Question about Birth Cert

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kate2013
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Question about Birth Cert

Post by kate2013 » Mon Mar 05, 2018 11:41 am

I hope you don't mind if I ask a silly question?

My mother has just passed, & we obtained her birth cert.

Two mysteries:

We always celebrated her birthday on March 23rd. Birth cert has her birthday as 2nd March & registered on 22nd May. Seems a long gap between birth & registration? As well as oddity about 2nd & 23rd?

Also, no father's name or profession on the certificate? This is early 1930s. Is there any reason (apart from the obvious) as to why it would be blank?

Thanks, in anticipation.

Sduddy
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Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by Sduddy » Mon Mar 05, 2018 5:18 pm

Hi Kate

The law is that a birth must be registered within three months of the birth, so the gap you mention is not unusually long at all. Lots of people missed the deadline and then they had to tell a fib about the date of birth, but a fib was not necessary in this case - the informant was well within the time limit. The informant is the person who reports the birth (or death) and it was done verbally* – so it’s quite possible that the registrar sitting behind the desk misheard “twenty second” and took it to be “second”. If the birth was in the middle of the night, there was probably a slight disagreement between those present as to whether it was the 22nd or the 23rd. The mother herself probably decided it was the 23rd.

*I am speaking about a birth in the home here, which I imagine this was – most births were in the home at that time in Ireland. Births in hospitals, I’m sure, were reported to the registrar in writing.

Sheila

Paddy Casey
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Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by Paddy Casey » Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:15 pm

In my families I found several people who were baptised weeks or months before they were born. I ruled out errors in the dates given in the baptism registers because the entries in the latter were in chronological order. I was subsequently told that in an agricultural community ploughing and harvesting came first and the trip to the Registrar's office in Ennis was a very low priority on the ToDo list, i.e. it often occurred well after the birth. Because there was a substantial fine for registering a birth late the informant would resort to the fib that Sheila mentions. I concluded that dates of baptisms might often be more accurate "birth dates" than the Registry dates.

Paddy
Last edited by Paddy Casey on Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

murf
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Location: Qld Australia

Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by murf » Mon Mar 05, 2018 11:35 pm

The law is that a birth must be registered within three months of the birth
This is now the case Sheila, but when civil registration was introduced in 1864, birth registration was required within 3 weeks. I would be interested to know when this changed, if anyone has that info, for it affects the way we may interpret some of these births/baptisms.
Kate, I have sometimes seen a date such as 23rd March written as 23d March.
If poorly scrawled this could then be misinterpreted as 2nd March.
murf

Sduddy
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Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by Sduddy » Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:45 am

Hi Kate

I’ve been bothered about that reply I posted - it was inadequate. I focused too much on the length of time it took to register the birth and on explaining that. And I’m not happy with the explanation I gave as to why “March second” (the words would have been written in full – not given in numbers) was written rather than “March twenty third” – my explanation is too convoluted. Maybe the reality is that your mother was born on the 2nd March, when her mother was still unmarried. Then, maybe, her mother married very soon afterwards and a birthday within wedlock was decided for the child’s sake. Does that sound more likely to you?

Murf, thanks for that information on the three weeks limit. I didn't know about that.

Sheila

AileenVicWynne
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Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by AileenVicWynne » Wed Mar 14, 2018 9:39 pm

It was 1880 when it was changed to 3 months - according to the Irish Civil Registration - Where Do I Start? book by Eileen O'Duill and Steven Smyrl published by CIGO - page 34

murf
Posts: 365
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Location: Qld Australia

Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by murf » Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:31 am

Thanks for that Aileen, I shall make a note of that date.
Paddy Casey wrote:
I concluded that dates of baptisms might often be more accurate "birth dates" than the Registry dates.
I agree with you there Paddy.
Also, it is interesting to note that between 1870 & 1881 in Kildysart Parish and between 1868 & 1881 in Kilfiddane, the baptism register proforma allowed for the recording of both birth and baptism dates. In those parts of the registers where the priests were making a genuine effort to record both dates, it becomes clear that babies were baptised either the same day or the day following birth in the vast majority of cases, and only very rarely was there more than two days separating the two events.
murf

kate2013
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Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by kate2013 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:34 pm

Thank you all for your considered replies. I really appreciate it.

I've just gone through my mother's mountain of paperwork & have found two documents:

A 'Statutory Declaration' written by a solicitor that was clearly needed to prove her identity when applying for a passport in the mid-1990s. It was needed because her B/C has my GM's maiden name & the birthdate of the 2nd. (& no father). And her wedding cert (and all other docs) has my GF's surname & a birthdate of the 23rd March.

So the declaration states that she was born on the 2nd March & her name is different because my GM & GF were not married at the time. They married shortly after & she was then known by my GF's surname.

Then I found a copy of her Baptism cert stating (I'll change the names so not identifiable, to show what the priest wrote, as I still find it confusing)

Mary Kathleen Hayes/Delaney of Thomas Delaney to Bridget Delaney (nee Hayes)

Born 22 March

Baptised 29th March.


The way that reads makes it sound like they were married? But as birth cert shows (registered in May) they were not? Am I reading it incorrectly?

Sduddy
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Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by Sduddy » Thu Mar 22, 2018 5:12 pm

Hi Kate

That baptism record shows that when the child was being baptised the priest was aware that the mother was about to marry the father, or had by then already married the father. So he gave the child both surnames – that of the mother and that of the father. And then he gave the father’s name (Thomas Delaney) and then he gave mother’s name (Bridget Delaney) as if she was already married to the father (and maybe she had already married him by then) and he also gave her maiden name (nee Hayes) – it was customary for the priest to give the mother’s maiden name when he recorded a baptism.
That’s a roundabout explanation – I hope it’s clear!

The birth cert (quite correctly) shows that the mother was not married at the time of the birth. When the birth was reported at the local registration office on May 2nd, the very truthful person who reported it made it clear that the mother was not married at the time of the birth. Maybe the marriage was being reported on the same occasion.

Sheila

kate2013
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Joined: Sat Mar 09, 2013 4:26 pm

Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by kate2013 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 7:23 pm

Thank you, Sheila, that seems to make sense :wink:

That honest person was my GGM.

I've been talking to my brother about what I've found, & we're both curious as to the attitude back then to this?

Sduddy
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Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 10:07 am

Re: Question about Birth Cert

Post by Sduddy » Fri Mar 23, 2018 5:13 pm

The attitude was not good.

Sheila

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