Trust, but verify; or There goes 1/16 of my family tree

(Protip: Just jump straight to "verify." We can "trust but verify" on Cold War relations and Iranian nuclear deals, but not genealogy!)

I received the death certificate of my 2x great-grandmother, Mary King O'Hara, a couple weeks ago. I had wanted it for years, but had always put off jumping through the Department of Health's hoops. Big mistake.

A relative interested in genealogy had sent me Mary's presumptive birth record years ago, and I took it at face value. It was, of course, a real birth record, for a real person named Mary King, but it no longer seems likely that she was the correct Mary King. There goes 1/16 of my family tree!

Lesson learned. Always verify the research of those who have gone before you. (I always knew that I should check this particular piece of information, but took it as a "starting point" until I could do the research myself. Nothing lost but time, I suppose.) (Also, don't take online trees as gospel, either, because mine is out there and it's (at least) 6.25% wrong.)

I had for years operated under the assumption that Mary King's parents were Michael King and Bridget Hopkins, and that she was born in Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Ireland, but her death certificate puts her parents as Patrick King and Bridget Fadden. I'd like to confirm that with a birth certificate that matches, of course, but right now, I don't know where to look. I've contacted the relative who sent the first birth record to see why he thought that that Mary King was our Mary King. If it was, for example, because Mary (whom he knew as a child) had talked about her childhood in Claremorris, then at least that's a place to start. If it was just because the dates matched on an index search, then I have all of Ireland to search. I'm waiting to hear back from him.

I have Mary's death notice, and it does not include a place of birth.

Mary was born in the 1870s (3 December 1875, according to her death certificate), and the civil registration indexes available for free online in this time period do not include mother's maiden name. Otherwise, this could be a pretty easy search. Other than browsing the registers of every Catholic parish in Ireland at the National Library, I'm not sure how to find Mary's actual birth place and birth record and confirm her parents. I might have to stoop so low as to subscribe to RootsIreland, despite my serious misgivings about the service they offer.


What are your best suggestions for locating an Irish town of origin? 

Ordering Vital Records from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

I was missing the death record of just one of my American great-great-grandparents (Brazil being a nut I have yet to crack). Mary King O'Hara died in Brooklyn in 1949, which meant I had to order her death certificate from the New York City Department of Health (DOH). She survived the latest of my 2x great-grandparents, and so was the only one whose death record was not held by the NYC Municipal Archives. In New York City, the Archives holds death records until 1948, and the DOH holds death records from 1949 to the present.

Being more than 50 years old, a death record from 1949 should be considered a public record, available to anyone. My understanding, however, is that the DOH has simply stopped retiring vital records to the Archives, and treats all the vital records that they hold, of whatever age, as equally confidential. So these records can be challenging to access. They can be ordered online, but only by certain family members, and in this case, I didn't qualify.

If you cannot order your record online, you can go in person to 125 Worth St. in Manhattan, or you can order through the mail. I chose the latter, which means filling out an application, having it notarized, and mailing it along with the $15 fee, a self-addressed stamped envelope, and a copy of your photo ID. (It was the notarizing that had held me back all these years. It seemed like such a hassle!) Then, you wait - the DOH helpfully provides regularly updated information on processing times.

I got my SASE back on my birthday, and was super excited to receive an awesome birthday present. I was disappointed.

My application was rejected because I hadn't provided the parents' names or the decedent's social security number, and because my ID was not expired but soon to expire. I know that this is the case because my drivers license, like most, is valid through my birthday, so it was still valid on the day the rejection arrived. If they'd just filled my order instead of filling out a form to reject my application, I could have had the certificate before my ID expired!

I couldn't fill in the parents' names because I didn't know them. In fact, finding those pieces of information was my primary motivation behind ordering this record. I hadn't even bothered to see if I could find a Social Security Number because the form actually said "Social Security Number (if available)." And yet leaving that field blank was indicated as being one of the reasons my application was rejected.

Not knowing the parents' names, and not even knowing if a 1940s housewife would have had a SSN, I was afraid that this certificate would remain unavailable to me. I decided to take a chance. First, I had to wait for my renewed license to arrive, and then I filled out the application again. For each field where I didn't have the answer, instead of leaving it blank, I wrote "unknown."

A month later, I received Mary King O'Hara's death certificate.

It feels a bit like they were just looking for reasons to turn me down.

Learn from my experience: Don't try to order records if your photo ID is expiring in the next 60 days. And write whatever you need to to avoid leaving any blank fields, even when the form explicitly states that the information is not required. Don't give the Department of Health any excuse to deny your application!

Irish Catholic Parish Registers: Baptism Questions

As I explore the Catholic parish registers recently put online by the National Library of Ireland, I've realized that I don't know as much as I should about the conventions that would have dictated how they were created. In that light, here are the questions that are piling up as I browse:

• Was it standard operating procedure for an illegitimate child to have only one godparent/sponsor at baptism? I've seen this appear to be the case on two occasions, in two different parishes: different dioceses, different counties, different decades.  

• How common was it for the father of an illegitimate child to be publicly known? Most seem to have a father listed, even when that father appears to be married to another woman. What mechanisms were in place to discover the father of an unmarried woman's baby?  

• If a married woman was a godparent, would she be recorded in the register under her maiden or married name?  

• Were parents ever recorded by their titles rather than their names? (Specific to my family: What English-language name (or title) could be recorded as Mayistri?)

If I can find the answers to any of these questions, I hope to write some follow-up posts to provide as much context as possible.

What sources would you recommend to learn about the context surrounding birth and baptism in 19th century Ireland? What do you find yourself wanting to know about the Irish parish registers?