Dermotts from Portadown area

Hello Jim

Many thanks for your query and lets hope we can help you in your research prior to your visit!

We suggest trying the Irish Family History Foundation website as a first port of call for records linked to Portadown County.

Armagh.  https://rootsireland.ie/armagh/search.php

This will also give you a link to the Armagh Ancestry site for further advice on archive linked to the region.

I've also attached a general guide for searching for Northern Ireland Ancestors.

This is a further link to help you develop an understanding of counties, towns and administrative divisions., which can really help narrow down your search for archives.

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/

many thanks

Bernadette

IrelandXO Volunteer Partner

Jim,

You haven’t said what denomination your Dermott family was but looking at the 1901 census, most in that county were Church of Ireland (Anglican).  Records worth searching would be Seagoe parish (they start in 1672), Drumcree (1788) and perhaps Portadown St Marks (1826). Copies of all those records are in PRONI (the public record office in Belfast). They are free to view there. Some years for Seagoe & Drumcree are on rootsireland, but they don’t have them all. (Subscription site).

Thank you for the replies. I will certainly take action as suggested. I have attached a document I recently came across which on the bottom left shows Eliza and John Dermott with what I think is the parish name? I cant quite make it out but perhaps it may make sense to someone in this community? Any thoughts would be appreciated and thank you again.

The parish is Gorey which is in Co Wexford. That’s about 150 miles south of Portadown. Also it’s a Catholic set of records whereas the Dermotts around Portadown were all Church of Ireland. So probably the wrong denomination as well as the wrong part of Ireland.

There’s a misconception that most church records are on-line these days. As far as Ireland is concerned, many but not all, RC records are on-line but for other denominations they are not. For many Church of Ireland and other denominations you need to go to the church or a repository such as PRONI and look them up. (Or pay a researcher to do it for you).

Thank you Elwyn, the line showing john and eliza dermott (as well as mary) to me looks like Ballywon(sp?). Can you let me know what this refers to?

So you are thinking that the Dermotts I am looking for where for sure Catholic a showing on the title of the attachement. This would be very interesting as from what I can find they were mostly Protestant--Anglican when they came to Canada.

And thank you for taking the time to help me.

jim

Jim,

Ballywon…. is the townland where the couple lived. (Their address).  There were no street names or house numbers in rural Ireland then. Indeed in many parts that’s still true today. Your townland was enough to identify you or get a letter delivered. I can’t decipher the full place name. (Perhaps someone with better local knowledge may be able to help, or you might get it from another baptism record). You can see all the formal townland names in Gorey RC parish using this link: 

https://www.johngrenham.com/browse/counties/rcmaps/wexfordrc.php#maps/

Some townlands had alternative names and some had sub-divisions which only a local would know. But I don’t think it will actually matter. I have had a closer look at that Gorey baptism. What it records is the baptism of John to a mother named Eliza Dermot ie her maiden name was Dermot. Not Wilson. So that’s not your family at all is it? You are looking for Eliza Wilson, not Dermot. Look at all the other baptisms on that page. All the mothers are recorded by their maiden names, not their married names. That was normal practice. By way of example, the one on the 24th was Thomas O’Brien born to Eliza Whelan & Michael O’Brien of Clonsilla. Sponsors were Mary Meehan and Niall O’Brien.

I don’t think your ancestors were Catholic at all. Your initial information was that your ancestors came from around Portadown. So I pointed out that all the Dermotts there were Church of Ireland (in the 1901 census anyway) and that those baptism and marriage records for the period you need are probably not on-line.  The couple you have found in Gorey lived 150 miles away and were a distinctly different religious denomination, so if your Portadown information is accurate it makes it highly unlikely they are your family. Just another couple with similar but not identical names.

Thank you Elwyn, yes I am looking for john and eliza(wilson) dermott. So much to learn!

I thought maybe dermot could have been what we now see as dermott here in canada. Do you think there is any chance we may have been mcdermott prior to arrival in Canada and then changed to dermott? Thank you for the information and clarification as to what I was looking at. 

Hope you are having a great day and thanks again, jim 

Jim,

The idea of a single or correct spelling for a surname or a place name in Ireland is very much a recent phenomenon designed to meet the needs of modern officialdom. Before that there was no consistency. Names were spelled phonetically and each variation was down to the whim of the particular person recording the information. You will often see the spelling change as the records go back. This rarely indicates a deliberate decision to alter the name, nor even a mistake. Not everyone was literate, but even when they were, exact and consistent spelling simply wasn’t something they bothered about. 

In 1899, the Rev Smith reviewed the early records of Antrim 1st Presbyterian church (covering the years 1674 to c 1736). He noted: “Even the same word is not always spelled alike by the same hand. Indeed spelling with most of the recording officials (and they must have been fairly numerous) was a matter of the most sublime indifference. The name William, for instance, is spelled 3 different ways in as many lines; while Donegore, a neighbouring parish, is spelled 10 different ways; but these extend over a good number of years. Many families names are spelled phonetically, while others are given in the most round-about fashion.”

So expect spelling to vary. That was the norm. In addition to varying the actual spelling, O’ or Mac prefixes were optional and were often omitted.  So yes your family might have used the Mac prefix at one time. Looking at the 1901 census of Armagh there certainly were McDermot(t)s there, though not all were born in the county. All were Catholic. All the Dermot(t)s were Church of Ireland, save for 2 Brethren.

If you are unable to go to PRONI yourself to search the Church of Ireland records, you could employ a researcher. Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net