Tools For Genealogists
by Ellen Nabiloff
Registration of non-Catholic marriages began in 1845 in Ireland and registration of births, marriages and deaths, regardless of religion, began January 1, 1864. Certificates for births, marriages and deaths for all-Ireland until 1922 and for the Republic since 1922 are housed in Dublin.
Belfast has the records for Northern Ireland from 1922 to the present in addition to the all-Ireland records from 1864-1922. Civil registration of births, deaths and marriages in Ireland names the townland which is the address in rural Ireland.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, has copies of almost all of the General Register Office indices and some registers, making direct access to both registers and indices possible through the local Family History Centers. You can do-it-yourself at the local Family History Centers because the FHL has acquired Irish civil registration records. There are Family History Centers scattered throughout the world, located in the LDS meeting-houses. The FHCs are generally listed in the local phonebook under Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints with its own phone number. Or, go to familysearch.org.
In some communities, Family Search is in the local public library. No charge is made for using the resources at the local FHC except for a rental fee for microfilm from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Birth certificates include the date and place of birth; the name; the sex; the name, surname and residence of the father; the name, surname, maiden surname of the mother; the rank, profession or occupation of the father; and the name and qualifications of the informant, usually a family member. A given name was not obligatory, so some entries are Kelly, Male or Clarke, Female.
The FHLC holds microfilm copies of the Birth Index 1864-1955; Records 1864-1881 and 1900-1955 (note the gaps 1882-1899 and 1913-1930 in the FHLC). Some pages are missing from 1869: p. 49-50 (gap between Carroll, John, of Dungannon and Carvill, James Richard, of Limerick; and all pages following Thompson, Elenor Jane, of Belfast. Some parts of the early years of birth registrations appear to be included in the International Genealogical Index. A certain proportion of all three categories, births, marriages and deaths, simply went unregistered.
It is impossible to be sure how much is not there, since the local registration depended on local conditions and on the individuals responsible for reporting the event, but experience in crosschecking from other sources such as parish and census records suggests that as many as 10 to 15 per cent of marriages and births simply do not appear in the registers. Foreign applications: Fees are payable in Irish pound currency, Draft I.E.P. or Euro checks or bank drafts drawn on an Irish Bank, made payable to the Registrar General. Sterling checks, Postal Orders, US$ checks are accepted. The minimum amount for a check drawn on a non-Irish bank is 12.70 Euro.
I bundle my requests so that I meet the minimum fee. Births, Death and Roman Catholic marriages certificates are available from General Registrar Office 8-11 Lombard Street East Dublin 2 Ireland Before 1864 you must use other sources to find/verify information, see http://www.rootsweb.com/~irlwat/instruct.htm Marriage certificates include the date and place of marriage; groom's name, age, marital status, occupation or title, and residence; bride's name, marital status, age, occupation or title, and residence.
The names of the fathers of both parties and their occupations or titles are given which makes them particularly relevant to genealogy. The church and the names of two witnesses are also listed. Witnesses to the marriage are commonly family members and may add clues to family linkages. Full age indicates that the person was at least 21 years old.
A photocopy of an entry will contain the same details as a certificate but is not suitable for administrative matters. However, it is ideal for genealogical purposes.
Photocopy (including search fee) is Irpunts 3.0 and Certificate (including search fee) is Irpunts 5.50. http://eurotrip.com/exchangerates.html or http://quote.yahoo.com/m3?u or http://www3.travelocity.com/converter/ to get the currency exchange rate for the day as it is changing weekly.
Certificates (B, M, D) IR5.50 US$6.00
Photocopy of an entry in Register 3.00 3.30
When index reference is Supplied 1.50 1.65
Short Birth Certificate 3.50 3.85
Authentication of a certificate 1.50 1.55
Postage: United Kingdom & Ireland IRL .50 (E).63
All other countries: 1.00 1.27
Copyright 2000 Ellen Naliboff All rights reserved.
Used by IGP with permission
Safely Cleaning Gravestones
Greetings,
Here are instructions from the experts.
I keep this info on my genealogy research web site on the Misc. page.
http://longstrom.com/
------------------------------------------
Gravestone cleaning
Here is some information extracted from a posting by the Association of
Gravestone Studies.
"Some Gravestone Rubbings Dos and Don'ts From "Gravestone Rubbing for
Beginners," a leaflet available from the Association for Gravestone Studies.
"Please Do"
Use a soft brush and plain water to do any necessary stone cleaning.
"Please Don't"
Don't use shaving cream, chalk, graphite, dirt, or other concoctions in an
attempt to read worn inscriptions.
Using a large mirror to direct bright sunlight diagonally across the face of
a grave marker casts shadows in indentations and makes inscriptions more
visible.
Don't use stiff-bristled or wire brushes, putty knives, nail files, or any
metal object to clean or to remove lichen from the stone; Soft natural
bristled brushes, whisk brooms, or wooden sticks are usually OK if used
gently and carefully.
Don't attempt to remove stubborn lichen.
Soft lichen may be thoroughly soaked with plain water and then loosened with
a gum eraser or a wooden popsicle stick. Be gentle. Stop if lichen does not
come off easily. "
Jerry Longstrom
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry's Scandinavian/USA Genealogy Links * http://longstrom.com/
Jerrys Longstrom site-- http://longstrom.com/longstrom/
Swansons-- http://longstrom.com/swanson/
Hudsons--- http://longstrom.com/hudson/
The following was provided by Peter Meyer at http://www.hermetic.ch/cal_stud/cal_art.html
Please visit Peter's homepage for more information.
GREGORIAN CALENDAR
The Gregorian reform consisted of the following:
Ten days were omitted from the calendar, and it was decreed that the day
following (Thursday) October 4, 1582 (which is October 5, 1582, in the old
calendar) would thenceforth be known as (Friday) October 15, 1582.
The rule for leap years was changed. In the Julian Calendar a year is a leap
year if it is divisible by 4. In the Gregorian Calendar a year is a leap
year if either (i) it is divisible by 4 but not by 100 or (ii) it is
divisible by 400. In other words, a year which is divisible by 4 is a leap
year unless it is divisible by 100 but not by 400 (in which case it is not a
leap year). Thus the years 1600 and 2000 are leap years, but 1700, 1800,
1900 and 2100 are not.
New rules for the determination of the date of Easter were adopted.
The position of the extra day in a leap year was moved from the day before
February 25th to the day following February 28th.
According to some, the term "leap year" derives from the fact that the day
of the week on which certain festivals were held normally advanced by one
day (since 365 = 7*52 + 1), but in years with an extra day the festivals
would "leap" to the weekday following that. However, it may be derived from
an old Norwegian word "hlaupâr" which entered the English language at the
time of the Viking invasions (8th - 10th Centuries).
In his excellent book Marking Time Duncan Steel remarks (p.165) that it is
often claimed that part of the Gregorian reform consisted in setting the
first day of the year (New Year's Day) to January 1st, but that in fact the
papal bull made no reference to the date of New Year's Day. January 1st was
already New Year's Day in many European countries. The ecclesiastical New
Year coincided with Christmas Day until it was changed to January 1st by
Pope Pius X in 1910 (coming into effect in 1911).
It may be noted that there was no necessity for ten days, rather than, say,
twelve days to have been omitted from the calendar. In fact, the calendar
could have been reformed without omitting any days at all, since only the
new rule for leap years is required to keep the calendar synchronized with
the vernal equinoxes. The number of days omitted determines the date for the
Spring equinox, an omission of ten days resulting in a date usually of March
20th.
The vernal equinox year during the last 2000 years is 365.2424 days. The
average length of the Julian year (365.25 days) differs from this value by
0.0076 days. So from the year 1 to the year 1582 the calendar drifted off
the vernal equinox year by 1581*0.0076 = 12.02 days. Why didn't Pope Gregory
remove twelve days, instead of just ten? It has to do with the First Council
of Nicea, which was held in Nicea (now Iznik, Turkey) in the year 325 CE.
One of the matters settled by this council was the method for determining
the date of Easter (which should occur around the vernal equinox), so as to
make it independent of the Jewish Calendar. From the year 325 to the year
1582 the calendar diverged (from the vernal equinox) by 1257*0.0076 = 9.55
days, so ten days were removed in an attempt to restore the date of the
vernal equinox to (about) the same date of the year at which it had occurred
at the time of the Council of Nicea.
The matter is not this simple, however, because the date of the vernal
equinox in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church as established by the
Council of Nicea (in 325 A.D.) is March 21, but the effect of removing ten
days in 1582 had the result that the vernal equinox occurs in the Gregorian
Calendar mostly on March 20, less often on March 21, sometimes on March 19
and sometimes even on March 22 according to local time in the Far East. So
should Pope Gregory have omitted nine days? Or perhaps eleven? Presumably
Pope Gregory's astronomical advisors considered all three possibilities.
Some say that the choice of ten was a compromise, supported by the fact that
the omission of ten days made it easier to correct old calendars simply by
the insertion of an "X" (the Latin numeral for "10").
In fact a non-Gregorian calendar reform (involving a 33-year cycle and a
prime meridian running through Virginia) would have stabilized the vernal
equinox at March 21 for the whole world, but this possibility (assuming it
was considered by the Pope) was rejected, presumably on political grounds.To complicate matters further New Year's Day, the first day of the new year,
was celebrated in different countries, and sometimes by different groups of
people within the same country, on either January 1, March 1, March 25 or
December 25. January 1 seems to have been the usual date but there was no
standard observed. With the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in
Britain and the colonies New Year's Day was generally observed on January 1.
Previously in the colonies it was common for March 24 of one year to be
followed by March 25 of the next year. This explains why, with the
calendrical reform and the shift of New Year's Day from March 25 back to
January 1, the year of George Washington's birth changed from 1731 to 1732.
In the Julian Calendar his birthdate is 1731-02-11 but in the Gregorian
Calendar it is 1732-02-22.
How To Write An Effective Query
The internet is all about communication. Researchers contact you to obtain help with their research and you contact others to obtain help with your research or provide help to others. How well you communicate your needs to others can save others lots of time trying to figure out if they can help you or not.
Most of the communication we do to obtain help is through mailing lists, news lists and query boards.
Consider which of the following three queries will get the best response.
My great grandfather was born during the potato famine. His name was John Kelly. That's all I know.
My great grandfather John Kelly was born ca the potato famine, probably between 1840 and 1850. He married Joyce McGlinche (y) 1862 in Dublin Ireland. Her maiden name was Alsop. They next appeared on the 1870 census of Springfield County, Pennsylvania with three children under ten years old, one male and two females. At that time John Kelly was a coal miner for XYZ coal mines.
Because you did not tell all you really knew in example number one, example number two is the best query. It gave many clues to where relatives might be found in Ireland. They were married in Dublin, so they must have lived near or in Dublin in 1862. Check around to find the church they were married in and you may find father and mother of the bride and the groom.
Three elements to a good query are:
1. Tell relevant facts that you know, not every little detail you can think of, what you know, where you found the information.....dates and places are very important.
2. Tell what you don't know, and what you suspect, but make sure it is a suspicion, but not a fact. People are easily led to wild goose chases by considering too many suppositions of conclusions. he was in the 1870 census and he was a coal miner...may have been a coal miner or other type of miner in Ireland.
3. Lastly, tell people what you want to know, his children's names, his parents names, did he work as a miner in Ireland; what were Joyce's parents names. Was their surname spelled McGlinche or McGlinchy.
Other Hints:
Always use the subject lines carefully. Looking for ancestors won't get it. Readers will just click the message off.
Put MCGLINCHE(Y) KELLY DUBLIN on the subject line. Three chances there to catch someone's attention, and elicit a response of some kind.
Separate different kinds of information into different paragraphs. Putting everything into one paragraph is hard to read, and difficult to ascertain your line of thoughts.
Don't send too much information. People will begin to read, but give up because of all of the extraneous and disconnected pieces of information.
Thanks go to Ellen Naliboff
Thanks Ellen
Irish Naming Patterns
I got this list of naming patterns form another list I am on hope this helps.
1st son=father's father
2nd son=mother's father
3rd son=father
4th son=father's oldest brother
5th son=father's 2ndoldest brother or mother's oldest brother
1st dau=mother's mother
2nd dau=father's mother
3rd dau=mother
4th dau=mother's oldest sister
5th dau=mother's 2nd oldest sister or father's oldest sister
IRISH 1800's
First daughter was named after the Paternal Grandmother
Second daughter was named after the Maternal Grandmother
First son was named after the Paternal Grandfather
Second son was named after the Maternal Grandfather
Then alternate names using the Grandmother's,Granfather's, Aunt's and Uncle's
names.
SCOTTISH 1700-1800 and early DUTCH
First Daughter was named for her Maternal Grandmother
Second Daughter was named for her Paternal Grandmother
Third Daughter was named after her Mother
Other Daughters were named after other Family Members
First son was named after his Paternal Grandfather (sometimes Maternal)
Second Son was named after his Maternal Grandfather (sometimes Paternal)
Third son was named after his Father
ENGLISH and WELSH 1700-1800's
1st dau= Mother' Mother
2nd dau= Mother's Father's Mother
3rd dau= Mother
4th dau= Mother's oldest Sister
1st son= Father's Father
2nd son= Mother's Father
3rd son=Father
4th son= Father's oldest Brother
OLD GERMAN
The first name of each Daughter was usually the first name of the Mother
The first name of the Son was usually the first name of the Father
Often times the middle name of each child was the name of the baby's
baptismal sponsor and they were usually called by his/her middle name.
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