There are few if any ethnicities or countries that have as much information available as the Irish have. Everybody and their uncles and aunts are researching Irish ancestry though it involves a lot of angst along the way. every time I turn around, there is a new website (new to me) for me to explore. But none of them bring me any closer to finding more information about my 2X grandfather, James McCristle.
I now have 1350 names in my database – of course, included are a lot of names who married into the McCrystal clan. I cannot seem to narrow down many names who may be the same person – How many John McCrystal (and all the variations of the last name spelling) can there be? Try in excess of 75! Now, you might think that there are duplicates in that list – and there might be. However, that name is almost used as much as James. It is like Bridget and Mary and Margaret! Everyone named their children these names and when they registered the birth, only the first name was showing – if they had a middle name, it could have helped a little. Of course, there are more children named “Patrick Joseph” than you can shake a stick at.
Also when marriages are registered, the age of the two individuals are listed as “full age”. Now that likely means at least 20 or 21 years of age. In the US, when people got married in the 1800s, they had a relative sign off that they were over 21 (which did not mean they were, but it was at least on the record as being old enough to marry). This was especially true for the females.
Reading the birth, marriage and death registers has been a learning experience but I am actually now getting pretty good at it. If the writing is too bad I turn Claude (.ai) on to it and it is amazing how much Claude can decipher! See next entry about working with Claude!