This subject is of interest since I discovered that my g-grandmother was born 18 months prior to her parents' marriage in 1841. They married 13 months prior to her younger brother being born in 1842. I have looked at the Parish Baptismal and Marriage registers on microfilm at NLI and there is no mention of illegitimacy in her birth record; in other cases this was plainly noted in the record. An article which I thought provided a possible explanation, at least to me, is: http://thewitness.org/archive/april2000/marriage.html I will be interested in comments. If any of you have additional references on Irish Birth, Marriage and Death customs in the 1700's and 1800's please share them. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Janet Crawford via" <cotipperary@rootsweb.com> To: "Jan Fortado" <janfortado2007@hotmail.com>; <cotipperary@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, August 22, 2014 10:07 AM Subject: Re: [COTIPPERARY] Out of wedlock (Janet's interesting comments) > Jan, She would be at the least a "fallen woman" and you may, with > checking, > find she was also illegitimate. The only other circumstance I have run > across was a man having children with a woman and they were not yet > married. Even after they legally married it was said he had "married in > the > low life". I can't find her parents, so I believe she herself was > illegitimate. > > Janet