Help finding birth

p15574

I've been trying to track down records of my granny's birth for years now - I think my mother's recollection of her birthday must be slightly off. The funny thing is there seems to be no civil record of the birth. I've tried searching the parish registers but as the alleged birthday is wrong it's very painstaking. I just did a search there on FindMyPast and get a few hits, but my subscription has run out. If I have the more exact dates from these hits I could zero in more directly on the pages in the parish register,

Could I ask a favour perhaps? If anyone has a FMP subscription, would they mind doing a search and providing the exact dates for the 3 hits please? Here is the exact search - for a birth in 1908. There is one birth in 1906 and 3 in 1909, but the 3rd girl died in 1909 also so that one can be excluded.

Does anyone know why I haven't been able to find this birth on the civil register? I've even had them search in the GRO in Roscommon a few years ago, and have done extensive search myself with the new records online last week. Her father was in the 1901 census but her mother's a widow by 1911 and similarly, I can't find any record of his death either. I'm wondering if there's something funny about her birth - maybe it was a year after he died or something...has anyone else had experience of no civil records found for people who definitely existed?

L1011

Have you searched the GRO records for "Unknown Murphy" and "Female Murphy" in that time window? (and Helen, Helena, Lena, etc - the Soundex is far from perfect). Now that viewing the registers is free it has gone from costly and time consuming to just time consuming.

shanew

the date is too recent for parish records, and FMP only has the Civil Birth Index, so will only give you the references to order certs. The enhanced GRO index gives dates of birth on the index from abt 1900.

Do you have her father's name & occupation, and also the bride's place of residence from a marriage cert ?

There are births that were never registered even up to the 1920s...

p15574

Yes, I've looked at hundreds of birth registers for female (blank) Murphy, or no name at all but with a mother of surname Roberts, nothing matches. I'm wondering if she might have been adopted or something.

pinkypinky

All those births should be freely available on irishgenealogy.ie now.
The FMP index or individual entry won't show the actual DOB.

L1011

p15574 wrote: »

Yes, I've looked at hundreds of birth registers for female (blank) Murphy, or no name at all but with a mother of surname Roberts, nothing matches. I'm wondering if she might have been adopted or something.

Mothers surname won't be on the LDS based indices for that long ago. You need to search for Female as the first name, not just gender - certain registrars did that for as yet un-named registrations.

pinkypinky

Irishgenealogy.ie search for Ellen Murphy Kilmallock 1905-1910
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-perform-search.jsp?namefm=ellen&namel=murphy&location=Kilmallock&yyfrom=1905&yyto=1910&type=B&submit=Search

11/3/1906 - mother's name is Howard
10/3/1909 - mother's name is Fitzgibbon

p15574

shanew wrote: »

the date is too recent for parish records, and FMP only has the Civil Birth Index, so will only give you the references to order certs. The enhanced GRO index gives dates of birth on the index from abt 1900.

Do you have her father's name & occupation, and also the bride's place of residence from a marriage cert ?

There are births that were never registered even up to the 1920s...

Oh, I thought FMP might give the exact date, sorry. The father's name is James Murphy, a "general labourer" of Lotteragh Upper near Bruree. The residence for both was given as "Bruree" for their marriage in 1885. Here's the family in the 1901 and 1911 census. Ellen is listed as 2 in the 1911 census, although her death cert in May 1962 lists her age as 51 => 1911ish, so there's obviously confusion about her DOB.

p15574

pinkypinky wrote: »

Irishgenealogy.ie search for Ellen Murphy Kilmallock 1905-1910
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-perform-search.jsp?namefm=ellen&namel=murphy&location=Kilmallock&yyfrom=1905&yyto=1910&type=B&submit=Search

11/3/1906 - mother's name is Howard
10/3/1909 - mother's name is Fitzgibbon

Yes, I've been through them all, even extended it to all of Ireland, though I doubt if they ever even left the county.

KildareFan

only two Murphy/Roberts in Kilmallock:

Name KATE MURPHY
Date of Birth 08 March 1906
Group Registration ID 331781
SR District/Reg Area Kilmallock
Sex Female
Mother's Birth Surname ROBERTS
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/e1179e2716339

Name HANORIA MURPHY
Date of Birth 25 March 1903
Group Registration ID 4821159
SR District/Reg Area Kilmallock
Sex N/R
Mother's Birth Surname ROBERTS
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/d52d0d3139817

spurious

Are there any siblings that you have found? Would help as regards which office they used to register.

p15574

KildareFan wrote: »

Name KATE MURPHY
Date of Birth 08 March 1906
Group Registration ID 331781
SR District/Reg Area Kilmallock
Sex Female
Mother's Birth Surname ROBERTS
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/e1179e2716339

That's her sister, she's listed as 5 in the 1911 census, when Ellen is 2. I've had that cert for a few years from the GRO.

p15574

spurious wrote: »

Are there any siblings that you have found? Would help as regards which office they used to register.

I've found her two sisters (including Kate above), it's all listed for Kilmallock.

p15574

p15574 wrote: »

spurious wrote: »

Are there any siblings that you have found? Would help as regards which office they used to register.

I've found her two sisters (including Kate above), it's all listed for Kilmallock.

Actually, just checking my records, I've found all the siblings in the civil records, she's the elusive one. Typical it'd be the most important one! They're all registered in "the district of Bruree in the Union of Kilmallock in the county of Limerick".

KildareFan

Her father was in the 1901 census but her mother's a widow by 1911 and similarly, I can't find any record of his death either. I'm wondering if there's something funny about her birth - maybe it was a year after he died or something...

The answer may lie in this conundrum - no death cert for the dad, no birth cert for Ellen. Maybe he skipped the country as his death would have to be registered unless he was bumped off and buried in the back field!