Foreign Birth Registration: Grandparent's birth record

[orojim]

I am gathering documents to apply for Foreign Birth Registration. I was born in the United States, as was my father. His mother was born in Ireland, which should qualify me.

The problem is: my grandmother was born in about 1885. We're not positive. We have not been able to locate a birth certificate through the usual national and county sources yet.

What we do have, relevant to this problem:

- the 1901 Irish census, showing my grandmother as a teen in her Irish parents' household.

- grandmother's 1910 Massachusetts marriage certificate, listing her birthplace as Ireland and her Irish parents as those listed on the Irish census.

- my father's Massachusetts birth certificate, listing his mother's name and her birthplace as Ireland.

So my hopeful question is: if the actual birth certificate cannot be located, will those other documents satisfy the Irish authorities as proof of my grandmother's Irish birth? Many people have told me that Irish records from that period can be difficult, for a variety of reasons, to obtain. Perhaps the officials are used to this problem are willing to work with applicants.

Thanks!

[PasadenaTom]

Have you searched church baptism records on the Irish government's geneology site?

https://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/

I have no experience with this myself. I don't know if they would accept a scan of the baptism record.
But it might be a start. Another poster, BrexitEscapee discussed a similar situation in this thread

Here is a summary of what s/he did:

The only other thing of interest about my application is that my Grandfather's birth either wasn't officially registered, or that registration has been lost in the system. I therefore had to register his birth myself which meant I had to:

1. Get the General Records Office to carry out a search and provide an official 'no record found' certificate. (There's a fee for this - something like 20 Euros.)
2. Identify where/when my Grandad was baptised (using online church records which I found via familysearch.org This involved a lot of research and searching through online scans of old church baptism registers from the 1880s!
3. Write to the Parish priest and request a baptism certificate, providing the historical church baptism record I'd found online.
4. Send this baptism certificate off to the Civil Registration Service (in Roscommon) to request a Late Registration of his birth. This also required a notarised declaration form, marriage details of his parents and his death certificate.
5. Once his birth had been registered, I then had to apply to the General Records Office and purchase a long form copy of his birth certificate.
6. Job done - that was the key document I needed and I didn't have any problems or queries with my FBR application.

[orojim]

Thanks very much for these suggestions, PasadenaTom. I've had no joy on the Irish government site, but will soon give the familysearch.org baptism records a try.

[Michael123]

Did you ever locate the information?

[orojim]

Did you ever locate the information?

I have not yet. For a brief shining moment, I thought a birth certificate for my grandmother could be obtained. That fell through. So I'm back to the drawing board and plan to try the suggestion above.

[Michael123]

Do you have all her info?

[Michael123]

You are in Massachusetts also?????? If you want to Send me a private message, I might be able to help find her birth certificate, send her info.

[PasadenaTom]

If you want to Send me a private message

Neither of you can send private messages until your post count reaches 30.

BTW, the READ ME warns that if the moderators think you are making frivolous posts to increase your count, they might permanently disable PMs for you, or revoke your forum membership entirely.

It's nice that you are trying to help. Just be careful you don't help yourself into trouble with the moderators.

[orojim]

You are in Massachusetts also?????? If you want to Send me a private message, I might be able to help find her birth certificate, send her info.

I am in Arizona. However, my grandmother spent almost all her life after arriving in the U.S. in Massachusetts, mostly in the Boston-Quincy area.

I have her marriage certificate, her death certificate, and even a copy of the 1901 Ireland census that shows her living with her parents in County Donegal, but no birth certificate. A cousin of mine who has been heavily into this research for years - even traveling to Ireland for it - has also failed to find a birth record.

So far, I'm coming up empty on the baptism record suggested in the BrexitEscapee quote kindly posted above by PasadenaTom.

[Michael123]

I had the same problem. My grandmother was born in cork, she moved to Limerick. It was always the rumor she was born in Limerick, her death certificate even says Limerick as the informer was told the wrong info at the time of death. I searched for sometime, even still email the girl in Kildare who works in the office of registration. Eventually the correct info was given by another family member. What part of Ireland was she born?

[Michael123]

I am in Dedham, about 3 mins from the Boston line and about 20 mins from Quincy.

Is it permissible to post our email addresses here?

[CR001]

Is it permissible to post our email addresses here?

No it is not!

[CR001]

Members are reminded that everyone on the forum is a complete stranger. We have many scammers and spammers who visit us daily looking for useful information for dubious reasons and I would strongly suggest all members are careful about parting with personal information and details that is identifiable.

[BrexitEscapee]

I have her marriage certificate, her death certificate, and even a copy of the 1901 Ireland census that shows her living with her parents in County Donegal, but no birth certificate. A cousin of mine who has been heavily into this research for years - even traveling to Ireland for it - has also failed to find a birth record.

So far, I'm coming up empty on the baptism record suggested in the BrexitEscapee quote kindly posted above by PasadenaTom.

Do you know what parish she would have been baptised in? If so, have you found the online scans of church baptism records? If not, take a look at this webpage from the Irish National Library:
https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/1016
As you can see, you can select parishes from the map and browse through whatever online scans of baptism registers are available. It can be a lengthy process as you will have to read through all the entries for a year or two after their date of birth as you won't know the exact date on which they were baptised.

I was lucky and found my grandfather's baptism record this way. If yours is not available online, then I think your next step should be to identify her parish church and contact the parish priest directly. (I found a phone number by Googling it.) The parish priest might have access to more paper baptism records. If the church is no longer there, then contact the diocese office (assuming it's a Catholic church) and ask whether the baptism records have been retained centrally.

Finally, if you are unable to locate a baptism record, you could try the following: (I don't actually know if this will work, but there's no harm in trying.) If you can provide evidence that your grandmother would have been baptised, but their baptism register has been lost, you might be able to persuade the current parish priest to produce a new baptism certificate for you anyway. Relevant evidence might include any other church records relating to your grandmother (marriage/death etc) or records of attendance at a Catholic school. The priest would need to put a date on the certificate, so it might make life easier if you give them a date (e.g. 4 weeks after the date of birth) which you 'believe' was the actual date of baptism.

So long as the parish priest produces a new baptism certificate for you, then you can get your grandmother's birth registered with the Irish govt.

[Bluegill]

I have her marriage certificate, her death certificate, and even a copy of the 1901 Ireland census that shows her living with her parents in County Donegal, but no birth certificate. A cousin of mine who has been heavily into this research for years - even traveling to Ireland for it - has also failed to find a birth record.

So far, I'm coming up empty on the baptism record suggested in the BrexitEscapee quote kindly posted above by PasadenaTom.

Do you know what parish she would have been baptised in? If so, have you found the online scans of church baptism records? If not, take a look at this webpage from the Irish National Library:
https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/1016
As you can see, you can select parishes from the map and browse through whatever online scans of baptism registers are available. It can be a lengthy process as you will have to read through all the entries for a year or two after their date of birth as you won't know the exact date on which they were baptised.

I was lucky and found my grandfather's baptism record this way. If yours is not available online, then I think your next step should be to identify her parish church and contact the parish priest directly. (I found a phone number by Googling it.) The parish priest might have access to more paper baptism records. If the church is no longer there, then contact the diocese office (assuming it's a Catholic church) and ask whether the baptism records have been retained centrally.

Finally, if you are unable to locate a baptism record, you could try the following: (I don't actually know if this will work, but there's no harm in trying.) If you can provide evidence that your grandmother would have been baptised, but their baptism register has been lost, you might be able to persuade the current parish priest to produce a new baptism certificate for you anyway. Relevant evidence might include any other church records relating to your grandmother (marriage/death etc) or records of attendance at a Catholic school. The priest would need to put a date on the certificate, so it might make life easier if you give them a date (e.g. 4 weeks after the date of birth) which you 'believe' was the actual date of baptism.

So long as the parish priest produces a new baptism certificate for you, then you can get your grandmother's birth registered with the Irish govt.

Hi Brexit!

I recently sent off documents to do the exact same thing you suggested since I couldn’t find the birth cert (gro confirmed this, sent baptismal record, death cert, declaration that was notarized, her parents death and marriage cert etc).

I was wondering the time frame to get this late birth registered?

They received my documents on sept 4th. The lady doing the file said it’s in the tray and the files are completed by documents received.

Just seeing how long yours took.

Thanks!

[BrexitEscapee]

So I take it this means you managed to obtain a Baptism certificate for you Grandmother? In your post above you mention 'baptismal record' - I'm pretty sure you need an actual certificate signed by the Parish priest. If you didn't get this, then it's not a problem - you just need to contact the current Parish priest, give them the historical evidence (e.g. the baptism register entry) and ask them to make you a new one. I ended up phoning the parish priest, posting him the evidence and he did this for free with a very quick turnaround.

I applied for late registration of my grandad's birth on 4th December 2017. I got an email to confirm this had been successful on 11th January 2018. (There were no queries about the paperwork etc.) I then had to apply for a copy of his birth certificate - I applied sometime after the 11th January and it arrived in the post on 20th January.

Good luck.

[Bluegill]

It’s a certified birth and baptismal certificate from st Mary’s pro cathedral. Yes it is official.

Everything required was mailed registered post.

Thanks for the timeline.