Question re children unnamed at registration

spurious

This was common in the Rotunda (though no doubt other places), where pages of children would be registered without a given name.

For example, this page:
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1896/02151/1815927.pdf

My question is, does that then become their birth cert for life, or would it be altered later to put in a name?

Hermy

Often the name is added in the far right column at a later date as in the first entry in the example you linked to.

I'm not sure if the entry in the civil birth register is itself a birth certificate - rather it's a record of the birth from which a birth certificate can be derived.

pinkypinky

Yes, Hermy is correct. The entries in the birth register are not birth certificates.

spurious

So, if such a child were to apply for a full birth cert., they could get their name added?

Would any additional proof be needed?

pinkypinky

I've no idea: good question.
But if the parents never bothered to update the registration, then they might have had difficulties with school attendance, etc. Nearly everyone in Ireland would have a baptismal record that could be shown.

I've mentioned before here that my grandfather was never registered until he claimed his OAP. His parents didn't register several of their kids - just seem to be a bit crap, some were registered so they certainly knew about it! His sister (8 years older) had to swear an affadavit as to his birth.

Vetch

There was provision for addition of a name later.

See section 8 of this http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1874/act/88/enacted/en/print.html

and section 5 of this
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1952/act/8/enacted/en/print.html

spurious

I notice that example on the page I linked to had the name added in 1960 when the 'child' was 64.
Perhaps they applied for a passport and needed a full birth cert..

BowWow

Have always found it odd the numbers of my family born and registered in the Rotunda with no christian names in register.
Yet, when the child was baptised, usually in the Pro Cathedral, and probably on the way home from the hospital, there was certainly a christian name and usually two.
Maybe the hospital were just happy to record the numbers without getting bogged down in detail.

pinkypinky

It's so prevalent with the Rotunda that it has to have been, at least unofficially, an administrative decision.

KildareFan

My grandfather was born in the Coombe Hospital in 1891 - they also couldn't be bothered recording the child's name. My grandfather joined Guinness's in 1912 and I have his official birth cert from that date, with stamp and all; his first name is blank on the cert & the record was never officially altered to include his name.

Hermy

KildareFan wrote: »

...they also couldn't be bothered recording the child's name...

Do we know they couldn't be bothered or was there some other practical reason for leaving the name blank?

KildareFan

Hermy wrote: »

Do we know they couldn't be bothered or was there some other practical reason for leaving the name blank?

Couldn't be bothered is my guess, to put in the extra work of collecting and verifying first names.



They probably already had the parents' details on file and as soon as the child popped out they recorded the gender, filled up a page of births and headed off to the Registry office when the page was full. It would have taken a lot of work to go back to parents to find out the first name - most of the mammies would have left hospital fairly soon after the birth.



On the page where my grandfather's birth is recorded, all ten were born in the Coombe between 25th January-7th February & registered together on 23rd Feb; no first name is recorded for any of them and not one record has been amended to include the first name. My grandfather was born on 6th Feb & baptised in Rathmines RC on 22nd Feb, with his correct name.

pinkypinky

That is my assumption too.