Birth of Teresa McPadden Co. Leitrim
Hello! I have been searching tirelessly for proof of my grandmother's birth. She was born 11 Jun 1911 to Michael McPadden and Mary Horan of Greaghnaglogh Co. Leitrim. She is the youngest of 9 (1 half-sibling, 7 full-siblings) and the only one who's birth I cannot locate. She was born 2 months after the 1911 census.
She came to the US in 1927 (I have the passenger list). I read some newspaper ads from 1926/1927 about how to apply for a visa to come to the US. Part of the application included 2 certified copies of a birth certificate. So I think that it must exist.
Here is a list of places I have contacted and the results:
GRO - no person exists
Leitrim Genealogy - no documents found
Drumkeeran parish - stated the documents from 1880-1915 are missing. Though I was able to look on rootsireland.ie to find her 1/2 sibling (Mary Bridget McPadden 1896) and brother's (Martin McPadden 1898) baptism certificate. Therefore I contacted NLI.
NLI - awaiting response
US Immigration Services - awaiting response, it's been nearly 6 months
Sites searched: rootsireland.ie, ancestry.com, irishgenealogy.ie, findmypast.com, familysearch.org
I am wanting to apply for citizenship and am only missing this document. I have read that sometimes, though rare, application can be made with the siblings documents. I do have every birth certificate, marriage certificate (where applicable), and death certificate, as well as immigration papers for all who left Ireland.
I am looking for recommendations on other places to look for either a birth registry or baptismal certificate...or other documents that are acceptable in lieu of those to prove birth in Ireland.
Thank you in advance for your input!
Jamie
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Her birth certificate should be at irishgenealogy.ie, the Irish Government's official website for civil registration. I searched under a few different names and years, but didn't find anything.
Her name may have been mis-indexed. Try searching for McFadden and other names similiar to McPadden. Maybe it was registered late, or not at all- there was a lot of Irish nationalist and anti-British sentiment at the time and not registering a birth may have been an act of defiance against the government.
The National Library of Ireland (NLI) made copies of all the Catholic records up to the year 1880. The scanning was done back in the 1970s and the 1980s and the cut-off was due to privacy laws. Here's their page for the parish of Ennismagrath (aka Drumkeerin): https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0830 They seem to only have records up to 1839. The Irish Catholic records at Ancestry and FindMyPast are copies of the records from NLI.
The GRO in the United Kingdom won't be able to help you- all Irish civil registration records were transferred to the new Irish government following their independence.
Maybe the birth was mentioned in a newspaper. You could try the British Newspaper Archive. They are adding new titles, especially smaller, local newspapers all the time.
Did her parent's or another relative die while she was still in Ireland? Then the copies of the probate (at the website of the National Archives of Ireland) may mention her name and relationship. But I guess this doesn't prove her birthplace.
The 1926 Irish census should state her birthplace. But current policy is that it won't be released until 2027. There's a petition to have limited information from it released early, you can sign it here: https://www.change.org/p/release-the-1926-irish-census
I don't know the rules of applying for Irish citizenship, but it seems to me that even if you can't prove her birthplace, you could prove the birthplace of at least one of her parents, provided they were born after 1864 and had their birth registered. And you could prove the relationship between her and her parent with various documents from the US.
I wish you good luck.
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If she married in the Roman Catholic church, she would have shown proof to the priest/church of her baptism in Ireland. That marriage record should have details of that baptism which may be accepted as a substitute for the birth record and/or may lead you to her birth record.
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Thank you kindly for your response. I will search the newspapers to see if I can find anything. Her parents didn't pass until after she had already come to the US (1927), mother in 1940 and father in 1959. But I do have their birth, marriage and death records. I will also search the probate records. That is something I had not thought of.
I am wondering if her name was incorrectly indexed. I opened every page on irishgenealogy.ie a few days ago for the year 1911 and found 2 pages that didn't match the names listed. I am sure that process was quite the undertaking though.
Like many, I am anxious for the 1926 census to come out. I had signed a petition a while back, but it doesn't look the same as this one. So I will also sign this one. If nothing else, I am optimistic that she will be on this census as she didn't leave for the US until May 1927. I do know that her parents did live in the same house until sometime in 1928. My grandmother had a brother John, who also came to the US. He was killed in an accident at work in July 1927. He had left money, unclear how much, to my great grandparents. They purchased a house in Lisanerris (sp?), which was later owned by my grandmother's brother, Martin.
Again, thank you so much for your knowledge. I will follow up with your suggestions.
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Unfortunately, she didn't marry until she was in the US.
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I am referring to a marriage in the USA. After the Ne Temere of 1908, priests were supposed to document the baptismal reference on the marriage record. I was looking at a 1913 marriage in New York yesterday, with the details of the groom's and bride's baptisms in County Leitrim and County Cavan.
Some priests were better than others. I've seen some that have exact parish detail.
This snip is from a 1911 Philadelphia marriage register, with reference to the 2 baptisms in County Tyrone and County Donegal.
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I had no idea! I will look into that! Thank you so much!
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A few things you could look into....
You have Teresa's surname spelled incorrectly. Her parents marriage record, including her father's signature, and all the visible birth records spell their surname as "McPaden", thus a single "d". The census takers in both the 1901 and 1911 census would seem to have incorrectly spelled the surname with a double letter.
https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/ is your first and best location of reference for any birth records. That said, I cant find a birth record for a Teresa McPaden.
Have you traced the records of each of her sisters, Kate and Elizabeth? Could it be that Teresa is actually either Kate or Elizabeth? It is often said that people lost five years in transitioning from Ireland to America, and it is very true. Dropping a few years, in my experience, would seem to have been the norm for the majority of immigrants, and appearing a few years younger could never be a bad thing. Also, a woman using a different name to the one she was registered with at birth is far from unusual. Even today, I have friends and relatives who are known by a name that is not on their birth record.
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Agree with @John Curran - in researching for others I have often found that the name used after immigration was not the name on the birth registration. Just recently, a girl named Bridget at birth was found as Teresa in the USA. And any number of Bridgets became Beatrice once they settled here.
There are also a large number of Irish births registered without the forename or given name. John Grenham's blog on that subject is a good read. https://www.johngrenham.com/blog/2020/12/03/grenhams-third-law-of-irish-genealogy/
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@John Curran Thank you for your response. I had heard about people using sibling's identities before (really difficult to do that these days). Both of her sisters also came to the US, Kate in 1922 and Elizabeth in 1927 just after my grandmother the same year. I am nearly through looking at every page in the registry for the year 1911. I will check the surrounding years as well, but it will take significant time. Elizabeth, went by Betty, was the family historian. Unfortunately, she passed long before I was old enough to realize that my parents had aunts & uncles too! She did not have children either. She did pass some info onto a distant cousin, who is reluctant to share information.
It's interesting about the spelling of her surname as well. The birth registries for all of her siblings is McPaden, but all other documentation is spelled McPadden. Also one of her brothers, Thomas, started spelling his name McFadden after he had been in the US some time.
I do have her certificate of arrival, application for naturalization, certificate of citizenship, death certificate (US), social security card, and her marriage license, all which state her place of birth as Greanaglogh, Co. Leitrim, Ireland. But I don't know that the Irish government will accept that as proper documentation for me to request a foreign birth registry.
Thanks again for your input. 🙂
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@JamieDunn4 I may have been less than fully clear in my initial comments.
I was not suggesting that your grandmother Teresa would use her sibling's identity. I was suggesting that Teresa may actually be either Kate or Elizabeth. I.E. that Kate or Elizabeth would use the name Teresa in their new country.
However, if you have also traced the lives of Kate and Elizabeth, this would not be a possibility.
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