RootsChat.Com
Ireland (Historical Counties) => Ireland => Topic started by: Wexflyer on Wednesday 04 October 23 06:21 BST (UK)
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When we look at BDM registrations online what we see are the GRO copies, not the originals. This obviously leaves open the possibility of an error in the copy.
I think I have encountered a case of such an error. In the online GRO copy of the marriage registration for Paul Roche in Wexford in 1881, his father's name is given as Thomas Kehoe.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1881/11004/8023666.pdf (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1881/11004/8023666.pdf)
Now Thomas Kehoe is also the name of the bride's father on the preceding entry. To me, this looks like a case of a copying error - copying the name in the preceding entry.
Has anyone had any success in getting the GRO to check the original registration? If so, how does one go about this?
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Gee they really have had a hard time back then....Not just the name of the father is incorrect but a Paul Kehoe 'signs' the marriage certificate of Paul Roche, and Paul Roche is a witness to the Kehoe wedding (this may be right but in view of the other transciption errors i would ask them to check this) And while they are on the job check that the bride's name is Bridget in both cases. I see they have also made an attempt to make the priest's name Kehoe as well.
I have no experience in following up with GRO.
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Gee they really have had a hard time back then....Not just the name of the father is incorrect but a Paul Kehoe 'signs' the marriage certificate of Paul Roche, and Paul Roche is a witness to the Kehoe wedding (this may be right but in view of the other transciption errors i would ask them to check this) And while they are on the job check that the bride's name is Bridget in both cases. I see they have also made an attempt to make the priest's name Kehoe as well.
I have no experience in following up with GRO.
Yes, I noticed those other "features" too! :D
But Paul Roche did marry Bridget McDonnell, I know that - those names are correct.
I suspect his father's name was John Roche, in which case I believe he was a relative of mine.
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So if its a CHURCH record, ascertain if the church register is deposited anywhere.
It's f-all to do with the GRO since they did not make the copy, the church authorities did that.
Pauline
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So if its a CHURCH record, ascertain if the church register is deposited anywhere.
It's f-all to do with the GRO since they did not make the copy, the church authorities did that.
Pauline
This is not a church record. This is a GRO record.
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The Church have two registers, the couple sign both, one is kept by the Church the other goes to the Register Office.
The Register Office make a copy, theses are sent quarterly to the GRO. If you can obtain a photocopy from either the Church or the district Register Office you should see the original signatures.
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The Church have two registers, the couple sign both, one is kept by the Church the other goes to the Register Office.
The Register Office make a copy, theses are sent quarterly to the GRO. If you can obtain a photocopy from either the Church or the district Register Office you should see the original signatures.
I don't think so. Perhaps you are thinking of English CofE practice?
I have never seen any supposed church copy of a historic civil register in any church I have visited. I think the original register was only kept in the church until full (if ever), then transferred to the district registry office. Perhaps others can comment.
In any case, I know that the Irish district registry office copies were all transferred to the central GRO around 20 years ago, so the option to consult those no longer exists. In the 1990s I previously consulted the district registry originals.
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A church ( or as in this case, chapel) would most likely deposit *their* copy with the diocese, if its no longer at the church.
Original, copy to local register iffice, copy to Central register office
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A church ( or as in this case, chapel) would most likely deposit *their* copy with the diocese, if its no longer at the church.
Original, copy to local register iffice, copy to Central register office
You are confused. This isn't a church register. This is a civil registration register!
The church does not have a copy.
Absolutely no copies to diocese!
Methinks you are possibly misled by situation in England, where CofE is a state church??
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The Church have two registers, the couple sign both, one is kept by the Church the other goes to the Register Office.
The Register Office make a copy, theses are sent quarterly to the GRO. If you can obtain a photocopy from either the Church or the district Register Office you should see the original signatures.
I don't think so. Perhaps you are thinking of English CofE practice?
I have never seen any supposed church copy of a historic civil register in any church I have visited. I think the original register was only kept in the church until full (if ever), then transferred to the district registry office. Perhaps others can comment.
In any case, I know that the Irish district registry office copies were all transferred to the central GRO around 20 years ago, so the option to consult those no longer exists. In the 1990s I previously consulted the district registry originals.
Yes, I was referring to English records, I was confused because the heading stated the GRO which deals with English and Welsh BMDs, not Irish records.
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The Church have two registers, the couple sign both, one is kept by the Church the other goes to the Register Office.
The Register Office make a copy, theses are sent quarterly to the GRO. If you can obtain a photocopy from either the Church or the district Register Office you should see the original signatures.
I don't think so. Perhaps you are thinking of English CofE practice?
I have never seen any supposed church copy of a historic civil register in any church I have visited. I think the original register was only kept in the church until full (if ever), then transferred to the district registry office. Perhaps others can comment.
In any case, I know that the Irish district registry office copies were all transferred to the central GRO around 20 years ago, so the option to consult those no longer exists. In the 1990s I previously consulted the district registry originals.
Yes, I was referring to English records, I was confused because the heading stated the GRO which deals with English and Welsh BMDs, not Irish records.
England is not the only part of the world you know. There is a GRO in Ireland too.
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The Church should have a register, sometimes with slightly more detailed information, e.g. mother's name - presumably one of the twin churches in the town. For births and deaths there would have been a local registrar's register which is sometimes available, but I dont believe this applies for marriages , as the forms went straight to the GRO.
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The Church should have a register, sometimes with slightly more detailed information, e.g. mother's name - presumably one of the twin churches in the town. For births and deaths there would have been a local registrar's register which is sometimes available, but I dont believe this applies for marriages , as the forms went straight to the GRO.
Afraid I have to disagree with these comments
The images of the Wexford parish registers online on the NLI website stop in February 1881, just a few months before the marriage in question in May 1881. You can see that the registers were still in what one might call a very basic format - just the names of the parties, the witnesses, and the date, nothing else, not even an address.
As for there not being a local district registration original (not copy) - there was! If you look at the certification at the bottom of the page on GRO link I provided (repeated here for ease of reference), you will see that it explicitly says that it is a copy of the original district register. Those historic original registers remained in the district registries until a policy change about 20 years ago, which saw them all transferred to the GRO at that point.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1881/11004/8023666.pdf (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1881/11004/8023666.pdf)
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As I said I have not had any experience in contacting the GRO, other than for actual certificates, but there is the usual Co Roscommon address, which you will know...
I have put it in together with a little bit about the GRO in ireland to help those confused thinking it is the English/Welsh one.
The history of irish records in themselves is just about as fascinating as the subjects of those records - says one who has inspected records still in local custody (the Vicarage in that case) and searched for the location of others where the local copies have been held away from the local churches, some Presbytarian ones in NI, not to mention the myths about how many were lost in 1922...some were but not all by any means.
https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation-information/143f25-about-the-general-register-office/#
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As I said I have not had any experience in contacting the GRO, other than for actual certificates, but there is the usual Co Roscommon address, which you will know...
I have put it in together with a little bit about the GRO in ireland to help those confused thinking it is the English/Welsh one.
The history of irish records in themselves is just about as fascinating as the subjects of those records - says one who has inspected records still in local custody (the Vicarage in that case) and searched for the location of others where the local copies have been held away from the local churches, some Presbytarian ones in NI, not to mention the myths about how many were lost in 1922...some were but not all by any means.
https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation-information/143f25-about-the-general-register-office/#
I guess I will have to try their general contact route.
I was hoping someone might have some experience with reporting historic errors, and whether they are responsive.
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I had a query about a birth certificate years ago.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=723271.msg5673401#msg5673401
Different scenario to yours but I never did get a response to the mail with both records attached.
Having checked out every other possible source of info about the person whose birth it was, I finally accepted that on balance the other sources confirmed that the copy certificate that had sat in a drawer at my in-laws' house for as long as I'd known them had an error made at the time of issue.
Boo
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I had a query about a birth certificate years ago.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=723271.msg5673401#msg5673401
Different scenario to yours but I never did get a response to the mail with both records attached.
Having checked out every other possible source of info about the person whose birth it was, I finally accepted that on balance the other sources confirmed that the copy certificate that had sat in a drawer at my in-laws' house for as long as I'd known them had an error made at the time of issue.
Boo
Looking back at the your previous thread, they (the GRO) did communicate with you, and checked both original (local) and GRO copies.... and told you what they found. I am not sure it was reasonable to expect any more. Of course the GRO copies are all online these days so, you can look yourself, and browse all entries online. As you were told, I only see an 1883 registration for your Sarah Connor
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1883/02748/2009836.pdf (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1883/02748/2009836.pdf)
What interests me, though, in what you said in the previous thread is that the original Urlingford registers were seemingly still held locally in 2015? That conflicts with what I was told in Wexford ~15-20 years ago - that all the local registers were moved to the central GRO for "safety". Previously they were kept locally - I used to research them in person before the internet era.
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Looking back at the your previous thread, they (the GRO) did communicate with you, and checked both original (local) and GRO copies.... and told you what they found. I am not sure it was reasonable to expect any more. Of course the GRO copies are all online these days so, you can look yourself, and browse all entries online. As you were told, I only see an 1883 registration for your Sarah Connor
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1883/02748/2009836.pdf (https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1883/02748/2009836.pdf)
What interests me, though, in what you said in the previous thread is that the original Urlingford registers were seemingly still held locally in 2015? That conflicts with what I was told in Wexford ~15-20 years ago - that all the local registers were moved to the central GRO for "safety". Previously they were kept locally - I used to research them in person before the internet era.
my last post in that thread said:
My final step is to ask the GRO what, if anything, is in the copy register for 1889 for the date on the cert issued in 1917 and if they can check it with the local registrar. If there IS an entry in 1889 for this child, its not in the GRO index but if they can find one I will get the ref and purchase the scan. I suspect they won't find one though and at that stage I'll be done.
It was that mail they didn't respond to, I was trying to ascertain if an entry had been skipped when copying the original register to the one to be submitted to the GRO- long shot but I thought it was a possible scenario. At that time there was no online access and even if there was I still would only see entries that 'had' been copied over.
Perhaps they too thought that an 'unreasonable' request - that is their choice, but I work on the basis that if I don't ask I have NO chance at all of finding out.
Good luck with your query when you send it
Boo
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sorry I didn't reply to your second point
I don't have the emails to hand (its been about 8 years and that computer has been replaced twice in that time) they will be on one of the many backups, in a box, somewhere, but the post I made was when I received the mail and though I didn't quote it verbatim, its what was said.
I can't verify the accuracy of the info, can only report what was said
Boo
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I have a GRO copy of a Mary Jane Brady/ Michael Walsh marriage in 1893.
It merely states that Mary Jane's father is dead.
I have also a copy of that marriage from the R.C. church in Fairview, dated February 2001.
It states that her parents were Jane and Michael Begg, Malahide (which I know to be true from other sources - she was a widow).
So in this case, the bride's mother's name and the address were a real bonus.
I had something similar with a marriage in Howth around the same time.
It's well-worth investigating the church anyway, with a personal letter/email (I sometimes drop in 5euro - and a box of chocs for the parish secretary in Fairview!)
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The confusion within the thread over the existance of duplicate registers is perhaps due to the differences between Protestant and R.C. marriage proceedures.
From the start of civil registration 1845 duplicate register books were maintained by all Church of Ireland and Presbyterian Churches (+Jewish and Quaker). Bride and Groom signed both books and they were supposed to be identical. ALL other Protestant denominations required the attendance of a Registrar who registered the marriages in his own local book up to late 1863.
Each quarter the church made quarterly marriage copies which were sent to Dublin. These copies may have been made by the curate reading is elder ministers handwriting. The local Registrar made copies of the Registrar Office/Registrar Attended marriages and sent those to Dublin.
When a churches pair of books were full (they came in various page lengths with pre-printed numbers eg 1-50, 1-100, 1-240, 1-500) they sent one copy to the GRO District office and retained one. Urban churches went through several ledgers a year, whereas in rural churches a ledger might last decades, some only had eg 2 marriages a year.
So initially if someone wanted a copy of an entry they got it from the church or a quarterly copy from Dublin.
Later they had 3 options church (they still had a filled book), the District Office (a filled book) & Dublin (quarterly copy).
After the Marriage Law & Registration of Amendment Acts June/July 1863 Methodist, Baptist and various other Protestant denominations (those that had applied to be licensed and were officially recorded as Places of Worship), were also issued duplicate books and attendance by the registrar was no longer required. His attendance was still required at non-licensed venues such as Congregational / Pentecostal Churches & Mission Halls, taking his local book with him.
By the original Acts the District's filled marriage books along with the filled Birth and Death registrars were never to leave the local District Office, then the Workhouse. Workhouses are no more and civil offices have replaced them (with longer opening hours, it was originally just a hour morning and late afternoon several days a week by the local sub-district registrar who was also often the doctor and responsible for vaccinations too).
With a few exceptions the Dispensary Districts constitute Registrars' Districts, and the Dispensary Medical Officer is the Registrar. Poor Law Unions constitute Superintendent Registrars' Districts, and the Clerk of the Union is the Superintendent Registrar, with whom the filled [Birth & Death] registers are deposited.
The Church's retained original may now be found housed in the RCB Library, NAI, PRONI, or by the respective denomination's central archive (eg Quaker, Presbyterian, Methodist Historical Society), some are still retained locally in the church safe.
On irish genealogy we can see the original Church of Ireland registrars for Dublin and some other areas via 'church records'. There were only TWO marriages to a page.
https://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/display-pdf.jsp?pdfName=d-511-3-2-007
vs the quarterly copies which had space for 4 marriages and handwritten entry number #13.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1866/11553/8249527.pdf
ROMAN CATHOLIC churches were not licensed, they were not issued with GRO books or expected to perform a role as a surrogate registrar.
R.C. Registration was by return of a signed certificate/form to the GRO following the marriage, hence the additional marginal column seen on irish genealogy recording the date of registratrion by them. It was supposed to be within 3 days but was sometimes many weeks or months later (eg 1st Feb 1879 registered 29 Aug for St Peter's, Belfast & a registration 16 Aug 1879 for a marriage 25 Dec 1877) - or sometimes never - if you cross reference the NLI's R.C. parish records to the irish genealogy quarterly copies.
The R.C. registrations were kept in books at the GRO SUB-District and each book contained entries for all the chapels in the sub-district, sometimes just 1 sometimes 5 chapels. Each quarter he sent copies to Dublin. When full he sent his book to his boss at the Workhouse the Superintendant Registrar - the Districts we search.
The GRO commented on the imperfections of R.C. marriage proceedures half way down page 5 in his 1881 report.
so much depends upon the manner in which the 'husband’ discharges his duty as conveyer of the certificate of marriage to the Registrar, and, in fact, his action as informant of his own marriage, that in spite of the desire of the clergy and the care of the Registrar, many marriages are imperfectly registered
references & continuation next comment...
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References:
An Act for Marriages in Ireland; and for registering such Marriages. [9 August 1844]
http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/View?path=Browse/Legislation%20(by%20date)&active=yes&mno=4047
or old printed version on FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/247928
Registration of Marriages (Ireland) Act, 1863 (#11-13). [28th July 1863]
https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1863/act/90/enacted/en/print.html
or http://www.histpop.org/ohpr/servlet/View?path=Browse/Legislation%20(by%20date)/1863&active=yes&mno=4054
Registrar General Historical Reports:
1st Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Marriages, Births and Deaths in Ireland, 1864 (Introduction & Appendix)
https://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/birthsdm/archivedreports/P-VS_1864.pdf
18th Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Marriages, Births and Deaths in Ireland, 1881
https://archive.org/details/op1251206-1001/page/n7/mode/2up
13th Annual Report of the Registrar General (N.I.) 1934
https://www.nisra.gov.uk/sites/nisra.gov.uk/files/publications/1934.pdf
14th Annual Report of the Registrar General (N.I.) 1935
https://www.nisra.gov.uk/sites/nisra.gov.uk/files/publications/1935.pdf
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All the GRO births, deaths and marriages on GRONI's website for Northern Ireland are imaged from the original local registrar books as they had no quarterly copies - being all in Dublin pre 1 Jan 1922. The images have pre-printed entry numbers and actual signatures on marriages and eg recognise my father's signature as informant on his father's Belfast death 1960.
From 1922 on they had quarterly copies but in a reverse to irish genealogy those have not been digitised and one wonders if are ever currently utilised.
Differences do exist between the originals and the Dublin copies, often in the spelling of surnames Stewart vs Stuart. Some of the ministers perhaps needed to go to specsavers and they were working by a flickering parafin lamp reading one or other of their 2 ledgers and writing on loose blank copy sheets from memory. Some were more exact in making a precise transcript than others so might have William in the original vs Wm in the copy or vice versa.
In Northern Ireland I have come across some register ledgers which do not seem to have made their way to the GRO (Linenhall Street Presbyterian 1845-1864 there are copies on irish gen but no index listing on GRONI, same for St John's Tyrella 1845-1915, having cross-checked all entries on the copy pages and adjacent pages for several years). Whether they were not deposited or simply unimaged is unknown but these original ledgers are filed away and recourse only made to the online index and images by staff routinely.
1934: Facilities for Searches—Certified copies of all entries of births, deaths, and marriages registered each quarter are forwarded to the Registrar-General, General Register Office, Belfast.
Those relating to the years prior to 1922 are, however, still in the General Register Office, Dublin.
Searches may be made either in the original registers or indexes in local custody or in the indexes in the General Register Office, and certified copies obtained from either source.
1935: The original records of births, deaths, and marriages registered in Northern Ireland are, in general, in the custody of local registration officers, who issue annually therefrom many thousands of certificates. The Head Office copies of these records for the years prior to 1922 are still in the hands of the Registrar-General, Dublin.
When one browses images see that some ministers were tardy in submitting their quarterly copies or sent them Annually and the Dublin Clerks had to insert pages in the earlier quarters with the just the date, the 2 names and church in Q1 saying eg see Q3.
In the initial year or so 2 ministers in Co Antrim misunderstood recording all marriages twice in the same book as eg entries 3 & 4 and copied them to Dublin as such.
The poor Downpatrick Registrar 1845-47 copied all the Church of Ireland and Presbyterian marriages into his own District ledger (filling 2 in the process) then copied that to Dublin whilst the individual Churches quarterly ones were also sent there - so we can see that he made copy errors in names and in one case the church differs. GRONI indexes both original church and district ledger books so on both Dublin and N.I. there are 2 entries and 4 different actual documents.
The Dublin clerks also corresponded sometimes with the ministers if unsure of what the his writing and the surname was and made marginal comments clarifying.
Dublin consists of Volumes of loose pages from all the churches in a District generally ordered roughly alphabetically by parish or church name starting C of I, then Presby, then Methodist/Baptist, then Registrar Office and ending with the R.C. sub-district marriages. Each leaf annotated at the top by the Dublin clerks with a page number for indexing purposes (names + Volume/page). However, they were not fussy with the church leaves being filed in chronological order so see March before Jan then Feb. I worked through several Districts using Shane Wilson's http://www.irelandgen.com/tools/gro_img_nav.php explained https://www.swilson.info/wp/?p=2105 to compile a database of GRONI church reference #s I could use post 1921 [if a film reel ends part way through increment or decrement the middle set of numbers]
GRONI's online index reference differs:
M/1920/B1/418/151/1 is Marriage 1920 in Belfast district church 418 = St Anne's Cathedral, 151 is the ledger (they had had 151 pairs of books issued from 1845-1920) and 1 is the 1st entry in that ledger.
M/1919/A1/2/1/72 Ardquin Church of Ireland, Newtownards district had only performed 72 marriages since 1845 and were still on their 1st pair of books 1919 so if you lived locally & wanted a copy of your parents or grandparent's marriage you would have got it from the minister rather than at Newtownards Workhouse.
Each Protestant church has a unique reference number (maintained through successive buildings if congregation moved closing in one location & opening another) and one can extrapolate it to pay to view entries post -1921. R.C. marriage references are to the sub-district - in rural areas they are more or less the same till 1973 but eg in Belfast as it grew and sub-districts doubled in number the same chapel will later be in a different sub-district.
As to the current location of the filled BMD ledgers I suspect they are all stored centrally now in/around Belfast after QUB digitised 2008-10. I asked the junior staff member in the search room March this year but he had never had cause to use.
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Thanks to Jon_NI for his very comprehensive explication of the topic.
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Wexflyer
One thing I wondered about was a comment within yesterdays seperate posting about local ledgers. In the background you said in the 1990s and early 2000s you were able to examine original registers, and make extracts.
- These were the original registers, so no question of copying errors
- The original registers contain the actual signatures (or marks) of the parties or informants concerned.
I started researching later and looked at my 2 English grandparents first (easier), followed by the Irish ones when the census was online so after 2010. GRONI images for N.I. appeared Apr 2014 & then IrishGen Sep 2016 but incomplete marriages initially, only back to 1886. Hence I paid to view some on GRONI that are now available freely as Dublin GRO copies. However, none of the pay to view N.I. marriages were R.C. and one only sees a single row not the entire page of several.
I have never laid hands on an original ledger in GRONI or PRONI (used their microfilm pre-civil-era).
The Registration of Marriages (Ireland) Act, 1863 required the return of a signed R.C. certificate which was the exact same format/content as the online marriages per example A on the irishstatutebook link. "Every registrar, on receipt of any such certificate, shall enter the particulars thereof in the register book"
That implied no original signatures in his book - they would only exist if the loose returned certificates had been locally bound in a volume.
There was a 1947 Belfast marriage I was semi-interested in for someone that was a distant cousin and by then the parties would not have marked X. So, £2.50 later yes it was from the Local Registrar's original ledger, with two pre-printed no. 14's, but not with their signatures. The 1896 irish gen image paired with it in the attachment differs only in that that is a copy of a copy on a blank loose sheet where the entry numbers have been handwritten too.
The GRONI Registration Number was M/1947/B1/2340/11/14 and the 'Place of Marriage' in their provided transcript 'Urban No.16 R.C.' ie a sub-district which may contain other churches on the proceeding & subsequent marriage entries. The image shows it to be St Matthews (Ballymacarrett) which is what I had expected from the coding, but could have been St Anthony's which opened 1938 and was a chapel at ease till 1955.
What happened to the loose signed certs, were they just binned? Probably hypothetical as the GRO received lots of other communication & notifications we have no access to + the various special licence applications. The Churches also had behind the scenes Diocesan and Presbytery docs eg Marriage Notice Books https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/432078
PRONI show some of those on their eCat for various places so must request one sometime.
Section 18 of the 1863 Act the right to search local district indexes and obtain a certified copy does not appear to have been repealed (reworded 2002 but still effective), though the current practicalities of that may be rarely tested.
John
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Thanks for the further update. Upon reflection, I was hasty in implying that the local district marriage register contained original signatures. It was 2004, 19 years ago, since I last saw these. To the best of my considered recollection the marriage signatures were not original.
So the position was:
- Birth and death registers - original signatures
- Marriage registers - not original signatures. But these were the original Catholic marriage registers, the GRO ones being copies.
I meant to discuss what happened to the original, signed, forms with the registry office staff, but they and I were always busy. I guess I have always found it difficult to believe that in those days of very strict economy (1860s onwards), a "valuable" official form, with multiple signatures, would be simply discarded.
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Makes sense, if had been consulting CoI or Presbyterian marriages those would have had signatures. Seems strange they insisted on signatures of all on the R.C. return, including witnesses, and then just copied into their books.
On the quarterly copies there are some crossed out for 'the signatures are not all genuine' or signatures missing.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1867/11494/8225632.pdf
The Garland marriage is in the parish register, with the same witnesses, but without the bride's forname. However the 1st one appears on June 14 rather than May 15.
https://registers.nli.ie//registers/vtls000633240#page/75/mode/1up
In other Districts I had rarely seen crossing out, just when the marriage had been registered in the wrong Sub-District's books or a marriage licence had not been applied for before, in which case there there was another entry or later licensed marriage.
I began to suspect that Superintendent Registrar had a religion problem though, as there seemed to be a lot of crossing out of Sub-District entries and those that are don't appear on the modern GRONI index - presubably as they can't issue a cert for a cancelled entry in their ledger.
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Seems strange they insisted on signatures of all on the R.C. return, including witnesses, and then just copied into their books.
This!
My default assumption back then (1990s-2004), and indeed my assumption until now, has been that the original, signed Catholic marriage registration forms must surely have been retained. The signatures were and are a legal requirement, so discarding the signed originals would seem bizarre! So much so that I never even entertained the possibility - until this discussion.
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Very interesting thread.
Just wanted to add that I ordered a copy of a COI ancestral couple's civil marriage many years before Irishgenealogy existed. Later I went to the RCB library and I looked up the parish register. It was an identical image - the same handwriting, etc. They married in a Dublin church which is no longer a church.
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Purpeller
The CoI minister (or his curate) made the quarterly copies so the handwriting is often be the same, differences are in the hand for the signatures (or X mark) of the bride, groom and witnesses and whether the entry number is handwritten or pre-printed.
For the Grangegorman (Dublin) example ones in <reply 20>, marriage entry 13, the brown faded page is scanned from the RCB holdings and written on the marriage day 31 Oct 1866, the other the true copy of it made 7 Apr 1867.
That minister has not been the promptest in sending his copies, is now into quarter 2 he should have sent eg 7 Jan 1867 for the preceeding 3 months. Both were written by Henry Hogan per his certification at the bottom of the quarterly copy.
The next entry in the RCB parish register [#14] is 27 Jan 1867, with 4 very different hands apparent in the signatures, and was performed by Wm Martin. By co-incidence he makes the quarterly copy (for Jan to March) on 4 Jun 1867, two thirds into the next quarter, but has a least sent on separate page and not combined with the Apr-Jun ones (sent 19th July) thereby complicating the volume filing, quarterly surname indexing and page numbering by the clerks in Dublin.
The next pages:
https://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/display-pdf.jsp?pdfName=d-511-3-2-008
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1867/11486/8221828.pdf
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1867/11496/8226907.pdf
Edit: also the difference of just 2 marriages to a page on the parish/RCB vs 4 on the certified copy. Can see the bound book stitching and edges of the hardback cover in entries 15 & 16 of the churchrecords link; it had 50 pages & 100 entries then they start a new volume 511-3-3-001
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Thanks - I will compare them side by side to check.
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Wexflyer, I wrote above
Section 18 of the 1863 Act the right to search local district indexes and obtain a certified copy does not appear to have been repealed (reworded 2002 but still effective), though the current practicalities of that may be rarely tested.
That was incorrect it seems with regard to public inspection, and perhaps you were aware hence your opening question "Has anyone had any success in getting the GRO to check the original registration? If so, how does one go about this?" following on from your background "In the 1990s and early 2000s - through at least 2004..." https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=877085
Due to other posts today I noticed that within https://www.ombudsman.ie/publications/reports/hidden-history-the-law-th/
Submissions from interested groups
The Civil Registration Act “Unfortunately, despite very strong opposition being voiced prior to the passing of the Civil Registration Act other than through searching an index the long established right to make searches in the locally held civil registers was rescinded.”
“The 2004 legislation has rescinded the long established right to carry out searches among the locally held original Registration District books”
“The authorities used to recognise that at times a manual search through a Registration District book may be the only way to locate the required entry without reference to the index attached to the book.”
You co-incidently posted the 2004 Act in relation to modern certificate formats and noted there had been numerous repeals in the Act.
So for future readers this seems to bit that now applies to Searches in indexes and registers https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2004/act/3/enacted/en/print#sec61
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Wexflyer, I wrote above Section 18 of the 1863 Act the right to search local district indexes and obtain a certified copy does not appear to have been repealed (reworded 2002 but still effective), though the current practicalities of that may be rarely tested.
That was incorrect it seems with regard to public inspection, and perhaps you were aware hence your opening question "Has anyone had any success in getting the GRO to check the original registration? If so, how does one go about this?" following on from your background "In the 1990s and early 2000s - through at least 2004..." https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=877085
Due to other posts today I noticed that within https://www.ombudsman.ie/publications/reports/hidden-history-the-law-th/
Submissions from interested groups
The Civil Registration Act “Unfortunately, despite very strong opposition being voiced prior to the passing of the Civil Registration Act other than through searching an index the long established right to make searches in the locally held civil registers was rescinded.”
“The 2004 legislation has rescinded the long established right to carry out searches among the locally held original Registration District books”
“The authorities used to recognise that at times a manual search through a Registration District book may be the only way to locate the required entry without reference to the index attached to the book.”
You co-incidently posted the 2004 Act in relation to modern certificate formats and noted there had been numerous repeals in the Act.
So for future readers this seems to bit that now applies to Searches in indexes and registers https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2004/act/3/enacted/en/print#sec61
Yes, unfortunately "progress" is sometimes retrograde.... and the 2004 Civil Registration Act is now the key controlling act.
In retrospect it seems that the withdrawal of the ability to inspect the local registers was not just a local thing in Wexford ca 2004, but nationwide. I was told at the time that the historic local registers were no longer there, but had been transferred to Roscommon.