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Searching for information about g.Great Grandfather Michael Downs b. SEP 20, 1831 Place: Research indicates he was from Piltown, County Kilkenny. I would like any info people may have about finding records in this town, Parish. I want to plan a trip in the near future. Regards, Mike Downs

AZWildFire

Wednesday 27th Jan 2016, 10:40PM

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  • Pilltown is in the RC parish of Templeorum. Their baptism & marriage records start in 1803 and are on-line free on the National Library site:

     

    http://registers.nli.ie/parishes

     

    Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘

    Wednesday 27th Jan 2016, 10:56PM
  • Does anyone know the usual age of child at Baptism in the 1830's....Found many Downs in Piltown but none who match given name and DOB. Any help appreciated.

    AZWildFire

    Thursday 28th Jan 2016, 08:41PM
  • For RC births, baptism was normally within a day or two of the birth. Otherwise the child might be left in limbo if it died before being baptised. Other denominations often left it longer. In the 1800s in Ireland most people didn't celebrate birthdays and dates of birth on subsequent marriage or death certificates can often be wrong by many years. Don't rely to heavily on the accuracy of such information.

     

     

    Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘

    Friday 29th Jan 2016, 07:42PM
  • I found out very early on that children hadn't a clue to the age of their parents.  And totally clueless about their own age for that matter.  Death certificates can be totally disregarded if your trying to hone in by age.  The baptism records are the best, and any census records where it says the child was born in the year the census was taken.  Baptisms were done on a daily basis in some regions.  One priest was kind enough to furnish the date of birth and baptism in his record.  They all were 2 days apart.  In the church records, the surnames can be spelled any which way by some priests.  I have a great grandmother when every time she brought a child to be Baptised, the priest made up a new spelling for the family name.  

    Rosemary44

    Tuesday 19th Jul 2016, 05:18AM

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