Page 27 - O Mahony Society Newsletter December 2024_Neat

the needs of the time. A youth might declare an older age on arrival, because he would consider
this would improve his chances of employment. However, as he approached the 60s he would be
likely to list himself as younger, so that he would not lose his job. Frequently a woman would register
as younger than she was because of both job and marriage opportunities. And, of course, people
can very easily forget these details. There is an Irish saying, as time to claim the Old Age Pension
approached: “I must get my age from the priest.” Therefore a message on a death certificate or a
headstone, saying ’69 years 3 mths’ cannot be taken as giving an exact birth/baptism date – and
very rarely, in my experience, leads to an exact match in a baptism register. I take a plus/minus five
year period – but the largest discrepancy I have found is fourteen years. So, beware!

Rule 3: Search for All Forms of Spelling and Variations.

The article by Pádriag O Mathúna on The Forms of The Name in this journal is a good indication
of the variations to be found. This is true of several county Cork names. One example of this is (O)
Driscoll; included in this are Whooley, Hooley and Cadogan. The Rosscarbery RC registers contain
several forms of (O) Donovan – a system of distinguishing the different Donovan families – such as
Roe, Rossa, Mountain, and this practice is very common throughout County Cork.

Having done all this homework in the country of emigration, where do you go? It is impossible
to deal with all permutations in a short article, so what follows is some guidelines for County Cork
research. Hopefully you will found [sic] a specific clue to location/parish within the county. If a
townland name has been found, this should lead to the name of the civil parish. This is nearly always
the Church of Ireland parish, but not necessarily that of the Roman Catholic parish. Cork County
Counsil published an excellent handbook, Directory of Townlands and District Electoral Divisions,
1985 and this includes information about all the different boundaries, except for the Roman Catholic
parish. The Townland is the smallest unit of land, and all the civil records are based on this. The
District Electoral District (DED or Poor Law Electoral Division) consists of group [sic] of townlands
within a county. A group of DEDs form the Dispensary or Registrar’s District. The Poor Law Union of
Superintendents Registrar’s District comprises several Dispensary Districts.

Legal Records: In County Cork the legal records are based on these territorial divisions and there
are three locations [Fig 1]. The BMD records for each area, west, south, and north, are available
only in the specific area. Please
telephone in advance of your
arrival as these are ‘working’
offices, but the staff are very
helpful to the family researcher.
The legal system began in January
1864, and the registration of all
births, marriages and deaths was
compulsory. However, there is
evidence to indicate that as many
as 20% births were not registered
and therefore cannot be found.
There is also evidence that births
were often registered several
weeks after baptism. Why? One
reason – because of compulsory
vaccination, mothers would not

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