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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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Hermy

shar01 wrote: »

Yeah - I suppose it was a bit tongue in cheek - I must make better use of the smilies. Interesting link.

Ah, don't worry - I sensed the subtle hint of sarcasm in you post.:)

pinkypinky wrote: »

That's a great wikipedia article, Hermy. Thanks for linking.

I came upon that via Mark Humphries website.

Idle Passerby

Found this in a court record:

"Defendant on 25th December 1904 showed signs of insanity by tearing his bed clothes, jumped through the window and having no clothes on only his shirt, made away through the fields"

Poor fellow was committed to a lunatic asylum.

pinkypinky

Found a death of Bridget Hanly aged 104 in 1890 this morning.

Lived through the 1798 Rebellion!

Jellybaby1

pinkypinky wrote: »

Found a death of Bridget Hanly aged 104 in 1890 this morning.

Lived through the 1798 Rebellion!

And she died of 'old age'! I think I came across that record before in my own research but it wasn't one of mine.

shar01

This is an extract from the Tree of a 4th cousin match :rolleyes:

spurious

When I saw the 'A's I was hoping for Adam.

shar01

spurious wrote: »

When I saw the 'A's I was hoping for Adam.

Thanks for the good laugh!!

Waitsian

Unbelievable!! You can only laugh.

Hermy

I think this might belong in here.

Jellybaby1

Hermy wrote: »

I think this might belong in here.

That is a brilliant find Hermy! At first I thought you were talking about all the Do's, then I saw the right hand column, but then I noticed the occupation. I have never ever heard any mention of non-RC evictions as I was always led to believe it was only the very poor RC tenants who were evicted. Any other references you know of?

srmf5

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

That is a brilliant find Hermy! At first I thought you were talking about all the Do's, then I saw the right hand column, but then I noticed the occupation. I have never ever heard any mention of non-RC evictions as I was always led to believe it was only the very poor RC tenants who were evicted. Any other references you know of?

I could only find one birth record for the couple and it was for Noble Armstrong baptised in 1896 in Church of Ireland. The address was Kenagh (not far from Kilcommock) in Longford and the father was a farmer at the time. I don't see the family in 1911. Also interesting that one of the sons was named William O'Brien Armstrong.

Edit: The civil births are available for all the children but I could only find one baptism that was online. Robert was still a farmer living in Kenagh in 1898 when the last child was born.

Hermy

I know nothing about them - I came by it quite by accident while looking for a different Armstrong who was present at a death in Longford - but like you the reference to eviction caught my eye.

srmf5

I found two newspaper articles of a description of Robert Armstrong's eviction. In another article he was a member of the United Irish League and described as a 'Protestant Home Ruler and evicted tenant' in 1900. I've attached the two articles on his eviction for anyone who's interested.

Edit: His eviction seems to have occurred in 1888. His occupation was gentleman when he married in 1884.

kildarejohn

srmf5 wrote: »

I found two newspaper articles of a description of Robert Armstrong's eviction. .

Mr. Armstrong's story seems to be full of "funny/unusual" aspects. Did anyone notice the name of the signatory of the summons?-
Attachment not found.

Leeside

I wonder what's the story behind naming illegitimate children 'Nepoleon'. This first name was given only three times in Iveleary (Inchigeelagh), each time to an illegitmate child.

https://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/search.jsp?namefm=nepoleon&namel=&location=iveleary&yyfrom=&yyto=&submit=Search

I wonder did the priest have something to do with it. The children surely can't have found it easy living in a rural area with that name - marked as illegitimate for life.

Peregrinus

I don;t think these children were illegitimate; they are all the children of named fathers and they are given their fathers' surnames.

I think what has happened is that the addresses in the register are illegible, and the transcription of the records this has inadvertently been rendered as "illegitimate", possibly through the slapdash use of drop-down menu.

Nor am I convinced that these children were named "Nepoleon". Again, I smell transcription errors!

Leeside

Peregrinus wrote: »

I don;t think these children were illegitimate; they are all the children of named fathers and they are given their fathers' surnames.

I think what has happened is that the addresses in the register are illegible, and the transcription of the records this has inadvertently been rendered as "illegitimate", possibly through the slapdash use of drop-down menu.

Nor am I convinced that these children were named "Nepoleon". Again, I smell transcription errors!

The church records clearly state that the children were illegitimate. I also don't see any transcription error in the first name.

It would appear that female illegitimate children were given the name 'Matilda'.

My guess is that the priest gave the name Matilda and the name Nepoleon when the parents disowned the child at birth and did not wish to name him/her.

pinkypinky

It's unusual to see the father named in the case of illegitimate children but both parents are clear in this case. Each child is given their father's surname too.

The 3 years are just after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo (with apologies to all who now have the song stuck in their head), though he was dead by the latter 2 births.

srmf5

Illegitimate is written where the address should be recorded. There's hardly a townland in the area that looks like illegitimate and people from the same townland just happened to love the name Napoleon? It does look like illegitimate though but as said it's interesting that all have the father's name recorded.

If it's the case that boys were named Napoleon and girls Matilda, the girls got off much more lightly since Matilda wouldn't have been nearly as uncommon.

Hermy

I've often seen baptisms where the father is named but the child is recorded as illegitimate and just take it to mean the child was born out of wedlock.

srmf5

That's the only way that I would interpret illegitimate as well. I suppose that there only seems to be three cases in that time period so it's not a large number and the three fathers must have acknowledged the child as theirs. If the father didn't, I know that there have been cases from other posts where the priest would have a note written of who the father was supposed to have been. It reminds me of Game of Thrones such as giving all illegitimate children in the north the surname Snow. We know for royalty that the surname Fitzroy was sometimes given in real life.

pedroeibar1

Agreed Hermy. If the parents were not married and the father acknowledged the infant child his name was used as a surname, if not it generally bore the mothers surname. I've not encountered the link of the names with illegitimacy.
The 1941 novel 'An Béal Bocht' by Brian O'Nuallain (Flann O'Brien) is a memoir of one Bónapárt Ó Cúnasa. The Bonaparte name is also linked to the Wyse family of Waterford, where one of them married a niece of the emperor and that branch of the family continued as Bonaparte-Wyse.

pedroeibar1

srmf5 wrote: »

That's the only way that I would interpret illegitimate as well. I suppose that there only seems to be three cases in that time period so it's not a large number and the three fathers must have acknowledged the child as theirs. If the father didn't, I know that there have been cases from other posts where the priest would have a note written of who the father was supposed to have been. It reminds me of Game of Thrones such as giving all illegitimate children in the north the surname Snow. We know for royalty that the surname Fitzroy was sometimes given in real life.

Crossed posts with you smrf.
The Duke of Clarence (later William IV) had a long relationship with the actress Mrs. Jordan (nee Dorothy Bland) who bore him many children. All of them took the surname FitzClarence. David Cameron is one descendant and the last Duke of Munster who died quite recently was another.

spurious

There's also a 'Ferdinand' from Illegitimate in one of those pages.

Leeside

The father's name is also recorded for those girls given the name 'Matilda'. Interestingly the term 'bastard' is use for two of the baptisms so there can be no doubt what the intention of the priest was. Even though the father was known and his surname used, the priest wanted it to be known that the child was born out of wedlock. The names 'Nepoleon' (sic) and Matilda are so unusual for Inchigeelagh, the priest must have wanted the whole parish to be aware of the circumstances of the child's birth. I can't see any other explanation.

https://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/search.jsp?name2fm=&name2l=&namefm=matilda&namel=&location=iveleary&yyfrom=1810&yyto=1830&submit=Search&sort=&pageSize=100&diocese=CORK+%26+ROSS+%28RC%29&parish=IVELEARY&century=&decade=&ddBfrom=&ddMfrom=&ddDfrom=&mmBfrom=&mmMfrom=&mmDfrom=&yyBfrom=&yyMfrom=&yyDfrom=&ddBto=&ddMto=&ddDto=&mmBto=&mmMto=&mmDto=&yyBto=&yyMto=&yyDto=&locationB=&locationM=&locationD=&member0=&member1=&member2=&member3=&member4=&member5=&member6=&member7=&member8=&member9=&namef0=&namef1=&namef2=&namef3=&namef4=&namef5=&namef6=&namef7=&namef8=&namef9=&namel0=&namel1=&namel2=&namel3=&namel4=&namel5=&namel6=&namel7=&namel8=&namel9=&keyword=&event=

Hermy

Leeside wrote: »

...the priest must have wanted the whole parish to be aware of the circumstances of the child's birth...

Perhaps but I wonder would these records have been available for public scrutiny?

Peregrinus

Leeside wrote: »

The father's name is also recorded for those girls given the name 'Matilda'. Interestingly the term 'bastard' is use for two of the baptisms so there can be no doubt what the intention of the priest was. Even though the father was known and his surname used, the priest wanted it to be known that the child was born out of wedlock. The names 'Nepoleon' (sic) and Matilda are so unusual for Inchigeelagh, the priest must have wanted the whole parish to be aware of the circumstances of the child's birth. I can't see any other explanation.

The whole parish almost certainly was already aware of the circumstances of the child's birth but, if they weren't, a notation in the parish register wasn't going to alert them to it.

I think the reason for this is that, back in the day, there were canonical consequences attached to illegitimacy. A man born illegitimate, for example, was not allowed to be be ordained a priest (without getting a dispensation from Rome). There may have been other consequences; I don't know. So this fact was noted in the baptism register because it might be signficant for canon law purposes later.

The fact that the fathers are named and the children are given the father's name makes me think that the parents were openly cohabiting, and the children were acknowledged. We tend to think of times past as extremely puritanical in matters of sex, but in fact this is to some extent a post-Famine tend in Ireland. In the earlier part of the nineteenth century attitudes were, relatively at any rate, a bit more relaxed. Cohabiting outside wedlock certainly attraced a degree of social disapprobation, and would have been ruinous to someone in the middle classes. But if you were a landless labourer, you had nothing to lose, and social disapprobation may not have been quite as big a concern for you.

Vetch

spurious wrote: »

There's also a 'Ferdinand' from Illegitimate in one of those pages.

There are a number of atypical names listed for illegitimate children in this particular parish (also Clotilda, Carolina, Bonaparte, Luis). I could be wrong on this as I only had a quick look but the names don't seem to recur in later records such as marriage records and would wonder if these people were known by these names in their everyday lives. Most of the children marked illegitimate in the parish have very usual names.

pinkypinky

Is there a common priest in all these cases?

Part of me still wishes there was a townland called Illegitimate.

kildarejohn

Vetch wrote: »

There are a number of atypical names listed for illegitimate children in this particular parish (also Clotilda, Carolina, Bonaparte, Luis). I could be wrong on this as I only had a quick look but the names don't seem to recur in later records such as marriage records and would wonder if these people were known by these names in their everyday lives. Most of the children marked illegitimate in the parish have very usual names.

Just a wild guess, but I wonder perhaps was the priest educated in a Catholic seminary in Europe and therefore chose these very European names. If the priest was heavily influenced by his contacts with French Catholics perhaps he was naming the babies after people he knew.