Records are as good as the informant. I have many filed records in recent times with errors in names (including my own birth cert) and headstones are not always correct either - my father's date is incorrect on his headstone. I know of a few instances of the informer on birth certs forgot what the baby's name was and made one up. The owner of the name didn't find out until they were adults and went to get a birth cert and none in the name they thought was theirs......etc. I don't know about early Ireland - Many headstones were paid for by the family members who emigrated and sent back the money. We can only assume it was family still at "home" who provided the information to erect the headstones. We all love these challenges and it is what makes the genealogical ride more interesting. Karin ----- Original Message ----- From: "helenware" <helenware@comcast.net> To: <irl-galway@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 3:26 PM Subject: Re: [IRL-GALWAY] Irish naming patterns > My family followed it also, and that is my mystery-on the gravestone it > says my g.g.grandfather 's parents were Patrick and Ann "Mary"---but I > find > no records for those name-I do however find James and they named oldest > son > James-second son Hugh (after her father)-so I wonder if his sons had > correct > info when he died. I have found so many mistakes in names and dates from > Family records--but I am not sure -they named first daughter after wife's > Mother and second after his Mother--so it would seem the eldest named > James > would be after father's Dad. > It just seems when you see a name engraved on the grave stone-it should be > correct! > Have any of you ever had this happen with names back in the early 1800's > in > Ireland? > Helen > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > IRL-GALWAY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Well said, Karin.  My mother always told me that her ggrandmother's name was "Rose Mulholland Maguigin", but she didn't know the name of her ggrandfther.  When I got the death cert for her for my mother's grandmother, the name of the father was listed as William, and the mother was listed as Unknown.  Now the informant was my mother's mother--she would have been the one who stated tht Rose ws the mother.  You have to take the emotional condition of the informant into account --- On Fri, 3/5/10, Karin A. Joyce <KarinJoyce@rcn.com> wrote: Records are as good as the informant.