Hi Clare, Without knowing your grandfather, my guess is that he's estimating each generation was about 25 when their child was born (1765-1790-1815 are at 25-year intervals). Without more info, then, I would regard the two oldest (and maybe all three) dates as placeholders only. (Is there a record of where the 1815-1820 DOB came from? Is it a guess, an educated guess, or fairly well documented?) As for 1815-1820 baptisms, it will depend on the parish and denomination. Most Catholic sacramental records don't survive before the 1820s or 1830s, but there are some places where they start much later (Donegal!) and some where there are earlier records. CoI, Presbyterian, etc. records are more likely to survive from earlier dates. Do you have a location, and so the Irish researcher was giving you info specific to a location and denomination? Or do you not know the location, and so the Irish researcher was telling you the rule of thumb (which might or might not be relevant to your research)? The closest you can come to verifying the 1765 and 1790 dates is 1) if church records exist in the relevant area for the relevant denomination, or 2) if the Old Age Pension files (which pulled info from the 1841 and 1851 censuses, among other sources) survive, if you have someone in the family who was still living in the UK as of 1908+ (when the OAP was introduced) and they applied for an OAP, and if the older generation was living with the family in the 1841/1851 census and was transcribed in the OAP files. Most surviving OAP files are from the north, FWIW. HTH Claire K. On Jul 5, 2009, at 2:50 PM, Clare Higgins wrote: > ...research notes that I inherited > from my grandfather....says that my great-great-grandfather, > Morris Higgins, was born c. 1815-1820 in Ireland. ...a Dublin > researcher [said] that no baptism > records exist from that time period. > > ...Grandpa's notes...said Morris' father was born in > 1790 and his grandfather in 1765. They were both also called > Morris. ...There's no indication of where he > obtained this info. > > The answer to my next question is more than likely "no," but I'm > taking a > shot anyhow. Is there any way I can verify these 1765 and 1790 dates? >