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I hope I am not out of order asking a question re writing again but rethinking my effort on last query has resulted in me finding the record I need. I am attaching another example of writing that I am struggling with.

Under Column 9 residence of informant the first name is hard to deciper?

X???X - Gibson, son, present at death, 27 williamstown.

Any insights would be great enter image description here

2 Answers 2

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The name is Robert Gibson.

If there is a name I cannot read – which happens fairly often – then I will turn to what I can read first, and see if that helps to track it down. In this case, given this is an 1899 death certificate, the 1901 Irish census seems a good starting place.

We know his address is 27 Williamstown. So Blackrock area of Dublin. By searching this area I came across:

Robert Gibson, age 34, living in Blackrock, house number 27
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/Blackrock/Rock_Road__Part_of_/1313175/

You can view the relevant images there to determine whether this is the correct man, but pieces seem to fit. Sometimes to read old documents you need to reverse-engineer until you can work out the original text, which then often becomes obvious. A word of caution, however, to make sure you are not just seeing what you want to see.

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    Just a comment to reiterate that Robert Gibson, son, is the informant. The decedent's name is cut off from this image, but he was a 68-year-old widower, brick layer, cause of death "Bronchitis / 3 Months / Certified." The location of Blackrock, Rathdown is confirmed in the first two lines of the image, and the third line does say Dublin.
    – shoover
    Sep 11, 2019 at 22:25
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The name appears to be "Robert". The initial capital is odd, but mainly because of the emphasized beginning loop. That is not a dash before "Gibson", it was intended to be the cross stroke for the "t" at the end of "Robert".

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