Robin I have been doing this a long time and have come to accept that the Irish didn't know their age or date of birth. What really got me recently, working on a family in Jersey City the siblings claim they were born in NY or NJ when I have one birth cert. from England and several of them on the passenger list immigrating claiming they were born in Ireland. I'll never learn where they came from in Ireland. Dolores New York ----- Original Message ----- From: RobinVanM@aol.com Date: Friday, September 22, 2006 4:41 pm Subject: Irish Birthdates To: IRL-CORK@rootsweb.com > I was surprised to find wildly differing birthdates for Irish > immigrant > ancestors, but Radford and Betit's excellent Genealogist's Guide > to Discovering > Your Irish Ancestors said they often didn't know the year they > were born. It > just wasn't important in rural Ireland. Radford and Betit said > Irish > immigrants sometimes were 5, 10, or 15 years off their actual > birth year, although > the day and date were often more accurate. From censuses, > tombstones, local > histories, etc. I found birth years for an my Irish ancestors > would range from > 9 to 17 years, like 1813 to 1830. When one applied for a Civil > War pension, > the pension examiner said he "could not tell his age. We > should judge him > 52." Combine that with the fact that they kept using the same > first names > over and over (there were five Michael McMahons in a New > Hampshire town of 1700 > people), and it's no wonder we have such a hard time finding > them. > Robin in Maryland > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-CORK- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Ah, yes, the elusive birthdates! I can't find the dates in Ireland, either, and thought I'd really hit the jackpot when I found the baptismal certificates of some of my Dohertys in New Brunswick - one from Fredericton, one from St. John. The family ran back and forth from NB to Boston, finally settling in Boston about 1845.The one from Fredericton was naturalized in Boston, Mass. in 1868. Thereafter in the census, he listed himself as having been born in Massachusetts! There were five children that we know of -three born in NB, two in Boston. Ironically, we can't find the birth info on the two born in Mass. We even have a birth date for the one, but the Mass.powers that be can't find a record of it!! Ah, well -one of these days... Ann