Should I take DOB from a grave stone?

Question

My 3rd great uncle [[Kearney-2409|Nicholas Kearney (1818-1897)]] was baptised in County Dublin, Ireland on 13 Jun 1818. This is the date given in the church register, and is correct.

FindAGrave gives a photograph of his grave stone in Massachusetts USA, where he emigrated to, and a date of birth of 24 Dec 1817. This is verified by nothing other than the inscription on the grave stone itself.

Roman Catholic children in Ireland were usually baptised within two or three days of birth, a week at most, unless unusually ill at birth.

My question is whether or not to take the date of birth from the grave stone for his Wikitree profile, or not to trust it. At present, I have simply estimated the date of birth, but given the baptism date. There will be no birth registration, only the church baptism register.

Comments

If the child was quite ill at birth they would usually have been baptised almost immediately , as soon as a priest could get to the home.

Is there a chance that baptism record says Jan not June?

---

It many places, and I would assume Ireland as well, if the child is in danger of dying, the midwife would baptize the child; this would recorded in the baptismal register.

"If the ordinary minister is absent or impeded, a catechist or some other person deputed to this office by the local Ordinary, may lawfully confer baptism; indeed, in a case of necessity, any person who has the requisite intention may do so (canon 861 §2), even a non-Catholic or a non-Christian.

Answer 1

There are multiple issues here:

The baptism record only provides direct evidence of when the baptism occurred. While you can make an assumption that baptisms typically happened within a few days to a week after birth, this is not always the case. There are many baptism entries that have occurred months after birth.

The headstone inscription only provides direct evidence of a date of death and location where he his buried. As you mentioned, inscriptions can be wrong, especially given the fact that this information is often handwritten and comes from a third party who did not witness said events.

Taking either record at face value would be incorrect - so this is where you have to start cross-referencing other sources. 

• The marriage record does not provide an age or date of birth, so strike that.
• The 1850 Census says age = 30; so circa 1820
• The 1860 Census says age = 40; so circa 1820
• The 1870 Census says age = 52; so circa 1818
• The death entry says age = 80; so circa 1817

None of the above are consistent with any specific year of birth. They all dance around a ±2 year timeframe from the baptism.

I would suggest that the birth be listed as 'before 13 Jun 1818' and you document in the Research Notes how you came to the conclusion (based on the above information).

Comments

Baptisms occurred at varying times after birth for some religions, but there were some fairly strict rules for Catholic baptisms.

See here for another discussion.

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1444384/for-catholic-baptism-1800s-ireland-how-close-are-they-births

---

Not so much rules as they were customs. And I covered that in my response.

---

If you were an Irish Catholic in the time frame discussed, plus many years before and after you would have had no illusions that what the Catholic Church told you to do were customs.

Or that you had the option of not following the Churches rules.

Parish priests ruled the lives of the local Irish Catholics for 100s of years and still do in some places.

I have over 200 years of personal family Roman Catholic history.

As a child and young adult I would never have questioned anything that Father O' Sullivan said to do or not to do. Nor would my parents at that time.

I agree with entering the birth as before the baptism date.

There are many Church of England baptisms and other religions baptisms that took place some time after the birth,

Answer 2

I would use the date and explain where it came from in the biography along with  baptismal information (including sources)

Although there have been errors on tombstones, the majority are correct. Unless someone can provide proof that it is incorrect there should be no reason to doubt it.

Comments

Okay, thank you so much for that!

---

Unless someone can provide proof that it is incorrect there should be no reason to doubt it.

This is the burden of proof fallacy. This fallacy implies that a claim is true unless proven false, which is not a valid logical argument. For example, claiming that unicorns exist because no one can prove they don't...

It is not the responsibility of others to prove the gravestone inscription incorrect; instead, it is the responsibility of the person using that information to provide evidence and support for its accuracy (e.g., what other records support and corroborate this date?).

This is why we source everything we do - to prove and support the claims being made - and use Research Notes to help draw attention to how we came to those conclusions.

---

I partially agree.   The date came from someone and it may or may not be correct, but until a better source becomes available it can be used with an explaination in the biography of where it came from.

EVERY record was entered by someone and may or may not be correct.   In the past 45 years I have seen many birth certificates with errors.  All you can do is note the discrepencies in the biography and and continue to look for more proof.

Answer 3

It depends.  I have encountered a few profiles where the birth date calculated from the gravestone differs from the birth date obtained from other sources. The quality of the other source matters. For example, a birth certificate (be sure it's not a baptism) would supersede the gravestone.  On the other hand, I've seen a profile where the birth date recorded on the death certificate is inconsistent with both the gravestone and other sources--especially if the person died very old.  I traced this error to a mis-reading of the writing on the original death certificate.  The coroner had bad handwriting.

So, for gravestone-based birth dates, trust but verify, if possible.

Answer 4

My opinion is that any event data that does not come from a primary event record should be marked as uncertain.

A gravestone is not a primary event record; likewise Findagrave.com is not a primary event record.

You should feel free to use the data as long as you cite your source and indicate that the information is uncertain (again, my opinion).

Answer 5

I have found numerous mistakes on Tombstones, mostly wrong birth dates. One of my favorites is a wrong death date. The tombstone said he died in a particular year; however, I found a newspaper obituary for a year later. I sent this to the memorial manager and he changed the death year.

I had another one where I knew the mother died in childbirth. Her tombstone gave a death date but then her child, who survived, had a birthdate on official records for three days after the mother died. After a bit of back and forth, the mother's FindAGrave memorial was changed.

Comments

Virginia, my second great grandmother has the wrong date of death on her tombstone. I have her newspaper obituary that my grandmother saved, and I have her death certificate that I wrote for. I left her death as what was on the tombstone, but after reading this about mistakes on tombstones. I will change her death date. Thank you for your comment.

---

You are welcome, Alexis! I am glad my experience helped. I have had quite a few tombstone episodes. Some were solved and some are still lingering with their wrongness!!

Answer 6

As long as you can see the actual baptismal record and can check that the year is accurate, I think the safest thing is to put the birth as uncertain but before the baptismal date. Civil birth records in Ireland are notoriously inaccurate. Often the civil record says the child was born after the child was baptized. That's because the parents were anxious to get the child baptized asap after birth and the church recorded the baptism. The parents weren't that interested in getting the child recorded for the British government. Not filing within a specific time period incurred a fine. Rather than get a fine, the parents dated the birth as later. Also consider that in the rural parts of Ireland, dates were not that important. Sometimes people didn't really know when they were born and so the information on headstones (which came from someone else) easily were inaccurate. And then consider that families often had six to 12 children. Think about the difficulty of keeping all the birthdates straight! So headstones aren't always accurate.