Sources of GRO Birth Dates

The majority of birth dates post 1864 that will be found in this collection have been gathered using the subscription website www.rootsireland.ie. The data there has been supplied by Leitrim Genealogy Centre and I have found it comprehensive and accurate. That said, the records from the Civil Register (GRO Register of Births) are in transcript form and any transcription, however painstakingly made, is prone to error. Therefore I recommend that a search be made on www.irishgenealogy.ie where the official registers of births from 1864 to (as at March 2022) 1921 can be freely accessed. For any later dates, a visit to the GRO research room in Dublin for a copy of the register entry or else an application to the main GRO Office in Roscommon for a Certificate of Birth is recommended.

 

Limitations of Dates Researched and Impact on People Included on this Site

Some people in this collection form part of my own family history study. For these, in general, no constraint has been placed on the seeking of birth records.

For the remainder of those in this collection, and these are the vast majority, birth dates from 1864 to 1920 have been sourced, as already stated, mostly from www.rootsireland.ie, though sometimes from GRO registers on www.irishgenealogy.ie. Births from 1921 have been sourced from GRO registers on www.irishgenealogy.ie.

As a result, and again in general, children born beyond 1921 have not been searched for. This is important to note in families where we find, for example, children born 1918-1921. There is a good possibility that other children were born in these families after 1921. Secondly, the children of any marriages found dating from 1921 onwards will not, generally, be listed in this collection.

 

Accuracy of GRO Birth Dates

The accuracy of birth dates cannot be guaranteed. There are three reasons for this:

  1. An error may exist in the record viewed on www.rootsireland.ie
  2. I may have made an error in transcribing the record either from rootsireland or a viewing of the register or certificate
  3. The Irish Phenomenon - see below.

 

The Irish Phenomenon

The overwhelming majority of the population of Co Leitrim was, and is, Roman Catholic. Until relatively recently it was the custom that babies be baptised as soon as possible after birth. This was the primary concern of most parents. Registration of the birth, especially in the first two or three decades after the introduction of compulsory registration of births, was not seen as anywhere near as important or urgent. For this reasons, some births were simply never registered, but in many cases births were registered when the parents got around to it.

The main complication was that there was a fine for late registration and this gave rise to those strange cases where a child's baptismal date came days, weeks or even months before his or her officially registered birth date.

In most cases in this collection, where a Civil Record of birth exists, it has been quoted as the correct date and a baptismal date has not been searched for.

In the case of anybody seeking access to my detailed records on any individual in this collection, I will undertake that if a baptismal record for the individual exists in the public domain, it will be included in any documentation sent to the enquirer. In some cases that baptismal record will not be consistent with the official birth record.