May I try and trawl other's collective experience / and / or knowledge? Has anyone out there, when researching parish registers, whether on-line or in the archives, had experience of a child not having been named on an entry? Rather being entered as " son or daughter - or child - of xxxx ( usually father's name only ) " ?? I have come across this with Scottish parish registers but don't know whether or not it happens with Irish registers also. It sometimes makes confirmation of a particular person that you are looking for difficult if they are registered without a first name. Also, whilst I do know that we are instructed to view all given ages with a lot of scepticism, and the normal thing to do is to assume that the people concerned were older - sometimes a lot older - than we had believed, has anyone any experience of somebody actually being younger? And in the Irish marriage registers - especially for the early to mid 1800s, were the couple youngsters, say in the 18 - 24 age group, or did they marry later in age? I know that by the end of the 1800s and into the early 1900s, people seemed to be a bit older - especially the men ( what with waiting for the farm etc., ) but I am wondering if it was more normal that they were youngsters. Mary