Bonnie~ The dates in Church parish registers is for Baptism. They are usually referred to as sacramental records. Now, "back in the day" that MAY have also been the birth day but not necessarily. In 1864 ALL births no matter what the religion were required to be registered in Civil Records with a penalty attached for not doing so. This was also true for marriage and death but there was NO penalty attached for not doing so. Really early church records may not be all that complete or accurate because there was a time when the priests were in hiding, usually 17th & 18th century Ireland. Also, the good Father may have spent days traveling around his parish before he returned home and recorded data which in some cases was from his memory! Civil birth records as we know them now, did not come into being in Ireland until 1864. Since there was a distrust for the government, many were not done until a later time. To avoid the penalty, the date was changed to be in compliance with the law. Mary Ellen Chambers Bonita Evjen <bevjen@bevcomm.net> wrote: I need to clarify. The dates in parish registers are probably baptismal dates not birthdates??????? Bonni Any Society that would give up liberty for a little security, will deserve neither and loose both. Benjamin Franklin 1759 ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-LIMERICK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message