McBride family from Ballymoney

Hi there,

First of all, do you know what religion they were? If they were Roman Catholic, there are church records available starting from 1853 for both baptismal and marriage records. These cover the diocese of Ballymoney (Down and Connor). They can be accessed at the National Library of Ireland, Pos. 5473, or the Public Records of Northern Ireland (PRONI), MIC.1D/69A, or the Ulster Historical Foundation (UHF). If you have any difficulty, you could try writing to the parish priest for more assistance.

Civil registration records are available from the General Register Office (GRO). These start from 1864 however. You can access the website here: http://www.groireland.ie/research.htm

You could also try checking the land records called the Tithe Applotment Books (1823-38) or the later Griffth's Valuation (1848-64). Griffith's is freely available here: www.askaboutireland.com or here: www.failteromhat.com Failte Romhat has lots of other useful links you could try looking at.

There workhouse records (1839-48 Famine period) available for Ballymoney. It might be worth taking a look at these too. These are in PRONI, ref. no. 259174-5.

Please make sure you link anyone else in your family who is interested in their Irish heritage to our site - and indeed anyone else you know of Irish heritage.

Kind regards,

Sinead Cooney

Genealogist (Ireland XO)