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Archiver > IRL-WESTMEATH > 2007-01 > 1169477378


From: Eilís OHara <>
Subject: Re: [IRL-WESTMEATH] Searching for records in Westmeath - CivilRecords - Index-Caution
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:49:38 +0000 (GMT)
In-Reply-To: <520b3e20701212208k1c85c231wa53b24802e5f0e20@mail.gmail.com>


Hello All,

The Indexes of Irish Civil Registration Records used alone won't give you the exact location of your ancestor's birth, marriage or death.

The Index gives only the Surname, Christian Name, Name of the Registration District also known as the Superintendent Registrar's District in which the birth, marriage or death took place, volume and page number of the register in which the entry was recorded.

If you just use the location in the Index which is the Registration District, and don't get or look at the detailed birth, marriage or death record, you don't have the location for your ancestor's "event". If you have a record with just that information or if someone has given you just that information, it's an index record and not complete. You need to go one step further to the actual cert for the event(s).

The Registration Districts were formed following the boundaries of the Poor Law Unions. If you go to the Sean Ruad website seanruad.com and search Westmeath by Poor Law Union (click on that as your search feature and Westmeath as your county) you'll see Mullingar is the largest registration district in the county. That search will give you all the townlands and civil parishes that are part of the Mullingar Registration District. So Mullingar Town or Mullingar RC Parish or Mullingar Church of Ireland Parish are just specks in the landscape of the substantially larger Mullingar Registration District which goes all the way to the County Offaly (then Kings County) border on the south, to the County Meath border on the east and to the County Longford border on the west.

If you have several "events" in that registration district and just get
one detailed record, again you can't assume the other events happened in the location of the detailed record in the Mullingar Registration District. Going one step further for each of the records will save you considerable time, energy and frustration searching your ancestors locations in Westmeath or knowing what those locations were.

Regards.
Eilis O'Hara

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