RC Parish 'Census'

Boscod

For some time now I've being trying to locate baptism records for the period 1820 to 1857 relating to my local Church. I visited the Church some time ago and was told they could not be found. Someone else then told me the register was noted as missing as far back as the 1960's.
The particular register is not available on the NLI site either. However some baptism details from this period are contained on IrishGenealogy.ie, although from later period records I know there are gaps between what is available, and what was actually transcribed to that site. But the fact that some were there aroused my interest as to how they came to be there.

I recently revisited my Church, and on this occasion was offered access to all their old records. While I didn't find the register in question, what I did get was what appears to be a parish 'census' dating from 1853.
It lists the following for each family:
The 'head' of the family (GG Grandfather in my case)
The names of the other family members
The relationship of each of these to the 'head' (Wife, Son, Daughter etc)
The ages of all
The address of the family
The name of the landlord
The names of the 'heads' parents (my GGG Grandparents) (not in all cases)

This was a fantastic find for me as it confirmed the family structure at that date. The family had 11 children per this record, however only nine were found on IrishGenealogy.ie. Just as important, this was the first time I have seen who my GGG Grandparents were, and as such moves my research back a further generation.

This was the first time I've heard of, or seen such a record, so I'm just wondering this was a common practice within the Church at that time?

As a matter of interest what IrishGenealogy appear to have done is matched this census with the marriage register of the time, which is available, and created baptism records, alas without the sponsor details which is what I was really after in the first place.

pinkypinky

What parish is this?

I've seen a couple of other small censuses in the NLI records. We had a thread about it but I can't find it. Surprisingly parish and census are frequent words in this forum! One is Ballymena and the IGRS transcribed it.

Boscod

pinkypinky wrote: »

What parish is this?

I've seen a couple of other small censuses in the NLI records. We had a thread about it but I can't find it. Surprisingly parish and census are frequent words in this forum! One is Ballymena and the IGRS transcribed it.

It's Sandyford & Glencullen Dublin.

The Chieftain

There are at least two such censuses in Ferns parish registers. One for Enniscorthy, and one for Marshalstown, though the level of detail is far short of what appear stop be contained in the Dublin example. The latter one was published by the IGRS in their journal. Both are of course now available online. The Enniscorthy one is significant as it covers an entire substantial country town.

pinkypinky

Ooh I must try to get down and look at those records. I have some ancestors from that area!

tabbey

Superb.

While these censuses are not unique, they are far from common. This one seems exceptionally good.

shanew

There was a topic on these back in July last year which lists several of these - Census records in the NLI parish registers

tuisginideach

Boscod wrote: »

It's Sandyford & Glencullen Dublin.

Interesting for me too - I posted recently about my OH being fostered and that is the parish involved (later than OP's dates, admittedly). Are these records easily available (i.e. by appointment) or were you just very lucky that someone went to huge bother to enable you to look at them?

Boscod

tuisginideach wrote: »

Interesting for me too - I posted recently about my OH being fostered and that is the parish involved (later than OP's dates, admittedly). Are these records easily available (i.e. by appointment) or were you just very lucky that someone went to huge bother to enable you to look at them?

I just contacted the parish office to see when the sacristan (Ray) would be there and called in. If you want to PM me some details, I'll check if I have anything that might be of interest to you.

tuisginideach

Thanks boscod - I'm reasonably local and would need to check out dates etc (and it is a sensitive issue withing my OH's family) so I'll bide my time - thanks for the offer.

VirginiaB

The parish of Eglish & Drumcullen, Co Kings/Offaly has a census done by Father Walter Murtagh in 1840. It lists heads of household, how many males/females over/under 15 years of age, and townland.

I have only been able to find part of the census in the parish records online, unless I'm missing something. But the entire census is listed by townland in the book 'Eglish and Drumcullen, A Parish in Firceall', ed. Brian Pey, pub 2003. A must-have if you're from the area as I am.

tuisginideach

Have you seen that ancestry.co.uk are giving free access to new Irish records for the month of March?

I have been looking at my own GF but in the 'Ireland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1620-1911' I get the message Index-only Record - anyone know off the top of their head what that means? I am sure I'll work it out - just having a quick glance now.

L1011

tuisginideach wrote: »

Have you seen that ancestry.co.uk are giving free access to new Irish records for the month of March?

I have been looking at my own GF but in the 'Ireland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1620-1911' I get the message Index-only Record - anyone know off the top of their head what that means? I am sure I'll work it out - just having a quick glance now.

That record set is actually only an index - there are no images to view.

Most of the images are on the NLI site for it, if you want. Its a much older extracts set.

pinkypinky

Guys - please keep this thread for discussions about censuses in the parish registers.

We have a thread for the Ancestry news stickied at the top of the forum.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057567458