I'm sorry so many of you are disappointed with the results of your search. I agree with Jim, however that you should leave your search as wide as possible. Registation Districts, cross parish boundaries and it may well be that the registration office was in fact in a bordering county. For example, Strabane was where birth, marriages and deaths for part of Tyrone were registered, but also parts of Donegal. Some of my own searches showed this - where ancestors were born in Co Tyrone near to the border with Fermanagh , the registration office was in Enniskillen so the records come under Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh. I only insert the person's name and Tyrone, Ireland in the search boxes and I find it gives me those born in Co Tyrone who are registered in Tyrone, as well as those born in Tyrone but registered in a district which crosses the county boundary - Armagh, Enniskillen to name two that came up for me. I dont ask for exact matches in Name spellings either as most surnames are spelled in various ways, depending on who scribes the information, usually the registrar. You may find a record that puzzles you like the example below: Name: Mary Ann (1913) McSorley Registration district: Cookstown Record type: BIRTHS Registration date - quarter and year: Oct - Dec 1915 Estimated birth year: Age: Mother surnames: Film number: 101076 Volume: 1 Page: 438 Digital GS number: 4194695 Image number: 00255 Collection: Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958 The record has (1913) in brackets after the person's name because there were quite a number of people who did not register the birth at the right time. In this example the birth wasnt registered until Oct - Dec quarter, 1915 so it appeared in the index for 1915 with 1913 beside it. We transcribed it exactly as we found it so if applying for a certificate for this birth you would indicate this in the application otherwise GRO would look at 1913 records and be unable to find it. Remember, too, some births were never registered. I have been told, but cannot say if this is correct, that late registration incurred a fine so some people didnt bother if they had missed the deadline. Dont rely on the year of birth that is given on the death certificate of a person as being the correct year. This was arrived at by deducting the age of death as given by the informant from the year of death. Often the informant didnt know the person's correct age. Indeed often the person himself didnt!! Also if you are searching a specific year, which you've arrived at by using the age a person gave in a census then you may not find that person either. There can be a difference of 5 to 10 years between their census age and real age. In fact some people only age 4 years between censuses whilst others age 15!! Finally, yes we may have inadvertantly missed people out and if we did, may I apologise. If I remember rightly some indexes had 375 names on them and often there was more than one person with the same name so it could easily be someone was missed out. There wasnt an exact number on each page . It certainly is much easier with the censuses which have got 30 to a page to know if anyone was missing. However, each page is transcribed separately by two people and if they dont match up an assessor goes through and checks. Hopefully most of you will find those ancestors ......... fingers crossed! Theresa _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live Messenger just got better .Video display pics, contact updates & more. http://www.download.live.com/messenger

Another way to avoid the fine was to change the date of birth so that it conformed to the deadline in effect at the time the report was made. I have seen cases where the subject was baptized before being born (or so the records would imply). James P. Murphy Princeton, NJ 08542 jpmurphy@jpmurphy.com   -----Original Message----- From: cotyroneireland-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:cotyroneireland-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Theresa Forsyth Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 11:16 AM To: Mailing Tyrone Subject: [CoTyIre] Irish BMD Indexes I'm sorry so many of you are disappointed with the results of your search. I agree with Jim, however that you should leave your search as wide as possible. Registation Districts, cross parish boundaries and it may well be that the registration office was in fact in a bordering county. For example, Strabane was where birth, marriages and deaths for part of Tyrone were registered, but also parts of Donegal. Some of my own searches showed this - where ancestors were born in Co Tyrone near to the border with Fermanagh , the registration office was in Enniskillen so the records come under Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh. I only insert the person's name and Tyrone, Ireland in the search boxes and I find it gives me those born in Co Tyrone who are registered in Tyrone, as well as those born in Tyrone but registered in a district which crosses the county boundary - Armagh, Enniskillen to name two that came up for me. I dont ask for exact matches in Name spellings either as most surnames are spelled in various ways, depending on who scribes the information, usually the registrar. You may find a record that puzzles you like the example below: Name: Mary Ann (1913) McSorley Registration district: Cookstown Record type: BIRTHS Registration date - quarter and year: Oct - Dec 1915 Estimated birth year: Age: Mother surnames: Film number: 101076 Volume: 1 Page: 438 Digital GS number: 4194695 Image number: 00255 Collection: Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958 The record has (1913) in brackets after the person's name because there were quite a number of people who did not register the birth at the right time. In this example the birth wasnt registered until Oct - Dec quarter, 1915 so it appeared in the index for 1915 with 1913 beside it. We transcribed it exactly as we found it so if applying for a certificate for this birth you would indicate this in the application otherwise GRO would look at 1913 records and be unable to find it. Remember, too, some births were never registered. I have been told, but cannot say if this is correct, that late registration incurred a fine so some people didnt bother if they had missed the deadline. Dont rely on the year of birth that is given on the death certificate of a person as being the correct year. This was arrived at by deducting the age of death as given by the informant from the year of death. Often the informant didnt know the person's correct age. Indeed often the person himself didnt!! Also if you are searching a specific year, which you've arrived at by using the age a person gave in a census then you may not find that person either. There can be a difference of 5 to 10 years between their census age and real age. In fact some people only age 4 years between censuses whilst others age 15!! Finally, yes we may have inadvertantly missed people out and if we did, may I apologise. If I remember rightly some indexes had 375 names on them and often there was more than one person with the same name so it could easily be someone was missed out. There wasnt an exact number on each page . It certainly is much easier with the censuses which have got 30 to a page to know if anyone was missing. However, each page is transcribed separately by two people and if they dont match up an assessor goes through and checks. Hopefully most of you will find those ancestors ......... fingers crossed! Theresa _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live Messenger just got better .Video display pics, contact updates & more. http://www.download.live.com/messenger ------------- Our community web-site: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cotyroneireland ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to COTYRONEIRELAND-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message