Irish Registry of Deeds Dates
On each Memorial/Deed in this registry, two dates are written but what do they represent? I’d guess the first is when it was submitted to the clerk and maybe the second when it was "proved" (whatever that means) but I'm really not sure. In addition, if the Deed relates to a Marriage Settlement, do these dates tell me anything about the marriage date? Were such settlements always finalised before the marriage - so both dates would be before the marriage date, for example?
Similarly, Betham's Will extracts show two dates too - but again, what do they represent? Is the first when the Will was created (ie. before the death) and the second (again often stated as the "proved" date) when the Will was executed (ie. after the death). Do either of these dates help me to narrow-down the actual death date?
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Since there are several different sorts of Deed that were registered it is virtually impossible for me to guess what your two dates are.
So - what are you looking at and where E.g. Deed number, volume, page, whatever...
Ditto the Betham's extracts, although that's a narrower range of original types, of course.
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Might be something useful in there - I havent really used the registry.
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Thanks for both comments:
To Adrian Bruce1: Yes, there are many types of Deed but I’m talking generally: I attach an example (which happens to be a Deed relating to a Will. As with all other Deeds, it gives the date of the Memorial in words at the start of the Deed - in this case 05/07/1744 - and, in the lefthand margin, a "Registered" date of 01/12/1753. My question is whether I can infer anything about the event itself (in this case a Death) from these dates?
I guess the dates actually refer to the Deed creation and execution dates - so I suppose the death would have occurred between the two dates and probably just before 01/12/1753. But perhaps there was a requirement to execute a Will within a number of days of a Death?
In other cases, the Deed refers to a Marriage Settlement and my question is the same: can I infer anything about the date of marriage from these two dates?
For Betham Will extracts, I attach another example: this says "Joshua Davis Dat(?) 19 Jan 1756 proved 12 Dec 88." So, is the first date the Will creation date and the second "proved" date the Will execution date? If yes, again, do they tell me anything about the Death date? Would the Death have been just before the "proved" date?
To Hayter David: Thanks for the page of links which I'm currently working my way through to see if they help to answer my question.
Perhaps a more general question about FamilySearch: if I have a technical question about a particular collection of records, if there a way to raise it with FamilySearch?
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@BlackPanfa - thanks for the examples.
Usually, it's very dangerous to try to talk generally about what dates mean in the Registry of Deeds. Fortunately, it's usually possible to work things out provided you understand some basics that are not obvious... I'll try to summarise some bits...
In general terms, the Registry of Deeds was created to provide a safe store for agreements (aka Deeds) in the event of loss of the originals or arguments over what a tattered copy actually said. The original document was created and signed off, and then, if the participants wanted, the document would be registered in Dublin at the Registry. A couple of things are important, viz:
- Registration was not compulsory - usually it's just luck whether a particular document was registered;
- The copy that we see in the films of the registered deeds (which is called the Memorial) is not an exact, word-for-word copy of the original. There's typical extra phrasing (boilerplate text if you like) at the start and end and I think even the bit in the middle tends to be a summary. That is why it's called a Memorial rather than a Copy, etc, etc.
- Registration could take place years after the original document was agreed. Maybe a lease was registered 20y after the lease was originally agreed, for example. It's often possible to speculate why that lease was registered 20y after the event - maybe one of the participants had died and the lease carried on with new people, one of whom wanted to be a bit safer than his predecessor. But it usually is just speculation...
For your first example - the Registered date (1753) is, as you realise, the date at which the deed was registered in Dublin.
I would interpret the phrase "A Memorial of the last Will and Testament of ... bearing the date ... [1744]" as meaning that the Will was dated (i.e. written and witnessed) on 5 July 1744. That's not the date of the Memorial - we're looking at the start of the Memorial, which is the extract, summary, preamble, etc that was registered on 5 July 1744.
Can you "infer anything about the event itself (in this case a Death) from these dates?" That's a good question. Certainly, Margaret Davis must have died on or after the date of her will - i.e. on or after 5 July 1744. Otherwise she couldn't have written the will. I can see no good reason to register a will before someone has died. Any will written by someone who is still alive is effectively just a draft because they can change their mind. Therefore it's 99.9% certain that the will was registered after her death.
So, Margaret Davis must have died between 5 July 1744 and 1 December 1753. As you suspected. But I wouldn't want to be too certain about when in that period. It's not unknown for someone to die and no-one to bother proving the will (i.e. getting probate for the will) until a lot later, e.g. when someone wants to dispose of the property and they realise that it's still in the name of the deceased.
NB - re the County of Catherlogh - that had me foxed for a while, then I realised it must be an old spelling of County Carlow!
Re the Betham example:
I presume that "Dat 19 Jan'y 1756" is short for "Dated 19 January 1756" - i.e. that's the date that the will was written and witnessed. (I checked up on some other Betham pages - he's a bit cryptic but everything on my page had a "Dat" and one was actually "Dat'd" which is clearer to interpret as "Dated").
12 December 1788 is the date that the will was proved, i.e. the date that probate was granted. The way that wills are processed in the UK and anywhere else following the same legal system, i.e. Ireland at this time, was that after the death of the person who'd written the will, the executors named in the will (or some of them) had to go to the authorities (Church Courts at this time), present the will and ask for authority to execute the terms of the will and distribute the bequests. So 12 Dec 1788 was the date that the (unknown) executors received their authority. It's not the will execution date (depending on what you mean by that) because it might take months for the executors to sell the estate and distribute the money or land.
So the death date will be between 19 January 1756 and 12 December 1788. While the death date will tend to be a few weeks or months before 12 December 1788, as I explained above, it is not unknown for there to be a big gap - e.g. if Joshua's widow, Anna, was to be allowed to live on in Joshua's house for the rest of her life, and there was nothing else to be distributed, then the executors might not bother with getting that probate until after her death, in which case 1788 would be after the death of both Anna and Joshua - but this is just speculation on my part because I want to show how things are not always simple.
NB - my impression is that getting Probate in the USA is a much longer process than in the UK - here it's a much simpler, one-off process. (Or it was until the Probate people started "working from home").
All comments gratefully accepted...
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By the way, re
In addition, if the Deed relates to a Marriage Settlement, do these dates tell me anything about the marriage date? Were such settlements always finalised before the marriage?
An interesting question! I can only attempt to be logical - would you agree that your daughter could marry someone if the Marriage Settlement hadn't been agreed? Sounds a bit dangerous if the proposed settlement changed before it was signed off! So the Marriage Settlement would surely usually be dated before the marriage - wouldn't it?
But the Registration of the Marriage Settlement could easily be after the date of the Settlement. As I said, registration of stuff was never compulsory - just useful.
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Thanks Adrian, that's very useful indeed and helps me to much better understand Deeds vs Memorials too.
Just to make sure I well understood your explanation, do you confirm that the date at the end of your para starting "I would interpret the phrase..." should be 1 December 1753 rather than 5 July 1744. (I'm not trying to score points here - just to make sure I understood.)
Thanks again for an excellent explanation.
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Whoops @BlackPanfa - you're right. That date at the end of the paragraph should indeed be in 1753. I clearly got punch-drunk with copy and paste.
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