A church and state question (marriage records)

P. Breathnach

A friend has asked me to work with him on a sticking-point in his researches. Among the documents he has given me are both church and state certificates of a marriage.

The two certificates are not wholly consistent with one another. Would people agree that inconsistencies are likely to be due to errors in abstraction or transcription, because the church record is the primary source for the state record?

My first inclination is to suggest to my friend that he look for himself at the church record, and that he order a research cert from the GRO. Does that seem the best first step?

VicWynne

Errors in abstraction, transcription errors or just different people filling out the form in different ways - I have a church marriage where he names are in Latin and the corresponding civil registration, signed by the same priest, where the names are in English.
Your plan is sound - get a copy of the civil registration from the GRO & check out the marriage register (if possible, or NLI microfilm if not) to see for himself.

Best of luck

dido2

I suppose it depends on what the discrepency is...

I've a marriage cert form the 9th March 1911, but the date of registration is late July 1911, when I was looking for it I found it in the July Quarter, I emailed the church and asked if they could clarify the date of marriage and they did, and funnily enough that couple were actually down as single and still living at home for the 1911 census...

P. Breathnach

The challenge is the wife's parentage.

The church cert (recently issued) gives "d/o Mary & ... Galway"; the state cert (full version, also recently issued) gives her father's first name as Mark, his occupation as Farmer, and no information about her mother.

P. Breathnach

dido2 wrote: »

...
I've a marriage cert form the 9th March 1911, but the date of registration is late July 1911, when I was looking for it I found it in the July Quarter, I emailed the church and asked if they could clarify the date of marriage and they did, and funnily enough that couple were actually down as single and still living at home for the 1911 census...

It looks to me as if they wished to keep their marriage secret for at least a time, and the priest colluded. Might it have been a elopement?

shanew

P. Breathnach wrote: »

The challenge is the wife's parentage.

The church cert (recently issued) gives "d/o Mary & ... Galway"; the state cert (full version, also recently issued) gives her father's first name as Mark, his occupation as Farmer, and no information about her mother.

what's the inconsistency ?

A civil cert will not show mother's name, and an RC marriage will not usually show occuaptions



S.

dido2

Not an elopement but I do wonder if it was something to do with her age, for the 1911 Census she's down as 19, and one of the few marriage certs with an age and she's 20 on it so I suspect there may have been an age thing for whatever reason...

The research version of the marriage cert won't give the mothers details, I don't understand still what the issue is between the 2 sorry....

P. Breathnach

The church cert identifies both of the groom's parents in the form "s/o Matthew and Anne Clancy" (Clancy being his mother's maiden name); and for the bride it gives the formulation I described above: "d/o Mary & ... Galway". It is possible that Mary is a misreading of Mark, and that there is no record of the mother's name.

"Galway" is also a potential difficulty, as the bride was living in Roscommon when she married, and was born in Mayo. Unless it is her mother's maiden name.

shanew

I would read Galway as the parents current residence - a detail not included on civil certs. The addresses on civil certs relate to the bride and groom at the time of marriage - so may not be where they were from originally.

The format of parish marriage records I've seen where mother and father's full names are recorded is father's first name, mother's first & maiden name, and current place of residence.

I think a look at the film in the NLI is the way to go... comparing the details and overall format for this marriage vs the others on the same page should help work out the details.


Shane

P. Breathnach

The marriage happened in 1904, so cannot be checked on NLI microfilms. The parish priest is apparently of a helpful disposition, so I can send my friend to check when next he is visiting his homeplace. The family tradition is that she was an orphan, but my friend regards that as possibly weak, as a post-hoc explanation for the lack of information on his grandmother's background.

The bride was living in Roscommon with her uncle at the time of the census in 1901. He was a retired RIC man, so presumably was more than averagely reliable at completing forms. He gave her (and his own) county of origin as Mayo. In 1911 she lived in the same house, still with her uncle but now also with her husband and children. The uncle again recorded her and his place of origin as Mayo. That makes Galway difficult.

As her uncle (surnames suggest her paternal uncle) was very much on the scene, the lack of clarity about the bride's parentage is odd.

My friend has done quite well in tracing the rest of his forebears, and had written off this quarter of his genetic inheritance as untraceable. I told him that there were resources that he had not tried, and I even told him that this forum was one such resource. He's not as comfortable with online forums as I am, so he handed me his file.

dido2

I think in this case Galway should be looked at in terms of her mothers maiden name and her place of origin...

For my own grandmother we have her baptism record with her parents names on it along with "of Dublin" she never who they were, so sometimes there can be a bit more truth in records..

I also have a marriage cert for great great grandparents of my husbands where the marriage took place in Tipperary, she was from cork and he was either from Tipperary or Limerick, in each of the Census's he lists a different place...

If it were me doing it I'd entertain the idea that this womans mothers maiden name as Galway and see where that would lead

If your friend is happy for you to post details here then maybe someone might be able to help a bit more....

P. Breathnach

Bridget Reilly in 1901: http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Roscommon/Strokestown/Lavally/1673259/
Her married identity in 1911: http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Roscommon/Strokestown/Lavally/796478/

I can't really buy into the idea that her mother was some nameless woman from Galway. I have already looked for women in Co. Mayo with the surname Galway (or variants thereof) who married a Reilly in the right time frame: nothing turns up.

Her father's name possibly being Mark Reilly is either a problem or a useful key to unlock things, simply because it is not a common name.

dido2

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Bridget Reilly in 1901: http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Roscommon/Strokestown/Lavally/1673259/
Her married identity in 1911: http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Roscommon/Strokestown/Lavally/796478/

I can't really buy into the idea that her mother was some nameless woman from Galway. I have already looked for women in Co. Mayo with the surname Galway (or variants thereof) who married a Reilly in the right time frame: nothing turns up.

Her father's name possibly being Mark Reilly is either a problem or a useful key to unlock things, simply because it is not a common name.

Its possible that get parents weren't married at all, and that may be the reason you can't find anything...

how about get uncle do they know who his wife was and where he married? Was bridget always living with him, this is very similar to my grandmother who was born in 1926 and it's so frustrating because you dont know whats truth and whats not

P. Breathnach

dido2 wrote: »

Its possible that get parents weren't married at all, and that may be the reason you can't find anything...

Yes, I suspect that there is some family discontinuity in her background. The family tradition of her being an orphan is one possibility.

One way to interpret the church cert is that she was the daughter of an unmarried Mary Reilly and an unknown person, and that Mary Reilly lived in Galway at the time of the marriage. That does not sit well with a father's name and occupation as farmer being given on the state record of the marriage. Unless there was a strategy of putting in something to create an image of respectability.

how about get uncle do they know who his wife was and where he married? Was bridget always living with him, this is very similar to my grandmother who was born in 1926 and it's so frustrating because you dont know whats truth and whats not

Chasing the uncle's story looks like the way to go. It's like a flanking move: find the uncle's siblings and see if it is possible to link any of them to Bridget. RIC records should be helpful (but there is a cost involved). My general strategy is to look for free stuff before shelling out money.

shanew

You can view RIC records in the Library in Pearse St.


S.

dido2

We've looked and still look at all possiblities for my GM, but we do have her baptism record, she did put the same fathers name on her marriage cert along with Deceased but we don't know if these names etc were for show or they were the actual names, we still haven't been able to find her birth cert to see what info that has on it, I think in those days anything was possible when it comes to children..

As for her uncle, it could be possible that he might have been her father too..

Is there a name for his wife? Or Roughly when he married, it might be able to narrow down where he got married without having to pay anything..

P. Breathnach

shanew wrote: »

You can view RIC records in the Library in Pearse St.

Thanks, Shane. I had forgotten about that.

dido2 wrote: »

...As for her uncle, it could be possible that he might have been her father too..

That's not the first road to explore, especially as I am considering the possibility that the mother was the uncle's sister!

Is there a name for his wife? Or Roughly when he married, it might be able to narrow down where he got married without having to pay anything..

There is no family lore about this man, and there are too many John Reillys in Ireland. RIC people moved around, so he might have married anywhere: a trawl would bring in too many candidates.

P. Breathnach

I have just had a chat with my friend about the lines on which thinking has been going. He thinks that the idea that Bridget was the daughter of an unknown man and his uncle's sister is a good possibility: it fits the tone of something that was once said to him along the lines of "she was an orphan - well, no father anyway".

He is going to inspect the church record of the marriage, and order a research version of the state record - but it is quite possible that these won't shed any more light on things. When I get the chance, I will hit Pearse Street to see what I can get about the uncle. There must be a sporting chance that Brigid was baptised in the parish where her uncle was born.

P. Breathnach

P. Breathnach wrote: »

... When I get the chance, I will hit Pearse Street to see what I can get about the uncle. There must be a sporting chance that Brigid was baptised in the parish where her uncle was born.

Question: are the RIC records in Pearse Street on microfilm?

There is an index to RIC records on ancestry.co.uk, and I have used it to identify the best-bet candidate for my target John Reilly. I now have microfilm references (film number and page number). Can these references be used in Pearse Street?

shanew

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Question: are the RIC records in Pearse Street on microfilm?

There is an index to RIC records on ancestry.co.uk, and I have used it to identify the best-bet candidate for my target John Reilly. I now have microfilm references (film number and page number). Can these references be used in Pearse Street?

on microfilm - see : link

I'm not sure if the references are the same - but as far as I know the films on the Dublin City Library are copies of the one created by the LDS - so presumably used to create the Ancestry index also..


Shane

P. Breathnach

Thanks, Shane. I had looked at the library site, but hadn't found that page.

The film number on ancestry.co.uk seems consistent with the numbers used in Pearse Street. So I can go in with a targeted search.

P. Breathnach

I had set this project aside - real life, including doing some more work on my own ancestry, got in the way.

I did see John Reilly's RIC service record. It confirms that he was a native of Mayo (nothing more exact, but that is normal). He joined the RIC in 1854, served in Galway from 1857 to 1870, and was transferred to Roscommon in 1870 and served there until he retired on full pension in 1884. No commendations, no disciplinary issues, no promotions: an unusually quiet career.

The most interesting thing is that there is no record of his having married (RIC records show date of marriage and native county of wife, but not her name). So in 1884 he appeared to retire as a single man, and in the 1901 census he appeared to be a widower with no children. I imagine that it was unthinkable for an RIC officer to have married while serving, and conceal that fact from his superiors. I can't find a likely marriage record/death record combination that fits the scenario of his having married and being widowed in the 17-year interval between his retirement and the 1901 census.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

RGM

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I imagine that it was unthinkable for an RIC officer to have married while serving, and conceal that fact from his superiors.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong. Are you saying it would be unthinkable to marry at all while in the RIC, or unthinkable to conceal such a union?

I know that RIC men married.

P. Breathnach

I meant it would be unthinkable for him to conceal his marriage.

The standard format for the basic service record has columns headed "If married, date" and "native county of wife". That suggests fairly strongly that an officer should report his marriage (and also expect to be posted elsewhere than his wife's home county, just as he himself would not normally be posted to his native county).

RGM

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I meant it would be unthinkable for him to conceal his marriage.

The standard format for the basic service record has columns headed "If married, date" and "native county of wife". That suggests fairly strongly that an officer should report his marriage (and also expect to be posted elsewhere than his wife's home county, just as he himself would not normally be posted to his native county).

Ah, ok. I understand.

There's a Bridget Reilly born to Mark and Bridget in Mayo in 1974. For lack of better ideas, you might want to check that out.

shanew

If I remember correctly RIC men had to have served 7 years before being allowed to marry, and I've heard of several cases where they married in secret. Sometimes marrying 'officially' for a second time once they had their 7 years service.... maybe that's what happened in this case ?


Shane

P. Breathnach

RGM wrote: »

...
There's a Bridget Reilly born to Mark and Bridget in Mayo in 1974. For lack of better ideas, you might want to check that out.

Thanks. I did have a look at that one, but rate it as a low probability.

First, because she is about 5 years older than the given age of the Bridget I am researching (I am making the assumption that an ex-RIC man would be reasonably accurate in reporting his niece's age).

Second, because the Bridget Reilly born in 1874 had siblings, so even if she was orphaned, there is no obvious reason why her siblings would have been excluded from her life. Yet there is no recollection of any her relatives ever being in contact. Bridget lived long enough for my friend to have known her.

shanew wrote: »

If I remember correctly RIC men had to have served 7 years before being allowed to marry, and I've heard of several cases where they married in secret. Sometimes marrying 'officially' for a second time once they had their 7 years service.... maybe that's what happened in this case ?

That chimes with me: I think I heard of that a long time ago. If that is what happened, then we are in needle-in-haystack territory. There are a lot of James Reillys about, and we would have to look at Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, and perhaps adjacent counties.