Marriage found in O'Kief, Coshe Mang

Lionheart

I found a 1770's marriage of my ancestors via the Family Search IGI. It was sourced from O'Kief, Coshe Mang. I searched O'Kief and found it in Volume 4 p. 203-277 but it gives no additional details. It just gives the two names and the year of marriage. No mention of parish.

The information in Family Search gives the approx year of birth of the couple but that is not given in the O'Kief volume. I wonder where did Family Search get this information? Maybe the actual record has more details.

At the beginning of the O'Kief index it says "Marriages, Diocese of Cork & Ross 1716-1844, Public Office Records, Dublin."

How would I go about finding the record? If I visit the National Archives how difficult would it be to find it? I haven't visited the National Archives before so I'm not sure what information is searchable.

shanew

I suspect these come from a marriage License index - so just the name of the Diocese, the year, and names of the bride and groom. As far as I know none of the records they relate to survive. (there are several for Co. Cork mentioned in Ryan's, but none that match these dates exactly)

Lionheart

shanew wrote: »

I suspect these come from a marriage License index - so just the name of the Diocese, the year, and names of the bride and groom. As far as I know none of the records they relate to survive. (there are several for Co. Cork mentioned in Ryan's, but none that match these dates exactly)

Thanks Shanew. Do you know if these licenses were issued solely for COI marriages or could they have been for RC marriages also? Also would the license have shown the age or date of birth of bride and groom in addition to the details you mention above?

shanew

These licenses were handled by the Established Church, for marriages in their parishes - but some Catholic couples married in CofI church before registration. As far as know usually those quite well off, landed gentry etc, and usually with a view to inheritance, as the processing of Wills and probate was also carried out by courts of the Established Church.

I've never seen any details as to what the licenses contained, as they were held in the Public Records Office, so do not survive. Just the indexes exist.. which I suspect is what that collection listed on Familysearch/O'Kief, Coshe Mang is from. Any mention of a Diocese in these records indicates to me that it's an index of Licenses or Will probates.

Lionheart

Thanks again shanew. That's interesting about some Catholic couples marrying in CofI church before registration. All I know is that one of this couple's sons married in a catholic church (and his children were catholic). Their descendants were working class so I doubt that the couple I'm looking at were wealthy. Then again maybe the son converted when marrying and lost any entitlement to inheritance as a result. I have no idea.

If the licenses didn't survive how did the index which O'Kief used, survive.

Just to clarify, Ancestry mentions the source as O'Kief. Familysearch doesn't give a source other than their own IGI and as I mentioned they include the approx birth years (which O'Kief didn't include so it can't be just a straight copy from O'Kief). They must have some other source.

shanew

Lionheart wrote: »

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If the licenses didn't survive how did the index which O'Kief used, survive.

Just to clarify, Ancestry mentions the source as O'Kief. Familysearch doesn't give a source other than their own IGI and as I mentioned they include the approx birth years (which O'Kief didn't include so it can't be just a straight copy from O'Kief). They must have some other source.

The full title of the collection is : "Cork & Ross Diocese. Index to marriages 1716-1844 in the diocese of Cork & Ross. Volume 4, p. 203-277." (here from Cork City Libraries/Cork Past & Present), and as far as I can tell the 'O'Kief, Coshe Mang' volumes were published between the 1950s and 1970s, so has to have used the indexes, which were created at the same time as these original records - a bit like the BMD Index for civil records, but I presume were held at a separate location to the PRO storage room. Maybe even in the reading room where I heard that some records survived - census fragments etc

Some of these marriage License indexes are available for other Dioceses including a few on sites like FindMyPast etc. See some more details here in the section headed "Marriage License bonds" (John Grenham/Irish Times)

edit : many of the 'birth years' on the IGI are guesstimates based on an assumed age at marriage - I think it was 23 from grooms, and 21 for brides

Lionheart

Great explanation - I understand it now, thanks! The guesstimate of age makes sense. In my case the IGI in has the groom at 25 and the bride at age 21 so maybe that was the rule of thumb generally used.