Nancy,   The Irish civil registration system assessed penalties for late registration.  Sometimes there were extenuating circumstances as to why parents waited. To avoid a fine some parents would claim a birth date later than the real one.    For many parents the religious duty and traditional nature of baptism took precedence over the "new" and British-mandated civil system, so relying on the baptismal date is probably safer.   In my family, my Kerry-born grandmother was listed on the civil records as being born two weeks past her baptismal date (in 1878). So you can see which I believe!      Paul Keroack   --- On Wed, 9/15/10, Nancy Schroeder <[email protected]> wrote: From: Nancy Schroeder <[email protected]> Subject: [IRL-KERRY] Catholic Church Records vs. Civil Registration To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 4:24 PM   Hello, I am new to this list and have a question.  My grandfather and his eight siblings were all born in County Kerry near Tralee.  Several years ago I acquired the Civil Registration records for all their births.  I recently found the site where the Catholic Church records are online.  I found all these people, but the dates of their births are not the same as on the civil records.  Some are different as a few days, some are a couple of weeks.  Does anyone know why there is such a discrepancy in birth dates? It seems to me that the church records are probably the correct dates as the baptisms usually occurred within a few days of the birth. Nancy Sheehan Schroeder _______________ ---------------          Policies of the IRL-Kerry List: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlker/mailing.html                                                To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message. To subscribe to the Digest version of the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'subscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message. To visit the County Kerry Research and Resources Page go to: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlker/ Share your stuff!  If you transcribed research data, share it with the Irish genealogy community. Contribute it to the Kerry website to reach a wide audience. Contact Ann Hammer, data maintenance.  Her contact info is at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlker/ contrib.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message