Church record vs Civil register

cobham · 10-09-2018 11:15am #1

After many years of searching I have finally found church two records, a marriage in 1877 in Mullingar and a birth in 1879 in Dublin. I availed of the Findmypast 'free' weekend just past and there they were. All other record details tie in such as subsequent children/deaths on the civil register and the censuses.

These two events are just not on the civil register. Who was responsible for registering a marriage in 1879? is this a common occurrence? Obviously some fee was payable and in the case of death a doctor's cert perhaps, but I dont think poverty was an excuse in these cases.

spurious · 10-09-2018 11:35am

It's possible there is a page missing from irishgenealogy.ie
I know my grandfather's birth is not listed on it, though it is on familysearch.org and I have all the references for it (volume, page etc.).

Can you see are the marriages above and below the ones you are interested in registered?

Hermy · 10-09-2018 11:39am

It may also be that the image is in the Irish Genealogy database but it has not been transcribed.

cobham · 10-09-2018 11:53am

oh these are ones I exhaustively looked for before online stuff so I had studied the civil register index books with all variations of spellings/time/place. The clues were there in later censuses such as length of marriage and age of firstborn. I went back into genealogy.ie and put in marriage/year/location and all marriages with dates are thrown up but not my one!

Hermy · 10-09-2018 12:02pm

Did you go into the images for the area and scroll back and forth?

cobham · 10-09-2018 12:10pm

I will go look at images... 154 records of marriages in that area and names/dates are given in initial listing. But I will have already years back gone thru the index books in the BMD offices in Dublin. It would have been nice to get details on parents of newly weds to go back another generation. The church record just lists one set of names and date, no witnesses either but no doubt it is correct.

pinkypinky · 10-09-2018 2:10pm

I think what Spurious is suggesting is that you check for the marriages of the couples on the same church register page and see if you can find those in the civil register.

cobham · 10-09-2018 7:28pm

Just realised that freebie on findmypast does not end til midnight!:)

Just going thru the church register and checking out the other names on the page and following one. Yes some are there on the register and are the names preceeded by WW that of witnesses? Meanwhile the civil register is mixed up and does not follow sequence of church list...

I think I have done my best!

josip · 12-09-2018 12:52pm

The birth may not have been registered in order to avoid a late registration fee.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1874/act/88/enacted/en/print.html

Another option was simply to record a later 'date of birth' to avoid the fee.
I have a birth in my tree that differs by a number of months between the civil and church records.
Perhaps marriages were similar?

cobham · 12-09-2018 1:33pm

I thought it was the church registrar that submitted lists to the civil authorities for recording. In looking at the scan though, there are other churches following on instead of same church together. I think I would have found them if a year either side also for birth which seemed to be the responsibility of family member/nurse to register.

kanadams123 · 13-01-2019 2:35pm

CHURCH RECORD

I'm having trouble tracking down any corresponding civil record on IrishGenealogy.ie for this church marriage record!
I havn't found anything on FMP 2 years either side which match.
Is it possible that there is none?

Hermy · 13-01-2019 3:05pm

Civil registration of non-Catholic marriages began in Ireland in 1845.

Rgistration of all other marriages, births and deaths began in 1864 so there won't be a civil record of this marriage unfortunately.

Church record vs Civil register

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