Frequently Asked Questions
1.Results Relevance Rating:
***** Very Good Match
**** Good Match
*** Possible Match
** Matches Most Criteria
* Matches Some Criteria
2. What is being searched?
Civil records of birth for the period 1864 to 1900 and 19th church records
of baptism relating to County Mayo. These are held in two databases, one
relating to the northern half of the county and other relating to the
southern part of Mayo.
Users of the database should be aware of the following:
3. SURNAME ANOMALIES
Nowadays, we all have a standard spelling for our surname. That was not the
case in County Mayo in the 19th century. Prefixes were usually dropped,
surnames were sometimes anglicised or translated from Irish and rarer
surnames were absorbed into more common surnames.
Users of the database should bear these factors in mind when examining the
Search Results.
4. Prefixes:
Surname prefixes such as Mc, and O were often disregarded when recording
births and baptisms in Mayo in the 19th century. Some surnames (for example
McDonnell and O'Donnell) were recorded on 19th century registers simply as
Donnell (or a variant spelling of Donnell). A search for McDonnell will
therefore return Donnell, McDonnell and O'Donnell and variations of these
surnames.
5. Anglicization and Translation:
Many Mayo people spoke Irish as their first language in the 19th century.
Anglicisation and translation / mistranslation of surnames was common in the
19th century record-keeping when spoken Irish was translated by clergymen
and registrars and recorded using their interpretations (which were
sometimes illogical) in English.
Users of the database should also bear in mind that emigrants sometimes
anglicised their surname after they arrived abroad. By way of examples some
South Mayo-born McHugh adopted the surname Hewson. Some Clearys became
Clarkes and some Aughawans became Whitesteeds and Killeen occasionally
became Churchill.
Some surnames, for example Cunnane was frequently mistranslated as Rabbit
(Coinin being the Irish for a rabbit) particularly in south Mayo. Similarly,
Foody, Swift and Speed were interchangeable on 19th century records as were
McThomas, Thomas, Cavish and Holmes.
6. Assimilation of rare surnames:
Rarer Mayo surnames were sometimes assimilated into similar-sounding more
common surnames both in recording births and baptisms in Mayo and among
emigrants from Mayo. Common examples of assimilation include Cormican which
frequently became McCormack and Carty which became McCarthy.
7. ANOMOLIES with regard to BIRTHDATES and AGE:
Generally speaking, our 19th and early 20th century ancestors were not as
mindful of accurately recording ages and dates as we are today.
Birth Dates:
Many emigrants did not know their birthday since birthdays were rarely
celebrated when they were young in Mayo. Where occasion demanded it, a
birthday was contrived and the more popular choices adopted included 17
March (St. Patrick's Day), 4 July (US Independence Day) and 25 December
(Christmas Day). If you ancestor is supposed to have been born on such a
date, be cautious, it has a one in 365 chance of being correct!
Age:
Usually, even when Mayo-born emigrants knew their true age, they tended to
understate it particularly on census returns and marriage records. Usually,
the older the individual, the greater the undestatement of age. The level of
understatement has been found to be greater among adult females than males.
Ages stated as multiples of 5 and 10 should be taken as estimates.
A search of births and baptisms will therefore return matches for:
the searched year,
the preceding five years and
the two years after the searched year.
A search for a person born in 1850 will therefore show all possible matches
from 1 January 1845 to 31 December 1852.
8. FORENAMES:
Until the end
of the 19th century the vast majority of persons born in Mayo are
recorded as having one forename on their birth or baptism records. Often,
as adults, emigrant men adopted a second forename or at least a middle
initial.
Many based their choice on the forename of their father but it
was also fashionable to adopted Joseph (after St. Joseph) or patriot names
such as Emmet (after the Irish patriot
Robert Emmet) as a second forename. Like surnames, some forenames were changed in
some cases to disguise the Irish origin of their bearers. Typical forename changes
of this kind include Thady to Theadore and Bridget to Beatrice.
'Pet'., Latin and Irish forenames:
Many forenames have 'pet' forms which are often found in 19th century
registers or were applied to persons registered under the original form of
their forename. The more common 'pet' forms include Nancy for Anne, Peg,
Peggy and Rita for Margaret, May for Mary, Sally and Sadie for Sabina and
Sarah, Delia and Della for Bridget, Nora for Honor, Sandy for Alexander,
Austin for Augustine, Dick for Richard, Jim for James, Tom for Thomas, etc.
Some church registers were kept in Latin and in some parishes after the
Gaelic Revival of the 1890s some entries were made in Irish.
The search software has the ability to take almost all these forename
variations into consideration in doing a search.
9. How is the database searched?
When the database is searched, all variations of the surname and forename,
as found on records are automatically checked and presented in the results
page(s). In some cases surname variations are quite different in one part
of the county from the other another and this is reflected in the spellings
of the records returned, i.e. a variant of a North Mayo surname may be
returned but if this variant is not relevant in South Mayo context it is not
returned (and vice versa) among the search results.
10. How to Register
Click on the Login link on the left hand side of the screen.
If you have not already registered, click the Register button.
Enter your details and click the Confirm button.
11. How to buy credits
Once you are registered and logged in, you can buy credits.
Once you select the number of credits you wish to buy, you can make your
purchase through the secure PayPal website.
All major credit cards are accepted.
Credits enable you to view information which is otherwise hidden.
When you view a record or search result of interest, you can print it.
Records you have paid for can also be viewed later using the History option.