Michael Fitzpatrick

Hello Stephen,

I went to www.rootsireland.ie and searched for your Michael Fitzpatrick.  As you can imagine there are quite a number of people of that name, so I tried to refine it.  It's difficult to verify if you have the correct record when you haven't got both parents names.

I found a Michael Fitzpatrick, father Michael Fitzpatrick, mother Ellen  Blank? baptised in 1864 in Co Laois.  It is impossible to say at this stage if this is your Michael

However.......

I searched for Mary with the same parents and found a baptismal record for her in 1855 and  in Co Laois!

I searched for Catherine with same parents and found a baptismal record in1857 in Co Laois.

I then went back further and searched the marriage records to see if a Michael Fitzpatrick married a woman called Ellen in Co Laois in that timeframe and found the marriage in 1854.

I know that you place Michael's birth around 1845 or so put please bear the following in mind.

Most people who emigrated were illiterate and undocumented.  They didn't know how to spell their names and hadn't a clue as to what age they were.  At the port of arrival their names were recorded phonetically, their ages were only guessed, and this is the information that followed them for the rest of their lives.

The proof of this occured in 1909 when the old age pension was introduced into ireland.  People had to prove their ages and were forced to go through baptismal records to establish when they were born.  That is why there is such HUGE discrepancies between ages in the 1901 census and the 1911 census of Ireland.  Dates were found to be out by many many years in some cases.

We tend to forget that people back then had no social security numbers, and were not tracked from the cradle to the grave as we are today.  They didn't celebrate birthdays, as it was all they could do to clothe and feed themselves.  So I would advise that people bear this in mind when researching.

All events took place in the parish of Portlaois.

You will need to register (free) with this site and then perform your search. when you have the record you want it costs about €5 to open it and print it off.   If you bulk buy it costs less.

Kind regards,

Anne Dennehy