Irish Civil Registration Indexes at familysearch.org

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pwaldron
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Re: Irish Civil Registration Indexes at pilot.familysearch.org

Post by pwaldron » Fri May 28, 2010 4:53 pm

My attention has been drawn to a record in the new "Ireland Births and Baptisms, 1620-1881" collection at pilot.familysearch.org which does not appear to be in either the old "Irish Civil Registration Indexes" collection or the IGI.

This is the birth of Denis to Daniel Sullivan and Mary Harrington in the Registrar's District of Tuosist, Co. Kerry on 11 Nov 1873, page reference 291, volume reference not included.

The "Irish Civil Registration Indexes" collection has only 219 births in Kerry in 1873, 267 in 1874 and 279 in 1872. But there is a table at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Irelan ... Records%29 which claims that the "Ireland Vital Records Index (FamilySearch Historical Records)" database has 104,977 births in Kerry between 1864 and 1881, an average of 5,832 per year. I don't know the birth rate for Kerry off the top of my head, but this seems as implausibly high as the figures for 1872-4 seem implausibly low.

Incidentally, the table at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Irelan ... Records%29 lists only 30 counties - no sign of King's County, Queen's County, Laois, Leix or Offaly.

If anyone else can find Denis Sullivan's birth in either of the old areas of familysearch.org, please explain here how you did so.

If not, it appears that we now have to search three different parts of familysearch.org for Irish birth records.

The more I study the familysearch.org website, the less I understand it!

Finola
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Re: Irish Civil Registration Indexes at pilot.familysearch.org

Post by Finola » Wed Nov 03, 2010 2:46 am

I have had a lot of success with the new pilot search website but here are 2 anomalies in my family. My mother, born 26 Aug 1918 in Croom, Limerick, is registered in 1912. My sister got her birth certificate some 20 years ago for a passport application so her birth is registered correctly in the records held in Ireland. Makes me wonder why the LDS has different information.

Name: Anne Cecilia Jones
Registration District: Croom
Event Type: BIRTHS
Registration Quarter and Year: Jul - Sep 1912
Estimated Birth Year:
Age (at Death):
Mother's Maiden Name:
Film Number: 101074
Volume Number: 5
Page Number: 166
Digital Folder Number: 4194693
Image Number: 00561
Collection: null

Her younger brother, Roderick Michael JONES is registered in 1914 but was born in 1919 in Croom, Limerick.

Name: Roderick Michael Jones
Registration District: Croom
Event Type: BIRTHS
Registration Quarter and Year: Jan - Mar 1914
Estimated Birth Year:
Age (at Death):
Mother's Maiden Name:
Film Number: 101075
Volume Number: 5
Page Number: 166
Digital Folder Number: 4194694
Image Number: 00334
Collection: Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes, 1845-1958

I posted my feedback on the website, with corrections to Anne Cecilia Jones' birth date, and received a reply that in the future there will be a facility on the website for users to post their corrected information. Finola

pwaldron
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Re: Irish Civil Registration Indexes at pilot.familysearch.org

Post by pwaldron » Sat Dec 04, 2010 10:27 pm

Just spotted this useful hint at http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/maga ... ov8_10.htm :
In a column a few weeks previously, there was yet another complaint, this time about not being able to search the civil registration indexes at pilot.familysearch.org by registration district rather than county. And, of course, it is indeed possible. It does require entering registration district, county and country, then choosing “Exact, close and partial” from the list of search-types and then examining the results very, very carefully, because you will be told that “Only partial matches were found”. This may be the equivalent of having to stand on your head to scratch your ear, but it does work.

Paddy Casey
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Re: Irish Civil Registration Indexes at pilot.familysearch.org

Post by Paddy Casey » Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:47 pm

Thanks for flagging this, Paddy. It has just enabled me to find the exact birth date in 1869 of my namesake, Patrick Casey, a great-great-uncle. Because I happen to know that births in the village of Moyrhee in Tubber were registered in the district of Corofin I searched under that district and found him. I was disappointed to see that the database shows his place of birth as Corrofin (sic). The database constructors seem to have equated the registration district to the place of birth and falsified the results accordingly.

Paddy

pwaldron
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Re: Irish Civil Registration Indexes at pilot.familysearch.o

Post by pwaldron » Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:11 pm

There is a new message at
http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsea ... ionDetails
inviting users to switch over to
https://www.familysearch.org/search/col ... ed-records
and inviting comments from those who have not yet done so.

I submitted the following comment:
I have invested a lot of time and effort into learning how to find what I want in Pilot and teaching others to do likewise. I don't see why I should learn a completely different interface which does not allow me to search on important fields like the volume and page numbers in Irish Civil Registration Indexes, which are essential search fields when matching up husbands and wives in marriage records. It is also not clear how to search this database for the so-called Registration District in either interface (the correct title of this field is Superintendent Registrar's District; it is divided into several Registrar's Districts which are not included in the index).

pwaldron
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Re: Irish Civil Registration Indexes at pilot.familysearch.o

Post by pwaldron » Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:49 am

pilot.familysearch.org is scheduled to disappear finally on Tuesday, August 23, 2011.

This has prompted me to put together a few notes on the Irish records in familysearch.org at
http://www.pwaldron.info/familysearch.html
Other researchers may find these notes of interest.

pwaldron
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Births recorded as 1836 but probably registered in 1936

Post by pwaldron » Sun May 06, 2012 1:47 pm

I just noticed that it appears that one or more pages of the birth index have been mis-entered in the familysearch.org index (and the ancestry.com copy) under Q3 1836, although civil registration of births did not begin until 1864. Anyone looking for a birth falling alphabetically between John Corcoran and Rose Crawford should note that 373 such births are mis-indexed under Q3 1836; there are a further 4 births mis-indexed under Q4 1836. The most likely explanation is that 1936 was mis-typed as 1836.

pwaldron
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Mc surnames: another obscure point to note about the indexes

Post by pwaldron » Fri Jul 06, 2012 12:23 pm

From 1864 to 1908 Q3, M' is almost invariably used in the printed GRO indexes; before 1864 and from 1908 Q4 forward, Mc is almost invariably used. familysearch.org and ancestry.com have both transcribed the names verbatim. Beware of this when searching for exact matches!

I have not investigated the prevalence of the Mac forms.

Jim McNamara
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Re: Irish Civil Registration Indexes at familysearch.org

Post by Jim McNamara » Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:34 pm

Hi Paddy,

A nice treatment by you. Mainly I wanted to comment on the volume number table you presented from the CIGO (?) publication.
I started to reply on this but realized I wanted to do a few checks first.

I have some BDM records transcribed (45 births, 17 deaths, 20 marriages) to check against. These cover 1864 through 1941 if I recall. I believe the volume numbers reset at 1922 and just count up at that point (or maybe this is just for NI and GRONI). I need to check my printouts as I've copied all the FHL Catalog of film listings into my file.

I also have a society journal article on this topic.

I hope I have time to review this, it is of great interest to me.

But a few things:
- The volume numbers are also related to which registration office where registered. So the CIGO table will only be accurate if there are identical numbers of registration offices in each SRD. I am not sure that is the case. I think there are typically 5 RDs per SRD so that means 1-5 is QTR 1, 6-10 is QTR 2, 11-15 is QTR 3, and 16-20 is QTR 4. Does that make sense?
- I have found errors in the index, page numbers of marriage index entry off by one page number for example.
- There are four marriages per page
- I wish there was a reverse look up for marriage (by year, vol, and page) that would narrow down a bride to one of four.
- The FamilySearch.org Pilot site was much easier to use but with its own issues:
--- Mac-Mc-M' treatment by transcribers of index gave Mac<SP>, Mc<SP> M', Mac, and Mc (five combos that had to be entered for Mac searches. The new site equated these and all show up now under Mac or Mc. It was odd to find that records I had obtained from GRO could not be found in the transcribed index, even though I had printouts of the filmed index. There was a nice FAQ on that on the site and most of mine were indeed found under M-apostrophe on the pilot site.

I agree with you that it certainly would make sense to not provide a lookup by SRD location. The county lookup cannot be perfectly accurate as SRDs cross county boundaries. However, I am not sure how this was handled by the migration of the data from the transcribed data. It may be that SCARRIFF was equated or even replaced by CLARE and GALWAY in their attempt at being wise. In the pilot site we do find some of the county locations searchable by the county's Irish name.

All the best,
Jim McNamara
Surnames of Interest: McNamara-McGrath, Cleary-Conway

"Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart." -Rumi

pwaldron
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Re: Irish Civil Registration Indexes at familysearch.org

Post by pwaldron » Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:48 am

Hi Jim

Lots of questions there!

This thread has outlived several versions of the familysearch.org database but it still seems a pity to retire it and start a new thread as so much of the information remains relevant.

Apart from the obvious partition of the country into the 6 counties and the 26 counties, the only reorganisation affecting the 26 counties in 1922 was that Castleblayney was moved from volume 1 to volume 3. The rest of volume 1 was in the 6 counties, so there shouldn't be any mention of volume 1 in the indexes post-1922. Likewise, every pre-1922 mention of volume 1 and every pre-1878 mention of volumes 6, 11 or 16 should refer to events which took place either in Castleblayney PLU/SRD or in what is now Northern Ireland.

Your statement
So the CIGO table will only be accurate if there are identical numbers of registration offices in each SRD. I am not sure that is the case. I think there are typically 5 RDs per SRD so that means 1-5 is QTR 1, 6-10 is QTR 2, 11-15 is QTR 3, and 16-20 is QTR 4.
does not make any sense to me.

In Clare:
Ballyvaghan SRD is one RD
Corrofin SRD is one RD
Ennis SRD is 4 RDs
Ennistimon SRD is 3 RDs
Killadysert SRD is 2 RDs
Kilrush SRD is 5 RDs
Limerick SRD is 2 RDs in county Clare plus 4 RDs in county Limerick plus Limerick city
Scarriff SRD is 2 RDs always in county Clare plus 1 RD moved from county Galway to county Clare in 1898
Tulla SRD is 3 RDs.

All of county Clare falls in Volume 4 (or, before 1878, Volumes 9, 14 or 19), except for the south-eastern corner which is in Limerick PLU/SRD and in volume 5 (or, before 1878, Volumes 10, 15 or 20).

I suspect that the number of marriages per page has varied over the years, and not just because a quarter might end before a page is filled up. Many Church of Ireland parishes used what appear to be civil registration marriage books with two marriages per page; lots of examples can be seen at irishgenealogy.ie

The reverse look-up for marriages (but not for births or deaths!) is available at ancestry.com. Some universities and libraries now provide access to ancestry.com and this may be cheaper for some people than taking out a personal subscription.

The conventions for indexing and spelling Mc names were set by the GRO from time to time and I believe that the LDS transcribers have tried to faithfully reproduce the original indexes, insofar as the quality of the microfilms allowed.

Errors will undoubtedly have crept in both during the indexing process in Ireland from 1845 on and during the transcription process around the world in recent years.

I hope this answers all your questions!

Paddy

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