Irish RC church records and Illegitimacy

[Pickieannie]

I was rather shocked when searching a possible ancestor's baptismal record in the mid 1800 to find "Illegitimate" written, not only one child but for five infants who shared the same parents. I know the father was Church of Ireland but converted to the RC faith and the mother was Catholic. I can only presume that the parents were "living in sin" as it would have been seen at the time which is unlikely given the circumstance or the priest of the parish did not recognize the marriage of the parents. Later children born to the same parents did not have the Illegitimate tag to their records. I also noticed in other church records the term "spurious" used meaning illegitimate.

I wonder does any forum member have an opinion or knowledge on such matters.

Thanks for reading my post

Pickieannie

[Janet in Yorkshire]

I'm not sure why you're shocked - it was fairly common practice for the word illegitimate to be added to baptisms recorded in C of E church registers until 1900 and after, in some parishes. "Spurious," "base born," "natural child of" were also common alternatives used for the word illegitimate when baptisms were recorded. I also have someone in my tree recorded as "love child" - a compassionate vicar, perhaps!
Were the baptisms RC or Church of Ireland? Marriages in church of Ireland were registered from 1845, whilst marriages taking place in RC churches could not be registered until 1864. Have you found marriages for the parents of the children? If so, when did they take place?

I have the opposite problem with my Irish families who came over during and after the famine - plenty of RC baptisms, but a scarcity of marriages (due, I think, to the unavailability of the relevant church records.) Almost all of the baptisms record the same surname for both parents, but for several of the couples there are no matching civil marriage index entries. Possibly there was a RC church marriage, but no registrar in attendance.
Whilst reading through a complete RC baptism parish register I did come across a few examples of the parents having different surnames, but the priest had added no comments. (As a matter of interest, I checked the GRO birth registrations of these children and they were all registered with the just surname of the mother, no father surname.)

Before the introduction of civil registration, church records were used as proof of marriage and legitimacy - only legitimate heirs (children from the marriage of the mother & father) could inherit and so the use of the word illegitimate was a factual record and not necessarily judgemental or lacking compassion.

Jay

[GallowayLass]

Some Scottish entries are even more unsympathetic. More than a few times I have come across “bastard” son or daughter of... and also “born of fornication”.

[Jill on the A272]

I've even seen a note about illegitimacy on the burial of an old man in his seventies in 1882 (Church of England) as the vicar was outraged when he found that he was buried under his father's surname although his parents hadn't married until a few weeks after his birth.

[Elwyn]

It’s possible that the couple married in a Registry Office – an option available in Ireland from 1845 onwards – something that many mixed denomination couples opted for. If so, the RC church may not have recognised the validity of that marriage and consequently viewed the children as illegitimate.

In addition to the other terms mentioned, I have seen bastard frequently too. But it didn’t have the same pejorative meaning then as it does now. Concubine is another term I have come across in Church of Ireland parish records which usually raises a smile.

[Olde Crone Holden]

I have seen illegitimate on the Scottish death certificate of a man in his 70s. Someone surely must have offered that piece of information to the registrar!

OC

[Elwyn]

Marriages in church of Ireland were registered from 1845, whilst marriages taking place in RC churches could not be registered until 1864.



Possibly there was a RC church marriage, but no registrar in attendance.





Jay

Janet,

When statutory marriage registration was introduced in Ireland in 1845, the RC church declined to co-operate with registering marriages with the civil authority (viewing it as a spiritual matter which the state had no business with). So they weren’t prevented from registering their marriages, they declined to do so even though RC churches in England were content to register theirs. But the background is of course Anglo-Irish relations, and perceived state interference. That state of affairs was allowed to continue till 1864 when they were compelled to register them. However you will find in some parts of Ireland that many priests still didn’t bother for another 20 years or so. There are many RC marriages in places like Donegal in the 1860s and 1870s that are not in the civil records, but are in the parish records.

The 1844 Irish Marriage Act recognised the validity of RC (and all other denominations) marriages and there was never a need for a Registrar to validate RC marriages as in England. The only time a Registrar validated a marriage in Ireland is/was with denominations where there is no Priest, Minister or other suitably trained person to conduct it eg Brethren, and also – at one time – if the premises where the ceremony was taking place wasn’t licensed for marriages. I have seen some Methodist Marriages where there was a Methodist Minister to conduct it, but there was also a Registrar present and the explanation that our local Registrar gave was that the church wasn't registered at that time.

[Janet in Yorkshire]

Thanks for that information, Elwyn. I was told about the date differences in civil registration when I visited Joyce House in Dublin about a decade ago. As my rellies were RC and having children in Northumberland from 1860 onwards, we knew they had come over before 1864 and the staff suggested I would need to search church records at the National Library, which I hadn't time to do.
I suspect that most of their descendants and kinsfolk in England did marry, but in the local RC church - the marriage register of which is not available on line. The very few marriages I have found documentation for were either in the local C of E church or at the Registry Office.
I know all too well about the attitudes of some priests towards mixed marriages and what they viewed as the importance of "welcoming" the offspring of such marriages into the RC faith.
The law here about which places could be licensed for marriages to take place changed some time ago. However, in the first part of the 1970's I was a bridesmaid in an RC and also a Congregationalist church. On both occasions I went into the vestry for the signing of the register and the registrar was in attendance. Recently I went to a marriage at the same RC church, when there was no registrar present. As the couple had already had a civil marriage in the groom's home country, there would have been no need for the registrar to attend as the marriage ceremony and nuptial mass was purely a faith matter. I also presumed that by then the church would have been licenced.

Jay

[Elwyn]

Jay,

1864 was when statutory birth and death registration started in Ireland. I think the authorities at that time just saw it as anomalous that RC marriages weren’t also being registered because obviously all other denominations had been registered since 1845 (1837 in England & 1855 in Scotland). So it was time to bring things into line so the whole of Britain & Ireland was recording B, D & M data in much the same way.

The licensed building aspect still baffles me at times because I have seen quite a few Presbyterian marriages by special licence here in Ireland where couples were married at their home or in the Manse (common practice in Scotland in the 1800s too). Clearly not licensed premises, but no registrar was present. So I am not entirely sure I have got to the bottom of that law. Which has gone now anyway.

[Pickieannie]

Thank you to all who took the time to answered my query, very interesting and helpful.