SNIPPET: Per Cork's "Irish Roots" magazine, many researchers tend to believe that the information in civil registers is correct and worry only about the accuracy of transcriptions made by various indexing groups. This confidence, however, is not well placed. In relation to births and deaths, the local registrar was usually given the details by a member of the family in which the event took place. He wrote this information in a register, which was kept locally, and a handwritten copy was sent to the Office of the Registrar General in Dublin. A birth or death certificate ordered from this office always involves another transcription -- from the copy register to the certificates. Though there is room for error in the two transcription stages, most of the errors originate with the informant, that is the person who registered the birth or death in the first instance. A very common error to be found in death certificates relates to the age of the deceased. When a son or daughter went to register the death of a parent, the age of the parent was often unknown to them -- many people are still quite coy about their age. The registrar, a busy dispensary doctor, would simply ask for an estimate and put that down as the age. Some ages at death can be highly inaccurate. It is significant that many elderly people are given decimal death dates -- ages ending with zero appears to be particularly suspect. The Mormon religion allows for baptism after death. Many Irish people were "baptised before birth" -- if we are to believe what we read in baptismal and birth certificates. This strange Irish phenomenon is explained by the fact that Irish Catholics baptised their children within a few days of birth, but often neglected to register the birth with the local registrar in a timely fashion. In order to AVOID the payment of a FINE for non-registration within a 3-month period of the birth, some parents simply gave a later date for the birth. This little deception comes to light seventy years later when an application is made for state pension, for example. The birth certificate shows the applicant to be several months short of the required age. Sympathetic officials, in these circumstances, are inclined to accept baptismal certificates as more accurate evidence of age. This is tantamount to official recognition of the inaccuracy of birth certificates. For example, when searching in the Vital Records Index for the British Isles CD-Rom issued by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, 1998, for the children of a marriage between De Courcy EVANS and wife Charlotte WILLIAMS (birthplaces Newcastle, Wicklow) one would discover that based on the relatively poor quality of handwriting found in the ORIGINAL Registrar's Records there were some transcription errors made: 1. EVANS, De Courcy -- Male, born 10 Nov 1864, Newcastle, Wick, Ire: Father De Courcy EVANS, mother Charlotte WILLIAMS. 2. EVANS, Eliza Jane -- Female, born 25 Jan 1868, Newcastle, Wick, Ire: Father De Conroy EVANS, mother Charlotte WILLIAMS. 3. EVANS, John -- Male, born 28 Apr 1869, Newcastle, Wick, Ire: Father Decourcy EVANS, mother Charlotte WILLIAMS. 4. EVANS, Patty -- Female, born 13 Aug 1870, Newcastle, Wick, Ire: Father Decamsy EVANS, mother Charlotte WILLIAMS. Someone searching only for De Courcy EVANS might miss these, but a search for the less-likely name to be misspelled and/or transcribed incorrectly, that of the mother, Charlotte WILLIAMS, would bring up all four births. When using various search engines, it is probably best to use the "Soundex" feature (if available). While you will get more "hits," you just might find what you are looking for that contains a minor discrepancy of spelling. NOTE -- The 1999 Third Quarter issue of Cork's "Irish Roots" magazine contains a portion of the original Registrar's Records for the birth record of Eliza Jane EVANS and the birth record for Patty EVANS with the father's names enlarged, and they do, indeed, appear to read "De Conroy" EVANS and "Decamsy" EVANS. It should be kept in mind that there was no particular emphasis on accuracy in spelling or ages in old records, as there would be found today, so spelling of surnames, etc., can vary widely, and according to record expert John Grenham, with the upheaval in Ireland over the centuries, etc., "a significant proportion of births, marriages and deaths were simply not registered." Also, keep in mind that the Registrar's District (where the event was registered) was not necessarily the townland or village where the event, itself, took place. An inquiry at your local LDS FHC may turn up additional, more specific data. Keep in mind that some Registrar Districts even cover an area of more than one Irish county and that some boundaries have changed over the years. Late Registrations -- Per Grenham, although the chances of finding a missing registration IS slim, a thorough search of the indexes is necessary for completeness. When the individuals concerned or their relatives later needed a certificate for official purposes, it became necessary to register the event after the fact. The index references of these late registrations are included in the volume for the year in which the event took place. For example, the index reference for someone born in 1880, but whose birth was not registered until 1900, is to be found in the index for 1880. In the case of births and deaths, these references are indexed separately from the main body of the index, at the back of the volume. For marriages, however, late registrations are written in by hand at the relevant point in the main body of the index.