Well said Ann, they must have lived close to mine so. Geographically Cootehill is/was the nearest registry office and so that is where they went to register the birth. County lines/townlands etc are just lines on maps. Obviously you look for nearest church first... also the most convenient/nearest registry office, even if in next county. Why some people chose to pass 2 or 3 churches and travel to Monaghan can be a mystery, sometime you get reasons, other times it remains a mystery. Another thing to take into consideration is that parishes frequently "swapped" townlands, so a townland would be in one parish at some stage, next day it could be in another and so too would the parishioners. It's even more complicated today as some churches are almost closed and some alternate services between them, so one attends this church next Sunday, then another church the following Sunday, and possibly a different church the following Sunday. Oh, the joys.... On 26/08/2010 14:52, AHarney wrote: > Good points and great info from Dave Hall re churches attended. > > Another thing to consider; Poor Law Union (PLU) and Registration Districts. > > Many of my ancesters were listed as Cootehill (Cavan) Registration / PLU > District. They were all born in County Monaghan. Some researched in County > Cavan assuming that was where they were born. > > There are other earlier divisions that would be relevant in this issue. > > HTH, > Ann Harney > > > > --- > avast! Antivirus: Inbound message clean. > Virus Database (VPS): 100825-0, 25/08/2010 > Tested on: 26/08/2010 15:30:48 > avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2010 ALWIL Software. > http://www.avast.com > > > >