Handwriting decipher thread *must post link to full page*

pinkypinky wrote: »

I'm presuming, based on my research that the Charles is his son or grandson. He had one of each named Charles.

I've done quite a bit of research on this family to see if they relate to my own Walters family - some corresponding names and religion, but nothing definite.

Has anyone done research on Trinity employees?

You have a clue in the middle initial (of Charles the informant) which is 'G'.
There is a row of houses on Marks Lane and coincidentally there is another death in Marks Lane further up the page (#378).

It would be ideally located for a person working in TCD, just across the road (Great Brunswick St now Pearse St.) I wonder did TCD own property there? As a widower someone had to take charge of the burial, so the body was released to the informant hence the 'caused the body.. etc.'

I've never researched a TCD employee but the college was extremely helpful with information when I was trying to 'pin down' a 1914-era student (one term only!)

I'd agree on it being the grandson - we have a tradition in my family of the eldest son of the eldest son having the same name. For several generations there also are cousins with the same name. But all of us have different middle names, so I'd guess that the 'George' name would not be repeated as a middle name with father & son.

Assuming that the word is ‘invivendam’, (in=not, vivendam = living) I’d suggest that the individual was not expected to live / was on the point of death. I think ‘abandoned’ would be relictam, or abrelectam, ( I cannot think what else the word might be…but open to suggestions.)

It is a weird entry. Ester Hall. No parents named like those before/after her, no ‘S’ before Sarah Kelly, so is Sarah the sponsor or the mother? And if the surname is Hall and the mother is Kelly, why no ‘Illeg.’ mention? Could it be an adult baptism, someone who was unsure as to whether or not they were baptised and about to die? Someone who was a practicing RC and not a convert, as my Shanahan ancestor was and had ‘conversa’ after her adult baptism entry. Pinky, have you any other info on her that could be a pointer?

If I’m correct it brings up the whole Limbo thing, on which the RCC has done much back-tracking in recent decades. At school we were obliged to believe in it, now I think it is ‘open’. The teaching was (is?) we were all born with original sin which was then ‘washed’ away by baptism. An infant could not sin (had not reached the age of reason) but unbaptized it still had original sin, therefore could not go to heaven on death. Neither Hell nor Purgatory were appropriate places, so Limbo was invented. In those superstitious times it was a horrible thing to put on parents who already had to cope with the grief of losing a child.

There were (are?) several types of baptism, by desire, by a lay person, conditional baptism, etc. I do recall that a dead person cannot be baptised, but if you think the soul is still in the body a baptism can be performed. Casuistry. I used to have countless arguments about all this in school, a great fun way to muddle our RK teacher, a simple soul whose answer to every confusion was “You’re not praying hard enough; pray more and you will understand it!”