from the huge numbers who emigrated, about 25% if people never married at all. I have many in my own family. It's not unusual in the Irish context. I'll add a link later to an article I read recently on the subject (I'm on my mobile at the moment).

[heywood]

That sounds interesting.

You often see young women married to much older men too because of the social circumstances.
This continued into the 20th century, as did emigration of course.

[frostyknight]

Sorry I couldn't get back to this thread last night. Here's the link to the article I mentioned previously. I hope it works. If not, the website is called Ireland XO. I can't remember if you need to sign up in order to read articles (it's been quite a while since I signed up to receive emails), but it's free.

https://www.irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/news/ten-faqs-about-irish-marriage-records?utm_source=Ireland+Reaching+Out+-+Full+Database&utm_campaign=50e02ea7d3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_01_22_12_00&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-50e02ea7d3-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

I hope it's of interest.

frostyknight

[heywood]

Thank you, frostyknight.
That’s very interesting.