How Accurate are church records?

[loudam]

In the course of trying to trace my grandmothers parents, she was "adopted" by a woman, I say adopted because it was 1926 and adoptions were a little bit loose then...

anyway I have her baptism record from the parish she grew up in with parents names on it, along with the name of the woman who brought her up who seems to have "stood" for them in order to get my GM baptised, and for the parents location it says "parents of Dublin", godparents were the woman who brought my GM up and her nephew....

I'm trying to figure out now how accurate these church records were, it just seems odd to me and her Godfather kind of now seems like an likely candidate for her father, my mind is in overdrive trying to figure it all out, but what I'd like to know is if it was possible for it to be entered on the baptism record but not actually be them at all, we've no idea if they were present at the baptism or not I suppose we have to assume they were, but has anyone had any experience like this where what was recorded on the baptism record wasn't actually how it really was??

[aghadowey]

You haven't mentioned the denomination of the church where the baptism took place but in most religions godparents were chosen so that they would look after the spiritial welfare of the child, especially in the event that the parents were unable to do so, and often if anything happened to the parents they would look after the child.
Godparents were sometimes related but not always so it might be a good idea to look for a family connection between the parents and these godparents.
Just because a man is listed as the godfather does not mean that he was the father of the child. What age was the nephew when the child was baptised? it's not uncommon for young adults to be godparents, especially if one of more of the other godparents were elderly.

[loudam]

It's more about the parents name on the baptism record, catholic church by the way! We are trying to see if we can trace my GM's parents, but we've no birth record for her, only record is her baptism one, so we're trying to figure out if both her parents being on the baptism record what it means, like we're they present for the baptism, or we're they just named? If they were just "named" how could they get around it?
I want to try getting my GM's birth cert but I need to figure out first if the parents names on the birth are to be taken as accurate..

Theres very little info apart from the odd story from family members...

The godfather was 19/20, but the older and younger godparent would be right in this case and the godmother was older...

[aghadowey]

When was the child born and when did the baptism take place? If the child was not baptised and the parents died it could be that the godparents/adoptive family brought the child to be baptised (although in cases where I've seen this the clergyman has written in a note about the circumstances or listed the parents as deceased).

I would start by assuming that the parents did exist and were the real parents and then look for details about them. Since you can't find the child's birth certificate how about-
Marriage record for the couple?
Death records for the couple (preferably around the time of birth/before baptism)?

Not sure of the date here but is 1911 cenus any help?

[loudam]

My  GM was born in 1926

I've attached the part of the baptismal record where parents current residence is, not a great photo because it was taken with my phone...

The family story was/is that a woman, my GM's mother was married and living in Kildare, she got pregnant by another man with my GM and moved to cork where she met the woman who brought my GM up, she had my GM and arrived back to this woman who brought my GM up and gave her to her...

It was known that her fathers name was John Finn, but according to the record its actually William was his name..

I've checked for marriages between both parents, I found one in 1926, it was a Mayo marriage, man was a garda and I got his garda record yesterday, he was from limerick, so while it's looking less like a match I'll still keep them in the running...

I suppose if we could nail down what the baptismal record could possibly mean it might put us on the right track, both myself and my aunt just feel its kind of a far fetched story and if it's right why would both parents names have been put down...
Edited to add that it's the FINN entry

[loudam]

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[aghadowey]

The father's name on the above image is JOHN Finn not William. Normally the parents would be resident in the parish where the baptism took place but in this instance they are from Dublin and the c/o address is a local one. It's quite likely he would have asked questions before performing the ceremony.

Have you searched for a baptism in Dublin as well as Cork for the child?

[loudam]

The reason we know it's William and not John is that the Priest who was there at the time was a William Callanan
This is his name in the record..

I haven't looked for a baptism record in dublin as I wouldn't know where to start, but we have looked at birth records for dublin....

[Sonas]

According to the Diocese's website the priest was John Callanan: http://www.corkandross.org/priestsHistorical.jsp?parishID=33

Independent of this, it does look like John.

Edit: Doublechecked with a Catholic Directory for 1926: John Callanan was a curate, parish of Glounthane.