Looking up the family tree

fun loving criminal · 23-10-2024 12:25AM #1

I have been looking at my family tree lately and I've been surprised with just how much information I can get. Irish genealogy website is great. I have found most of my great grandparents, great-great grandparents and so far I have found one great-great-great grandparent.

However. I am completely stuck on getting any kind of information on one of my grandmothers who is now deceased. I know her maiden name, date of birth, place of birth and her sisters (just their first name because I don't seem to remember their surname which is probably their married name and I've only met them a handful of times). But I can't seem to find my grandmother's birth certificate or marriage certificate on the Irish genealogy website and I have tried different versions of name spellings and in Irish as well and nothing is coming up. I can't even find my grandfather's marriage certificate either as that might have witnesses to their marriage and might have the father's name. Were all birth certificates registered in Ireland in the 1920s?

I could find one person with the same name as my grandmother and she was from the same street as my grandmother but turns out she was born a few months before my grandmother. Then I looked up this other person's family members and they aren't my grandmother's siblings and one was born before my grandmother and I thought my grandmother was the oldest in her family but I'm not sure about that.

But then it got me thinking, how easy was it for someone to change their name back then? But then to have two siblings change their first name is a bit strange and they didn't have second names on the birth certificates either. Was this common back then?

Is there any other websites for genealogy and for looking up ancestors?

55Gem · 23-10-2024 07:27AM

It’s not unusual for certs to be missing in the early 1920s due to all the political upheaval going on at the time.

If they were born in a hospital, the Rotunda for example, they may be registered without a first name, simply as Unknown and the Surname.

Occasionally it turns out the first name was only a known as name and they are registered with a different name but it would be very unusual for this to happen with both sisters.

Some families simply didn’t register.

My grandfather has no birth cert (1891)and no marriage cert (1922).

Hermy · 23-10-2024 08:13AM

What's your source for your grandmothers date and place of birth?

Have you tried searching the civil birth indexes either online or at the GRO? There are some records missing from the Irish Genealogy website which are present in the indexes and vice versa.

Do you have older relatives alive that you can ask about her?

If there was a particular church your family was associated with you might be able to source her baptism and marriage records from there.

I would also check newspaper death and anniversary notices and headstones for any clues they might provide.

Basically, it's a matter of leaving no stone unturned until something reveals her identity

Though in the case of a similar lady in my tree, we've come to realise that the parents and siblings she was raised with were not in fact her parents and siblings. The absence of birth or baptism records for her, though frustrating, seems to confirm her anomalous background so we're hoping that DNA might provide a clue.

fun loving criminal · 23-10-2024 12:06PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122752027#Comment_122752027

I remember my grandmother having birthday parties, so I remember the date and I've always been told where she grew up.

What is the GRO? I'm only really at the start of my search, so I'm not aware of what I can check.

Hermy · 23-10-2024 01:18PM

The date her birthday party was held may not necessarily be the day she was born - it could be the day she was baptised or it could just be the day she believes she was born.

The GRO is the General Register Office which is responsible for all civil birth, marriage and death records. They have a public office in Werburgh Street, Dublin City where you can look up the indexes. You can also fill out a form available through the Irish Genealogy website and email it to them to see if they can find what you are looking for even if you don't have all the details necessary to fill out the form.

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/civil-records/help/i-want-to-get-a-copy-of-a-certificate-what-do-i-do

If you've any other questions don't hesitate to post them and we'll all be glad to offer our help.

55Gem · 23-10-2024 06:51PM

You do know there is a 100 year cut off, if they were born after 1923 they won’t be online yet.

pinkypinky · 23-10-2024 11:05PM

We have a sticky with some basics in it. The post can no longer be edited so here are some updates.

The current cut-offs on Irishgenealogy are

births 1864-1923

deaths 1864-1870 indexes only 1871-1973 images

marriages 1845 (for non-Catholics) or 1864 for everyone - 1948

You can also find indexes only for the same start dates up to 1958 for all 3 categories on Familysearch.org, Ancestry, Findmypast and MyHeritage has the births/deaths (marriages to come soon).

fun loving criminal · 24-10-2024 12:12AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122753181#Comment_122753181

Thank you very much for your reply. This is very tricky trying to find details. You think you know but then there is a chance she used the wrong date of birth all her life which makes things even harder.

Thank you for the link that you provided. It wouldn't hurt to fill it out and request some information.

fun loving criminal · 24-10-2024 01:54AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122754972#Comment_122754972

Thanks for this. This makes sense. I think my grandmother's two sisters would have been born after 1923. So they definitely wouldn't have birth certificates online yet.

And rather than look at births and not knowing a whole lot. I decided to work backwards and look at deaths as I know my great grandparents died young. They weren't old age.

And I found my great grandmother's death certificate and it was definitely hers as it was my grandmother who registered the death.

So I at least had a first name and a married surname to work on. And looking through the census and there's 3 young men that could be my great grandfather. One of them married a woman with the same name as my great grandmother.

And both of these names are on the birth certificate I found online but just a different date of birth. So it's looking likely that my grandmother used a different date of birth through her life. Only a few months difference though.

Hermy · 24-10-2024 08:23AM

Is the date on the cert later or earlier than the date she celebrated her birthday?

It could be something as simple as the date being altered to avoid a penalty for late registration.

fun loving criminal · 24-10-2024 11:24AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122756742#Comment_122756742

The date was earlier.

fun loving criminal · 24-10-2024 11:53AM

Looking into the birth certificate again and it could have been an error as two births were registered on a day in march 1923, one of them was my grandmother and someone else was also registered as well and they have the same birthday as my grandmother.

So it could have been an error when entering her details.

55Gem · 24-10-2024 06:47PM

What date was the birth registered, column 9, before or after the date she celebrated her birthday?

fun loving criminal · 24-10-2024 08:04PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122759542#Comment_122759542

Her birth was registered after she celebrated her birthday.

55Gem · 24-10-2024 08:57PM

could be her’s so, the only way to be sure of her date of birth would be to see her baptism, babies were usually baptised as soon as possible after birth and their birth date is often recorded.

I know in our local church baptisms were held every Saturday morning in the 1920s so any child born that week usually had the same baptism date.

Looking up the family tree

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