Hello All, At http://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie , I retrieved a record for the marriage of Martha Curtis and Patrick Finnegan on 1884 Sep 7 at Dublin's St. Mary, Pro Cathedral. The data on the register image for this marriage are: row 1: Patrick Finnegan, (address) 20 Mecklinburgh St, (parents) Patrick & Mary Judge, (parents' address) 20 Mecklinburgh St row 2: Martha Curtis, (address) 150 Gr Britain St, (parents) Daniel & Cath. Hawkins, (parents' address) Dead I have church-record birth-baptism data for Martha and her 10 known siblings. On all 11 records the father was named Gardiner (or a close approximation) Curtis. On all 11 records the mother was named Cath., Catherine, or Catherina; on those for three of the children her surname was given as Hawkins. Martha Elizabeth Curtis was born 1860 Nov 15, baptized 1861 Jan 25, with parents Gardiner Curtis and Catherine Curtis, according to the (COI) St. Mary Church record. She was baptized again, on 1861 Jan 28, at (RC) St. Mary, Pro Cathedral, with parents "Garner" Curtis and Catherina Hawkins. I have a familysearch.org record showing that Gardiner Curtis died in 1874. The marriage of Martha Curtis and Patrick Finnegan took place in 1884, 10 years after Gardiner's death. I don't yet know when Catherine Hawkins-Curtis died, but it would have been no earlier than 1866, when she delivered her eleventh known child. My questions are: 1. Who was the Daniel listed in the parents column for Martha? It's unclear whether his surname was Curtis, since the practice for giving names in the parents column seems to have been to list only the forename for the father and both the forename and the maiden name for the mother. I have not come across the name Daniel in any of my research on this family. My guess is that this Daniel was a stand-in for the dead Gardiner, and that he may or may not have had the surname Curtis, and that he may or may not have been Catherine Hawkins-Curtis's current husband. BUT 2. To whom does the "Dead" in the parents' address column refer? Does it mean only that the birth father, Gardiner was dead, or does it mean that both Daniel Whoever and Catherine Hawkins were dead? I vote for the first possibility, since I assume that the birth father was the most significant referent in such a church proceeding. What do you think? PJ, in Texas