Irish Genealogy Myths and Falsehoods

Coolnabacky1873

I thought a thread like this would be useful for people starting out with their research. If you post try and explain why it's a myth/falsehood.

I'll start with one of the main ones:

Someone has aged more than/less than 10 years between 1901 and 1911 censuses so can't be my ancestor.

Reason: Keeping track of your age in 18th and early 19th century Ireland was not that vital, memories become hazy, people start guessing. Generally it is considered that reported ages are under-estimates.

Also, an old age pension was introduced in 1908 for those over 70? (can someone correct this if its wrong) which saw many try and claim when they were not eligible, hence extra years added when 1911 came around.

shanew

"All the records were destroyed in a Fire"

Quite common to hear this.. usually in reference to the 1922 Fire at the Public Records Office/Four Courts. Whilst the event did take place, important records used for Family History research were not destroyed as they were either held elsewhere, and some like certain census returns had already been 'recycled'.

Two of the primary sources of importance not held in the PRO, and therefore unaffected, were civil BMD registrations and non Church of Ireland parish records (e.g. Catholic, Presbyterian.. etc).

P. Breathnach

"The English forms of family names are reliable guides to kinship."

Examples of how people might be led astray:

• Connors and O'Connor are essentially the same name, anglicised differently. This might even apply even to siblings.
• The surname Bryan might be either that of a Cambro-Norman family or a variant of O'Brien.
• Kavanagh might be either Ó Caomháin from south Leinster or Ó Ciobháin from west Kerry - different families altogether.

odds_on

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

I thought a thread like this would be useful for people starting out with their research. If you post try and explain why it's a myth/falsehood.

I'll start with one of the main ones:

Someone has aged more than/less than 10 years between 1901 and 1911 censuses so can't be my ancestor.

Reason: Keeping track of your age in 18th and early 19th century Ireland was not that vital, memories become hazy, people start guessing. Generally it is considered that reported ages are under-estimates.

Also, an old age pension was introduced in 1908 for those over 70? (can someone correct this if its wrong) which saw many try and claim when they were not eligible, hence extra years added when 1911 came around.

While working one a project of a voluntary group doing a history of an area, I have noticed of over 3,000 people in the 1901 and 1911 censuses that a large number of people have suddenly become plus or minus about 10 years older than they were in the 1901 census.

One reason was the old age pension being introduced. Another question to find a person's age for the pension was "do you remember the Night of the Big Wind?" (1839).

Another reason was that the ages were not that well recorded or remembered - especially by those who could not read or write (and presumable could not count very well.

As a result, I tend to believe that, in most cases, the given age in 1901 is nearer to the truth.

Coolnabacky1873

I remember also reading somewhere, possibly in Grenham's TYIA or his Irish Times blog, that sometimes the month of birth given can be accurate, if not the year.

People tied their birth to an important yearly event such as a harvest, saints day, fair day etc.

shanew

and following on from the surname myth mentioned earlier..

"that isn't my family - they didn't spell their name that way", or "my family were O'Sullivan not Sullivan..."

Spelling of names was not standardized, and depended on who recorded the details. Could have been a priest, registrar etc. 'O' and Mc/Mac etc are prefixes and were optional.

Another point to watch out for is alternate names e.g. [O']Dowd for Doody, and even 'translations' like Smith for McGowan.

Variation of spelling also applies to placenames, especially townlands, and names of RC parishes

p.s. on the issue of ages - the younger the person the more accurate the age given on the census forms ... seems like older people tended to lose track or their own age, but could work out ages of younger people, particularly children. Occupation is also a factor in accurate ages, a clerk, priest or RIC man is more likely to record accurate details than a labourer

pinkypinky

odds_on wrote: »

One reason was the old age pension being introduced. Another question to find a person's age for the pension was "do you remember the Night of the Big Wind?" (1839).
.

Great idea for a thread. I was just telling my class about the pension census forms tonight. I've heard the story about the Big Wind question too but it always strikes me as a rubbish question, because they could have just known about it anyway!

Waitsian

shanew wrote: »

Another point to watch out for is alternate names e.g. [O']Dowd for Doody, and even 'translations' like Smith for McGowan.

:eek:

Given that they're my two principal family names, that's kinda spooky!

Coolnabacky1873

shanew wrote: »

and following on from the surname myth mentioned earlier..

"that isn't my family - they didn't spell their name that way", or "my family were O'Sullivan not Sullivan..."

Spelling of names was not standardized, and depended on who recorded the details. Could have been a priest, registrar etc. 'O' and Mc/Mac etc are prefixes and were optional.

+1 million!

odds_on

pinkypinky wrote: »

Great idea for a thread. I was just telling my class about the pension census forms tonight. I've heard the story about the Big Wind question too but it always strikes me as a rubbish question, because they could have just known about it anyway!

Quite right. If someone lied about their age, they would probably lie about remembering the Night of the Big Wind. Nothing changed from today.

RGM

shanew wrote: »

and following on from the surname myth mentioned earlier..

"that isn't my family - they didn't spell their name that way", or "my family were O'Sullivan not Sullivan..."

Spelling of names was not standardized, and depended on who recorded the details. Could have been a priest, registrar etc. 'O' and Mc/Mac etc are prefixes and were optional.

Another point to watch out for is alternate names e.g. [O']Dowd for Doody, and even 'translations' like Smith for McGowan.

Variation of spelling also applies to placenames, especially townlands, and names of RC parishes

p.s. on the issue of ages - the younger the person the more accurate the age given on the census forms ... seems like older people tended to lose track or their own age, but could work out ages of younger people, particularly children. Occupation is also a factor in accurate ages, a clerk, priest or RIC man is more likely to record accurate details than a labourer

Same thing applies to given names as well. People should learn nicknames and variations for given names. Thady could be the same person as Teague or Tighe, Julia could be Gillie or Giley, Seamus could be James, etc.

Waitsian

odds_on wrote: »

Quite right. If someone lied about their age, they would probably lie about remembering the Night of the Big Wind. Nothing changed from today.

This from Turtle Bunbury's website:

"But perhaps the most unlikely beneficiaries of the Night of the Big Wind were those old enough to remember it when the Old Age Pensions Act was enacted in January 1909, 70 years after the event and 100 years ago this month. The Act offered the first ever weekly pension to those over 70. It was likened to the opening of a new factory on the outskirts of every town and village in Britain and Ireland. By March 1909, over 80,000 pensioners were registered of whom 70,000 were Irish! When a committee was sent to investigate this imbalance, it transpired that few births in Ireland were ever registered before 1865. As such, the Irish Pensions Committee decreed that if someone’s age had 'gone astray' on them, they would be eligible for a pension if they could state that they were ‘fine and hardy’ on the Night of the Big Wind. One such applicant was Tim Joyce of County Limerick. 'I always thought I was 60', he explained. 'But my friends came to me and told me they were certain sure I was 70 and as there were three or four of them against me, the evidence was too strong for me. I put in for the pension and got it'."

p15574

With regard to, eg, "O'Sullivan" vs "Sullivan" and these being interchangeable, I have heard that sometimes it depended on who they were talking to - if it was an official, ie British record, they might have "anglicised" it and used "Sullivan", whereas for Irish or church records they might have been more likely to use the "O", so the same person would have used both forms.

odds_on

p15574 wrote: »

With regard to, eg, "O'Sullivan" vs "Sullivan" and these being interchangeable, I have heard that sometimes it depended on who they were talking to - if it was an official, ie British record, they might have "anglicised" it and used "Sullivan", whereas for Irish or church records they might have been more likely to use the "O", so the same person would have used both forms.

Government official talking to an illiterate:
Official: What's your name
Illiterate: Oh! Sullivan.
Official: Thank you, Mr O'Sullivan.

Sorry, clan Sullivan and O'Sullivan.

CassieManson

odds_on wrote: »

Government official talking to an illiterate:
Official: What's your name
Illiterate: Oh! Sullivan.
Official: Thank you, Mr O'Sullivan.

Sorry, clan Sullivan and O'Sullivan.

Yes, I have found the name changes to be very confusing, for some reason my Spillane cousins mostly changed their names to "Splaine" when they moved to the US.

odds_on

CassieManson wrote: »

Yes, I have found the name changes to be very confusing, for some reason my Spillane cousins mostly changed their names to "Splaine" when they moved to the US.

Quite possible the head of the family was unable to write and the officer just wrote what he heard. And the officer was possibly not acquainted with the accent of the immigrant.

P. Breathnach

CassieManson wrote: »

Yes, I have found the name changes to be very confusing, for some reason my Spillane cousins mostly changed their names to "Splaine" when they moved to the US.

Many people arriving in the US were illiterate or had poor literacy, and the immigration officers dealing with them might not have had much knowledge of Irish names. So the name under which they were recorded was often a phonetic estimate. Irish speakers with limited command of English were particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of immigration officers.
[Edit: odds_on types faster than I do!]

odds_on

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Many people arriving in the US were illiterate or had poor literacy, and the immigration officers dealing with them might not have had much knowledge of Irish names. So the name under which they were recorded was often a phonetic estimate. Irish speakers with limited command of English were particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of immigration officers.
[Edit: odds_on types faster than I do!]

But you gave a much better explanation than i did.

RGM

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Many people arriving in the US were illiterate or had poor literacy, and the immigration officers dealing with them might not have had much knowledge of Irish names. So the name under which they were recorded was often a phonetic estimate. Irish speakers with limited command of English were particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of immigration officers.
[Edit: odds_on types faster than I do!]

I've heard that this is somewhat of a myth (funny considering what thread we're in!).

http://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-island

Inspectors did not create records of immigration; rather they checked the names of the people moving through Ellis Island against those recorded in the ship's passenger list, or manifest. The ship's manifest was created by employees of the steamship companies that brought the immigrants to the United States, before the voyage took place, when the passenger bought their ticket. The manifest was presented to the officials at Ellis Island when the ship arrived. If anything, Ellis Island officials were known to correct mistakes in passenger lists.

More commonly, immigrants would change their names themselves when they had arrived in the United States, and for a number of reasons.

Someone might change their name in order to make it sound more American, to fit in with the local community, or simply because it was good for business. There is at least one instance of a small businessman arriving in the United States from Eastern Europe changing his name, at least his public name, to something that sounded Swedish, because he had settled in a Swedish neighborhood in New York City. Immigrants would sometimes officially record their name change, when naturalizing for instance, but often, as there was no law in New York State requiring it be done, no official record of a name change was made. People would just start using a different name.

The real evidence against blaming immigration officials for name changes lies in Ireland itself. Anyone who has done Irish genealogy knows how names were spelled differently even within their own parish registers. This was addressed earlier in this very thread.

Coolnabacky1873

THE biggest myth in U.S. genealogy is that immigration officers recorded peoples names when they came to the U.S. and therefore changed peoples names/wrote them phonetically/anglicized them.

Passenger lists were created at the PORT OF DEPARTURE. They were not created at the port of arrival in the U.S.

odds_on

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

THE biggest myth in U.S. genealogy is that immigration officers recorded peoples names when they came to the U.S. and therefore changed peoples names/wrote them phonetically/anglicized them.

Passenger lists were created at the PORT OF DEPARTURE. They were not created at the port of arrival in the U.S.

Even Irish officials spelt peoples names as they were pronounced and someone not familiar with an accent could easily write it wrong.

I have come across instances in the 1901 and 1911 censuses where names have been written differently, sometimes even by a literate person. I have also come across, quite clearly and very legible, the same family name spelt differently on the same census form - parents and one of the children.

p15574

odds_on wrote: »

I have come across instances in the 1901 and 1911 censuses where names have been written differently, sometimes even by a literate person. I have also come across, quite clearly and very legible, the same family name spelt differently on the same census form - parents and one of the children.

Me too...there was the family story of what the maternal line's surname was ("Quinneen"), but no record of anyone could be found. Through other research, evidence pointed to a relation of the name Roberts, both husband and wife listed as such in 1901, but in 1911 both had different surnames in the 1911 census - Roberts and...Cunneen, an Irish version of Roberts, and most likely the source of the Chinese-whispered version, Quinneen (with a dash of Cork/Limerick accent pronouncing Cunneen thrown in!).

This was partly happened upon through a transcription error of the census form - while the online version had the two different names, in the image of the original, both had originally been written as "Cunneen", but then these had been crossed out and changed to Roberts. In the transcription, one was listed as Cunneen, the other as Roberts. Whether it was a mistake, or a deliberate clue left by the transcriber, I have no idea.

shanew

p15574 wrote: »

Me too...there was the family story of what the maternal line's surname was ("Quinneen"), but no record of anyone could be found. Through other research, evidence pointed to a relation of the name Roberts, both husband and wife listed as such in 1901, but in 1911 both had different surnames in the 1911 census - Roberts and...Cunneen, an Irish version of Roberts, and most likely the source of the Chinese-whispered version, Quinneen (with a dash of Cork/Limerick accent pronouncing Cunneen thrown in!). .....

I've come across something that might be connected - involved a search for someone with the surname 'Rabbit'. The family connection wasn't proved, but it seems the name may have evolved through the Irish for Rabbit to Cunneen, Cunneeny, Conheeny, Cunnane and Kinneen - Quinneen is not that much of variation in sound.

Wonder if some of these families evolved using the English version to Roberts instead ?

odds_on

p15574 wrote: »

Me too...there was the family story of what the maternal line's surname was ("Quinneen"), but no record of anyone could be found. Through other research, evidence pointed to a relation of the name Roberts, both husband and wife listed as such in 1901, but in 1911 both had different surnames in the 1911 census - Roberts and...Cunneen, an Irish version of Roberts, and most likely the source of the Chinese-whispered version, Quinneen (with a dash of Cork/Limerick accent pronouncing Cunneen thrown in!).

This was partly happened upon through a transcription error of the census form - while the online version had the two different names, in the image of the original, both had originally been written as "Cunneen", but then these had been crossed out and changed to Roberts. In the transcription, one was listed as Cunneen, the other as Roberts. Whether it was a mistake, or a deliberate clue left by the transcriber, I have no idea.

I think a thread could be devoted to the errors on the census transcripts - there are so,so many and some so obvious. I found someone born in Seeds, Yorkshire. In fact it was Leeds, Yorkshire. Now, most Irish people would know of Leeds but if the transcriptions were out sourced to India they would have little knowledge of Irish or English place names, or surnames.

A surname transcribed as Hamey, was, in fact, Harney.

Again, the search facility doesn't work particularly well. If you search for, as an example, C* Kelly, it will show up as too many results. However, if you search * Kelly, you get the results. Now I can't see how a more restrictive search can throw up more results than a less restrictive search.

If mods want to start a thread on Census Transcription Errors, please feel free to split.

Coolnabacky1873

There is some chatter on twitter about the current research of Dr. Ciaran Reilly at NUI Maynooth who is investigating 1908 Old Age Pensions and 'the night of the big wind' proof.

He is saying that he believes it is a myth.

He talks about researching in estate records, though?

https://twitter.com/ciaranjreilly

Waitsian

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

There is some chatter on twitter about the current research of Dr. Ciaran Reilly at NUI Maynooth who is investigating 1908 Old Age Pensions and 'the night of the big wind' proof.

He is saying that he believes it is a myth.

He can believe what he wants, but can he disprove it? Conjecture is one thing, hard evidence another. Hasn't it (the Night of the Big Wind) been proven, by other means? There's documented evidence for it!

Coolnabacky1873

I should have been clearer, he says he believes it is a myth based on the research he has conducted so far in "700 applications" and "have just looked at estate records which debunks old age pension& big wind myth".

I don't know which estate records he is referring to and how they apply to pension applications. Maybe records to do with land transfer from landlords to tenants post 1908?

Looking forward to see his research when it is published. I don't know of any cited research that disproves what he says.

Can anyone point me towards some?

Anecdotally, I have three 'green form' applications in my possession and they don't ask about remembering big wind night.

L1011

mod9maple wrote: »

He can believe what he wants, but can he disprove it? Conjecture is one thing, hard evidence another. Hasn't it (the Night of the Big Wind) been proven, by other means? There's documented evidence for it!

The event has been fairly well proven.

The claim that "oh, I remember the big wind" was acceptable to qualify for an Old Age Pension in the absence of other evidence is what he's claiming to not have happened.

Coolnabacky1873

Went on JSTOR for a look around.

"O'Grada* has cited instances in which the applicant's ability to remember a specific historical event, such as a storm, constituted proof of age" from Intentional Age-Misreporting, Age-Heaping, and the 1908 Old Age Pensions Act in Ireland Author(s): John W. Budd and Timothy Guinnane Source: Population Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Nov., 1991), pp. 497-518

*C. O'Grada, 'Did Ulster Catholics always have larger families'? Irish Economic and Social History, 12 (1985), pp. 70-88

Coolnabacky1873

I've attached a great 2002 article by Cormac O'Grada which includes:

Throughout the country, old people - and many not so old -
testified to 'eating a potato out of [their] hand' on the night of
the 'Big Wind' in 1839, so much so that remembering the 'Big
Wind' soon had to be discarded as a gauge of age. In his memoirs
Sir Henry Robinson, long-serving head of the Irish Local
Government Board, would describe 'the bent, decrepit attitude
and the high quavering voice peculiar to applicants for old-age
pensions'

Waitsian

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

I should have been clearer, he says he believes it is a myth based on the research he has conducted so far in "700 applications" and "have just looked at estate records which debunks old age pension& big wind myth".

MYOB wrote: »

The event has been fairly well proven.

The claim that "oh, I remember the big wind" was acceptable to qualify for an Old Age Pension in the absence of other evidence is what he's claiming to not have happened.

Oh ok, I read that wrong so. I thought he was suggesting the event itself didn't occur. :eek:

I have to be honest this is the first I've heard of people using/being asked about that night for purposes of the newly-established old-age pension. It's an interesting subject alright, I'll be keen to follow it.