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Irish Genealogical Research | Dwight Radford

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Who Performed the Marriage for Your Ancestors?

1 Dec By

Often we neglect an important piece of information on a marriage record which can be utilized to further our research goals. This is the name of the person who married the couple. There are several reasons why this is important. I will offer a few examples.

J. P. Marriage: If a Justice of the Peace (J. P.) performed the marriage, then my assumption is they went down to the courthouse and the ceremony occurred in the J. P.’s Office. That means a church marriage probably did not occur. While this is not unusual in itself, it does raise some questions. Why would a Catholic couple be married by a J. P. if there was a resident priest? My first guess would be it was a mixed marriage, with one party being non-Catholic, and a church dispensation could not be obtained for whatever reason. Knowing one party was not Catholic is important. Another reason may be the couple was not religious or have a denomination they leaned toward. Again, that could be an important clue, steering your search away from church registers.

M. G. Marriage: When a Minister of the Gospel (M. G.) marries a couple; that in itself has to be taken with some care. What is an M. G. anyway? Don’t assume the clerk did not classify a Catholic priest as an M. G. Depending on the civil clerk, an M. G. may be the same as a P. P. (Parish Priest). The name of the M. G. is important.

Identifying a Church: If you don’t know what church your ancestors attended, then you can learn this by researching the M. G.. This can be accomplished through directories, published histories, or through an Internet search. This applies equally for both Catholics and Protestants. Once you know what congregation, parish or denomination, the M. G. served; then you can proceed to search the correct church registers.

Although the name of the person performing the marriage may seem unimportant, if you do not know the name of a congregation or even denomination, this is the best way to identify that.

If you would like professional help with your family history call us at: 385-214-0925.

 

 

 

 

Calculating Event Dates to Prove a Link

6 Nov By

I could not find the marriage in Massachusetts for an Irish immigrant couple around 1859 or early 1860. I knew their first child was born on 9 December 1860. To make matters worse, I found a 12 October 1856 marriage of a couple with the same first and last names, but they were some 25 miles away from where the first known child was born. Since Irish Catholic names can be common, I had to wonder if this was even the right couple? The 1856 marriage also listed the bride’s father with a different given name.

I developed a strategy on the spot. I looked for children of the 1856 couple. In this case, the birth and death databases on FamilySearch were very helpful. They showed the 1856 couple had a child die on 14 August 1858 and they had a second child born and die on 28 September 1859. No civil births were registered.

Now that I had this information I had to figure out just how it all fits together and if the couple married in 1856 was really the ones I was looking for. To accomplish this I chose one of the many calculating databases on the Internet. You would typically use these in calculating birth dates found in death records and tombstones where it states someone died on a date, being so many months and days old.

Using the calculated birth dates, I then used the death fields and put in that “birth date” and calculated 9 months to get the date the child was conceived. This process provided a time line of this family chronologically:

  • 12 Oct. 1856: Marriage of the parents I was wondering about, which was documented.
  • 11 Feb. 1857: The first child was conceived according to the calculation.
  • 11Nov. 1857: The first child was born according to the calculation.
  • 14 Aug. 1858: The first child dies and this is documented.
  • 28 Nov. 1858: The second child was conceived according to the calculation.
  • 28 Sep. 1859: The second child was born and died and this is documented.
  • 09 Mar. 1860: The known ancestor was conceived according to the calculation.
  • 09 Dec. 1860: The known ancestor was born and this is documented.

Everything fit perfectly which provided the evidence the couple married on 12 October 1856 was the same as the parents I was looking for at the 9 December 1860 birth. Now I could begin the process of researching the parents some 25 miles from where I had originally documented them.

If you would like help in researching your Irish Immigrant ancestor, please call us at 385-214-0925.

 

 

British Columbia Death Registrations (1872-1986)

22 Sep By Leave a Comment

A valuable collection for researching Irish immigrants is the “British Columbia Death Registrations, 1872-1986.” This collection, on FamilySearch, begins in 1872 when registration began. All you have to do is put in the word “Ireland” for the birth place, and leave the name blank, to get an idea as to how many Irish were in the province.

Information on the Death Form

The death forms vary in information provided. Much depends on the time period, and what was required for a particular death. They were submitted by district registrars, and then registered by the registrar or director of Vital Statistics. The death records can include a supporting “Medical Certificate of Death,” which concerns physician or coroner information. However, this medical information was not regularly included until 1896, and not for every death until 1912. Concerning a still birth, be aware, these may have been registered as a birth a death or both.

Typically, a certificate may include all or part of the following information

  • Name, age and gender
  • Date and place of death
  • Date and place of birth
  • Cause of death
  • Marital status
  • Parent’s names
  • Name of spouse
  • Name of physician
  • Registration district name or number
  • Date and number of registration
  • Religious affiliation

How Complete are the Records?

As with civil registration anywhere, the early years can prove frustrating for the family historian. The death registers are no different in British Columbia. You often will not find a registered death because people lived great distances from the registry offices and had very little if any communication with cities and towns.

The FamilySearch Database

When using the FamilySearch database, remember there are some interesting ways to manipulate the data. You always have to be aware of spelling variations, so test several spellings such as Byrne, Bierne, Burns and then put an “O” in front. This will help you not miss anything. Another strategy would be to use the “Parent” search or the “Spouse” search. This allows you to sometimes find missing people or entries which have been incorrectly indexed.

This is an excellent database from which you can browse the 1,113,866 images or utilize the index to the 898,889 indexed records (as of 9 May 2014).

If you would like professional help with your Canadian ancestry, call us at: 385-214-0925.

India Office Family History Search

15 Nov By Leave a Comment

The British Library’s India Office Family History Search is a must for genealogists. The India Office Records is a collection of several archives: East India Company (1600-1858), Board of Control (1784-1858), India Office (1858-1947) and the Burma Office (1937-1948). It covered a vital part of the British Empire from 1600-1947 in what is today India, Pakistan, Burma and Bangladesh. Other areas connected to British India, such as Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa are also represented. In total representation is over 300 collections and over 3000 smaller deposits of Private Papers relating to British India.

British Subjects Documented in the Records

Within these collections is a wealth of genealogical information concerning the European and Eurasian population of British India. Biographical information can be found for officials and non-official residents. Since the East India Company and India Office had staff also based in Great Britain, these records also document them. Employees included civil servants, military, mariners, medical, chaplains, railway workers and law officers. Non-officials included merchants, planters, free mariners and missionaries.

Types of Records in the India Office Database

The “India Office Family History Search” is free of charge. It includes 300,000 births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, burials and biographical notes taken from a variety of sources. The database has scores of Irish born officials and non-officials. The website provides a “Dictionary and Glossary” of terms and abbreviations found in the records.

Even if only one relative of your family who immigrated to North America or elsewhere was in British India, then those records may preserve where that one person was born. If you cannot find where your branch of the family came from using North American records, for example, then switch to the sibling or cousin who went to British India. With a collection of this size with a searchable online database, the chances of finding a long lost relative is very good.

South Africa Death Notices

15 Sep By Leave a Comment

More Irish spent time in South Africa than you might think. A major source they left behind are “death notices.” This is a primary source for documenting birth places, and is contained in a deceased persons estate file. Estates date from 1832 in the Orange Free State. All the files are open to the public and housed in a South African archive or are on microfilm at the Family History Library: www.familysearch.org

The death notices are “fill in the blank” and was generated soon after a person died, usually by a relative. Information can include, name, occupation, address, birth place, date and place of death, age at death, names of parents and spouses (living and dead), children, and siblings. Of course, this is if the form was filled out completely!

The estate file itself usually includes a copy of the will with the typical information found in such a document. However, the provisions for a will was that the death notice was to be completed first and there was enough in the estate to even warrant opening a case file.

The Genealogical Society of South Africa: www.genza.org.za is currently compiling an index to the “Cape Masters Office Estate Files” which will be appearing online. 

The FHL collections by province are as follows: Cape (1834-1989); Orange Free State (1832-1989); Natal (1851-1950); Transvaal (1869-1958); Zululand (1890-1903). Make sure to look at for indexes to the estate files in the FHL collections.

Considering where South Africa is geographically located, its people had access to shipping lanes worldwide. Irish-South Africans can be found in most major countries where the other Irish settled. It may be within your family, or a branch of your family, that the birth place in Ireland is found through a death notice.

The Death Certificate Said

7 Aug By Leave a Comment

I often smile when I hear someone say, “She said her parents were [fill in the blank] on her death certificate. Well, no… She didn’t give the information on her death certificate. When you are evaluating death certificates, no matter what country, always look for the informant. The errors on death certificates are amazing, and they may be the least accurate of all documents. However, all the information may be correct, you just can’t assume that until you research it out.

If the informant was the spouse, then you would think the information would be correct. Well, again, not so simple. Some families never talked about the past, a spouse may be elderly who gave the information, the spouse may be distraught at the death, or perish the thought – the spouse may not have cared one way or another! There’s any number of reasons why spouses gave wrong information.

When children give information, it can be even worse. All the above reasons are still valid, however all the fact the child is removed from their parent’s birth place and their grandparent’s names. They may have never met their grandparents. So be careful if a child gives the information. Now saying this it is interesting when a daughter gives information about her mother’s birth and parents. This can be correct, especially if the daughter lived at home and took care of her mother. The same is often true with daughter-in-laws, although the accuracy is removed even further.

Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York

Now when a funeral director, next-door-neighbor, hospital worker or doctor provides the information, then watch out. This is when information can become bizarre.

The rule of thumb on judging for accuracy on death certificates is who gave the information. It’s only as good as the person gave it!

 

 

Professional Links

 

Dwight Radford, visit me at: www.thejourneyhomegenealogy.com

Leland Meitzler Publisher of genealogy products and books: www.FamilyRootsPublishing.com

Irish Genealogical Society International: www.irishgenealogical.org  I write articles for their journal The Septs

Kelowna & District Genealogical Society located in beautiful British Columbia: www.kdgs.ca I will be speaking at their conference in September

Mike O’Laughlin author of Irish family history books: www.irishroots.com

Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, MFA, CG professional book editing: www.nonfictionHelp.com  

Come enjoy the December research tour: www.SaltLakeChristmasTour.com I am one of the consultant’s at this wonderful event

 

 

Ontario Civil Registration

10 Jul By Leave a Comment

“Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1913” (2,172,142)

“Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928” (3,393,366)

“Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947” (2,190,030)

I use these collections from several perspectives. The first is obviously to reconstruct missing details. Another is to pinpoint a family when I don’t have a location in Ontario. Often families moved between the censuses which can leave you at a loss as to where they were. In my Irish immigrant research, I always look at marriages and deaths for any reference to a birth place in Ireland or parent’s names.

The Ancestry website also suggests related databases to these which can supplement your research. It is always wise to consult these.

Now the birth and death databases are somewhat self-explanatory. It is the marriage database that requires some discussion. This database is actually the indexing of two organizations; Ancestry and the Genealogical Research Library in Brampton, Ontario.Ancestry furnishes an important inventory of what is on this database. The civil registration portion includes marriages 1869-1928. The period previous includes two important sources, which I use all the time in client research: District Marriage Registers (1801-1858) and Roman Catholic Marriage Registers (1828-1870).

Since there was so much cross border migration, both ways, between the Canada and the United States, databases such as these can help you solve difficult research problems in either country. Even if a record does not provide a birth place in Ireland, a place of death or marriage may help open up other resources which will list where the family was from in Ireland.

Church of Ireland Prerogative Court of Armagh Marriage Bonds

28 May By Leave a Comment

The Prerogative Court of Armagh covered all of Ireland. The moneyed segment of mainly Protestant society had their marriages recorded through this court. These Marriage License Bonds (1710-1849) are on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL #100876). The original records were destroyed in 1922, but several Irish genealogists had worked with the original records prior to their destruction. The resulting works list only the groom, the bride and the year.

Two collections provide details missing from the indexes, such as the residence of the groom and the bride. “Betham’s Genealogical Abstracts from Prerogative Marriage Licenses, 1629-1810” (FHL #100874-75), abstracted by Sir William Betham is at the National Archives of Ireland: www.nationalarchives.ie  Important details about this collection can be found in David E. Rencher’s three part article “Sir William Betham Collection” published in The Septs in 2010 and 2011. This is the journal of The Irish Genealogical Society International: www.irishgenealogical.org  The second, “Abstracts of Prerogative Marriage Licenses of Ireland, 1629-1858” (FHL #100167-68), extracted by Denis O’Callaghan Fischer, is at the Genealogical Office: www.nli.ie/en/intro/heraldry-introduction.aspx  The Fischer Collection does have its own bride’s index (1629-1820) at the end of the Genealogical Office’s MS 421 (FHL #100167 item 1).

These Prerogative Court marriage record abstracts may not be as informative as you would like. However, they do open up other sources such as the Registry of Deeds, surviving wills and other records from which the upper classes can be documented within.

Church of Ireland Diocesan Marriage Licenses

27 May By Leave a Comment

Protestants wishing to obtain a marriage license without having banns read in the parish church were required to place a bond with the bishop of their diocese. The original licenses and bonds were destroyed in 1922, but the indexes survived.

People listed in the bonds usually were moneyed Protestants and some Catholics. Depending on the cost of the bond, other classes of Protestants may be included.  

The Marriage Bonds Indexes are very straightforward. They are divided by diocese and list only the name of the groom and the bride, along with the year. Remember that diocese boundaries frequently crossed county boundaries. To use these indexes, maps such as those from Brian Mitchell’s A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland (2002) are essential tools, as they show the boundaries of the dioceses. Some of the diocesan indexes have been indexed online or published.

The records are at the National Archives of Ireland and on microfilm at the Family History Library. The FHL numbers are as follows: 

Diocese                                                           FHL#

Armagh (1727-1845)                                      100859-60

Cashel & Emily (1664-1857)                          100860

Clogher (1709-1866)                                       100862

Cloyne (1630-1866)                                         100863

Cork & Ross (1623-1750)                               100864-66

Down, Connor, Dromore (1721-1845)            100867

Dublin (1672-1845)                                         100867

Kildare (1790-1865)                                        100868

Elphin (1709-1845)                                         100868

Anchonry & Killala (1787-1842)                      100868

Killaloe (1718-1845)                                       100869

Clonfert (1739, 1815-1844)                            100869

Limerick (1827, 1833, 1844                            100869

Kilmore & Ardagh (1697-1844)                       100869

Meath (1655, 1702-1845)                               100869

Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin (1691-1845)       100870-71

Raphoe (1710-55, 1817-30)                           100871

Tuam (1769-1845)                                          100871

Waterford & Lismore (1649-1845)                 100872

Lismore Peculiar Jurisdiction (1779-1802)     100872

If you find your ancestor in these indexes, then you have an indication of their social status. Perhaps most important is that if you didn’t know where in Ireland they were from, then now you at least know a diocese. This opens up other records to continue your search.

Christened Before Birth – Hum…

14 Apr By Leave a Comment

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a church record (usually Roman Catholic) in one hand; a civil record of birth in the other hand, and the church record has the child baptized before birth. Why is this?

It’s important to remember that in rural Ireland, the priests went out into the townlands, performed baptisms, and in theory wrote them in the main register upon returning. The key to this is to remember that the priest may be the only one in the parish with a horse. Did the priest write it down upon performing the baptism, or was it from memory. We may never know.

Then came civil registration in 1864. At that point, these same people had to register the births of their children with the local registrar. We all know this often didn’t happen. When they did register a birth, they may not have remembered the date the child was born. Even when they did, be aware that the government began to clamp down with fees for late registration of births. Rather than pay the fee, parents often fudged on the birth date of the child.

While these are reasonable explanations for Ireland, this doesn’t explain why we see the exact same thing in North American sources. Yes, you will see this in American and Canadian records. So just be aware, it’s not just an Irish quirk.

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