Family History

Peter,

Statutory birth, death and marriage registration (in some jurisdictions called Vital Records) only started in Ireland in 1864, save for non RC marriages which were recorded from 1845 onwards. So you probably won’t find statutory birth, death or marriage certificates in Ireland for this family. For earlier years you usually need to rely on church records, where they exist.  Ideally you need to know the precise denomination and have some idea of where the person was born in order to search the correct records. Not all churches have records for that period and not all are on-line. 

RC records are mostly on-line on the nli site:   

https://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx

For other denominations, the churches usually hold the originals but there are also copies in PRONI, the public record office, in Belfast. A personal visit is required to access them. Access to the records there is free. This link explains what records exist, parish by parish:

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/proni-guide-church-records

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

Donaghmore Church of Ireland has records from 1748 onwards, but Donaghmore Upper lost it’s early records in the 1922 fire in Dublin. Carland Presbyterian has records from 1759 with some gaps. (Copies in PRONI). No other denomination in the parish has records for the years you need.

Death registration started in 1864.  I do not see one in Ireland in the Dungannon area in either 1864 or 1892 that might fit.

Further to the above post, I looked on Ancestry and there are 50 or more trees with this family. Many list John’s children and his father. So if you don’t already have that information it would be worth checking them. Some of the trees record John Hall dying in Newcastle on Tyne (England) about 1864. Others have him dying in Indiana (USA) around that year. Obviously at least one of those is wrong. Possibly both. Death registration only started in Ireland in 1864 so if John died there before that, there may be no record of it.

Many of the trees have his wife dying before 1864 in Indiana. She was still reportedly in Tyrone in 1849 (birth of daughter Sarah) so the move to the US must have been between that year and c 1864. Elizabeth would have been about 53 when this daughter Sarah was born.  That strikes me as fairly unlikely. In the 1800s most women ceased to be fertile in their mid 40s.  A child at 53 would be pretty rare.

You might want to contact the owners of some of the trees to see what their sources are. There are clearly discrepancies in some of them so care needs to be taken to ensure different families haven’t been mixed up.

Many thanks.