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Funny/Unusual records

BigCon

Can we have a thread for funny or unusual records that we come across during our research?

For instance this entry where the priest was transferred to a new parish in such a hurry that he left without his breakfast!

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Mossy

Yup, that's where I got the image in my last post

BottleOfSmoke

Note on a Catholic Church baptism record in 1901 in Cavan. Hope there was no further stigma as the century moved on.

FATHER A PROTESTANT, MOTHER A CATHOLIC, BAPTISM PERFORMED IN KILSARAN CHURCH, BY REV. F MURTAGH, SPONSORS ENCOURAGED TO REAR THE CHILD CATHOLIC, THIS IS UNLIKELY.

Leeside

Section of Birth Cert giving reason for father's address - " Co Cork Gaol - undergoing punishment for bigamy"

https://imgur.com/a/zvFKN

BigCon

Here's two marriages from Dunleer in the 1770/1780s.
The first is a sad one:

(I married William Ward a vagabond hawker and Nelly Ryan Ditto as she was dying in Merchards Town before two witnesses).

The second one:

(witnesses Patt Kinnegan and young Kinnegan with the gob, or Bill any many more from Pains Town).

shar01

Came across this one: https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1900/10356/5770028.pdf

The officiating clergyman refused to sign certificate.

Hermy

I wonder why?

shar01

Hermy wrote: »

I wonder why?

Maybe he wasn't happy with his payment

Jellybaby1

Both of full age and unmarried according to that record. Well he married them anyway but he didn't want to be seen as responsible for doing that. I'd love to know what it was, surely it couldn't have just been a mixed marriage?

spurious

Maybe they didn't pay up.

Jellybaby1

Two votes now about the payment. Looks like a possible reason, I wouldn't have thought of that myself.

shar01

I just came across it looking for a different Patrick Cunningham in Granard.

I looked up the witnesses - Hugh Doyle (could be brother of Eliza?) - his mother's surnames appears to be Balasty. Agnes Wilson's mother also appears to be a Balasty.

Wilson would strike me as a Protestant name...

Jellybaby1

Don't tell me I may have been right after all!

shar01

Or he was just a cranky fceker having a bad day

tabbey

The clergyman had a legal obligation to register the marriage, but may have felt that it was the limit of his duty, thus far and no more.

Remember in 1845 the RC heirarchy refused to co-operate with civil registration of marriages, on the grounds that matrimony was a sacrament and no business of the state.

this priest may have been from a religious order who previously had no experience of civil registration. His lift may not have reached the top floor, as one might say today.

tabbey

shar01 wrote: »

Wilson would strike me as a Protestant name...

Looking at the census, you are right. In 1911, of 14,123 Wilsons, only 2,008 were RC.
The biggest was Presbyterian at 5,447 (+26 Church of Scotland), then Church of Ireland 4,435 (+238 Church of England). Methodists made up 735.

No Jews, 60 Baptists, 14 Quakers, 11 Independents and 11 Plymouth Brethren. 966 other came as a surprise, and just 25 refused.

Agnes funnily enough was almost evenly divided between RC and the other denominations.
7 Agnes entries were info refused. One was a suffragette, the others had religions refused as a family. One HoH was a solicitor in the inland revenue commissioners, another was perhaps a catholic working in the shipyard in Belfast, possibly fearful of his religion being leaked to his workmates.

shar01

In relation to the civil registration of marriages - I was up in Werburgh St a couple of years ago looking for the civil marriage of my 2nd great aunt (I had the church record). I was told that in one case a priest arrived in to the GRO with 40 years worth of records to be registered :eek:

Have not found the above civil marriage nor my great grandfather's marriage (same parish).

tabbey

shar01 wrote: »

In relation to the civil registration of marriages - I was up in Werburgh St a couple of years ago looking for the civil marriage of my 2nd great aunt (I had the church record). I was told that in one case a priest arrived in to the GRO with 40 years worth of records to be registered :eek:

The priest would have been required to register the marriages with the local registrar. Even though the Registrar General would have to authorise the seriously late registration of marriages, the idea of going directly to the GRO sounds implausable.

Has the whiff of an urban myth, but maybe some truth also.

shar01

It did seem a bit far fetched. Surely some of those with unregistered births and marriages would've run into problems down the line when applying for passports / state benefits.

KildareFan

I've been cross checking the marriage record in a parish with the civil register and I'm finding some strange discrepancies - some marriages which are on the civil record and which state the marriage took place in the parish church, but don't appear on the church register, and some marriages on the church record which don't have civil records to match.....

Hermy

KildareFan wrote: »

...some marriages which are on the civil record and which state the marriage took place in the parish church, but don't appear on the church register, and some marriages on the church record which don't have civil records to match.....

Yeah, I'm finding something similar with a midlands parish I'm researching.

tabbey

KildareFan wrote: »

I've been cross checking the marriage record in a parish with the civil register and I'm finding some strange discrepancies - some marriages which are on the civil record and which state the marriage took place in the parish church, but don't appear on the church register, and some marriages on the church record which don't have civil records to match.....

RC registers cover a parish with a number of churches / chapels, but the civilregister names the individual chapel.
A couple of my ancestors married in 1879. The civil register said it was in Dalkey. I eventually found it in the marriage register of Ballybrack, which at the time covered Glasthule and Dalkey also.
Separate baptism registers were kept in each church by then,but the marriage register was still united as it had not been fully filled up.

DamoRed

Having searched many parish records and not seen much of interest, this struck me as being doubly remarkable, as they happened on successive days. I noticed the Leonard & McNamara entry first, which made me wonder how common it was to emigrate the same day as being married. Hectic social calender!

Balyna is an area of North Kildare, so presumably an early marriage ceremony and then straight off to Dublin for the emigrant ship. Leaving the families and friends to mark the marriage and their permanent departure, behind them.

What kind of scale would a wedding have been in those times? Families and closest friends only, or would the whole village have gathered together for a wedding feast, each contributing to the food?

27/04/1832 Patt Byrne and Anne Cormack by dispensation X going out to America

28/04/1832 Mick Leonard to Anne McNamara Barns? Dispensed on account of their going to America that day Wit. Hugh & George McNamara

tabbey

They may have been travelling together on the same ship.

tabbey

DamoRed wrote: »

What kind of scale would a wedding have been in those times? Families and closest friends only, or would the whole village have gathered together for a wedding feast, each contributing to the food?

Depends how much money they had.

Until the mid 20th century, they had a wedding breakfast, so the couple could depart on their honeymoon, assuming they could afford it.
I expect the guests could stay as long as they wanted, drinking among themselves according to their financial resources.

pinkypinky

I thought it was breakfast because you could only get married in the morning time and you weren't supposed to eat before receiving communion? Hence morning coat (top hat and tails), etc.

Peregrinus

pinkypinky wrote: »

I thought it was breakfast because you could only get married in the morning time and you weren't supposed to eat before receiving communion? Hence morning coat (top hat and tails), etc.

Morning weddings (with consequent morning dress, wedding breakfast, convention that women wore hats, etc, etc) were standard among Protestants too, where no constraints about fasting applied.

DamoRed

While the entry of Patt Byrne and Anne Cormack shows Ballinderry as an address, there is none listed for Mick Leonard and Anne McNamara. The NLI map shows Balyna to cover quite a large area, so it's by no means certain they would know each other. What does seem certain is that they would be heading for the same sailing.

Was that dress code for middle and upper classes only, or would poorer working class have dressed to that level for a wedding, or just their 'Sunday best'?

pedroeibar1

DamoRed wrote: »

Was that dress code for middle and upper classes only, or would poorer working class have dressed to that level for a wedding, or just their 'Sunday best'?

Fasting – it was 12 hours before communion until Vatican 2 when it dropped back to one hour (I think). That is why funerals of the wealthier parishioners took place in early morning - usually at 9.30 a.m – attendees could go for communion, be seen and then pop off for a feed.

The weddings mentioned above are in 1832. At that time poverty was widespread in Ireland. I know nothing about your family in Kildare, but about 50% of the population in Clare, Limerick and Tipperary lived in the worst class of housing, a one-roomed cabin. The majority of the rest of the population was not much better. The French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont visited Ireland in 1835 and wrote:
"I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the Negro in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland."

The likelihood they wore ‘morning dress to an agricultural wedding is absurd. They wore their best clothing, probably a frieze coat & trousers for the groom and a cotton shift dress for the bride. For the majority of the population clothing was homespun or made up locally. Examination of the 25” maps shows the very high incidence of fulling mills throughout the country.

Morning dress as envisaged above had yet to be developed in 1832 and even was uncommon at that time in London. It developed out of the clothing a gentleman wore for his morning ride – the ‘tails’ allowed the coat to fall correctly when seated in a saddle and the cutaway or horizontal cut of the front of the coat did not ‘bunch’ on the front of the saddle. It was a replacement for the frock coat, the latter becoming known as a ‘Prince Albert’ (a different meaning back then!;)) as it was popularised by the Royal Consort. Also, correctly they are called morning and dinner coats; jackets are worn by waiters.

Even by the late 1800’s nobody – other than senior nobility / aristocracy / landed gentry / senior officials and very few pretentious idiots – wore morning attire to a wedding. In the Edwardian era it grew into fashion for highly ceremonial occasions (the sartorial link with morning coat / riding and the Royal Enclosure at Ascot is apparent). In a case of aping social betters and social climbing it became associated with 'formal' weddings. Most people (usually brides) who stipulate ‘black tie’ usually have no notion of what is involved and neither do the men forced to wear them. Nor do they even know about the inference of the ink colour on the invitations. Morning suits should not be worn after 7 p.m. and if I’ve been forced to attend such a rudeword wedding and forced to wear black tie I gleefully ask those of the bridal party wearing morning suits ‘When are you going to change??’

PS Don’t get me started on half-drunk idiots wearing kilts who aspire to tell me about their ‘family tartan’.
PPS a tuxedo is an American item of clothing and the term should be left on that side of the pond.
PPS Rant over

Jellybaby1

DamoRed wrote: »

Having searched many parish records and not seen much of interest, this struck me as being doubly remarkable, as they happened on successive days. I noticed the Leonard & McNamara entry first, which made me wonder how common it was to emigrate the same day as being married. Hectic social calender!

Balyna is an area of North Kildare, so presumably an early marriage ceremony and then straight off to Dublin for the emigrant ship. Leaving the families and friends to mark the marriage and their permanent departure, behind them.

What kind of scale would a wedding have been in those times? Families and closest friends only, or would the whole village have gathered together for a wedding feast, each contributing to the food?

27/04/1832 Patt Byrne and Anne Cormack by dispensation X going out to America

28/04/1832 Mick Leonard to Anne McNamara Barns? Dispensed on account of their going to America that day Wit. Hugh & George McNamara

Regarding "Mick Leonard to Anne McNamara Barns?", any chance 'Barns' should actually read 'Banns'?

pinkypinky

Please keep the rants to a minimum!