Thread by @irelandincolour

@TomCreanBook Okay, so your premise is that the father made a mistake about the date of birth in this case. That is possible, even though it was a relatively short period of time since either baptism/birth. It is also possible that the priest did not record the date correctly.

Let me explain!

@TomCreanBook Firstly, if you look at the page where Tom Crean's birth is recorded and the subsequent page, it is all out of sequence, which indicates baptisms were not recorded on the dates they happened.

If we start in February, the month Tom was born, this is the recorded order of dates...

@TomCreanBook 1877-02-07
1877-02-08
1877-02-09
1877-02-11
1877-02-12
1877-02-12
1877-02-14
1877-02-16
1877-02-17
1877-02-26
1877-02-25*
1877-03-03
1877-03-09
1877-03-11
1877-03-13
1877-03-18
1877-03-27
1877-03-27
1877-03-27
1877-03-11*
1877-02-25*
1877-05-06

^^ February after March, no April?

@TomCreanBook That is a strong indication that the information came from somewhere else:

Handwritten notes, memory (a lot of babies, boys, girls, look the same), re-asking others, etc., and filling in the official record post-event

A lot of errors could have been introduced in this process

@TomCreanBook So that's the first point: these records were not done on the day

The second point is that Tom Crean's record was not the only record in February or indeed on that page that was different from the reported birth date

There were 6 instances: maybe all those parents made mistakes

@TomCreanBook ...or a combo of the parents/registrar but I checked and they were from different registrars (Tralee, Dingle)

Mary Spillane=baptised 11 days earlier than birthdate
Eugene Keane=-8 days
Tom Crean=-9 days as "Joanna"
Mary Moriarty=-8 days
Anne Moynahan=-6 days
John Kennedy=-7 days

@TomCreanBook Thirdly, Tom Crean wasn't the only baptismal name that differed from birth records

Baptismal Ellena Sullivan (12th February 1877) is the birth of Kate Sullivan (also 12th February 1877) [Helen ≠ Catherine]

Born in Annascaul, she is three lines above Tom in the baptismal record

@TomCreanBook Fourthly it looks like two sets of the parents' names may also have been incorrect

Mary Moriarty's parents (she was one of those six people in February/March that was baptised earlier than born) are Eugene/Joanna Callaghan in baptismal and Eugene/Johanna Griffin in birth records

@TomCreanBook ...and for child Joanna/Johanna O'Donnell, 25th February 1877, her parents are listed as Michael O'Donnell/Julia Sullivan in the baptismal records and Thomas O'Donnell/Julia Sullivan in the birth records

[There's also one small error of Garvan and Garvey but I'll ignore that...]

@TomCreanBook Yes, in general baptism records may be more accurate if recorded closer to the time, there's that longer window for reporting civil births, etc.: assuming the priest records the information correctly in the baptismal record; you can be sure there are cases where that is not true!

@TomCreanBook I'm not saying 100% that 1877-02-16 as recorded in the baptismal record for Tom Crean is incorrect: I wanted to point out that there is sufficient cause for uncertainty in the priest's recording practices ∴ the baptism (or birth date of the 1877-02-25) could be correct/incorrect

@TomCreanBook Long thread but here's the data, sharing it in case it is of interest: I've highlighted discrepancies between the priest's baptismal records from Ballanvohir Parish and matching available registrar's birth records for February/March 1877 from Tralee/Dingle
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

@TomCreanBook I meant "where Tom Crean's baptism is recorded"