I'm asking for help from people with access to sites other than ancestry please & even better to any family descendant with documentation. My great grandfather James Armstrong was born in Ireland about 1838. He was a career army man, bugle boy, gunner Royal Artillery then Commisariat & Mess. Medal for Zulu war. Married Annie Elizabeth Clark born Netteswell, Essex, England 3 May 1850. Photo is possibly their wedding picture. Married 12 October 1874 Finsbury St Lukes Church, London. His age 33. HIs father Hugh a labourer. Originally we thought he was born in Aghalee, Co. Antrim as a Chelsea Pensioner document suggested BUT in a post here someone found (on My Heritage) another James son of Hugh Armstrong born 27 Aug 1837 in Aghnahola, Currin, Co. Monaghan, Ireland. I can NOT find this person on the Ancestry website & I have a full paid subs. Now I find Co. Monahan, though in ULSTER, is NOT in NORTHERN Ireland. So my question is - would "born in Ireland" in the English census and in army documents mean IRELAND or IRELAND AND NORTHERN IRELAND - i.e. was there no difference in the 1800s? James was a protestant NOT RC. We do NOT know what his mother was called. We do NOT know if he had any siblings. It was Potato Famine time when he was born so he MIGHT be the only surviving child. Any other Armstrong relatives out there???
Josephine Salt
Wednesday 1st Apr 2020, 12:55PMMessage Board Replies
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There was no such thing as Northern Ireland till 1922. Prior to that it was all just Ireland and that’s what people normally put on official documents. So it wouldn’t be safe to assume he was from Northern Ireland because it says Ireland in a census from the 1800s.
Birth registration didn’t start in Ireland till 1864 so for a birth around 1837 you need to rely on church records. With a name like Armstrong, he might be either Church of Ireland or Presbyterian. Aghnahola is in the parish of Currin. The Church of Ireland’s records for that parish start in 1810. Baptisms from 1810 – 1834 are still held by the Rector so you would need to write to him/her if you want them searched (There’s usually a fee to pay). Baptisms from 1835, marriages from 1812 and burials from 1816 all still exist and there’s a copy in PRONI in Belfast. I don’t think the records are on-line anywhere so you would need to go in person. They are free to view. There are a couple of Presbyterian churches in the parish too but their records don’t start till the 1860s so you would have to hope that this family was Church of Ireland.
I looked in Griffiths Valuation for Aghnahola for 1861. There were no Armstrong households listed there then. They might have been listed in the tithes (c 1830) but those for Currin have not survived.
Armstrong is a fairly common name with 6122 in the 1901 Irish census, of whom 40 were named Hugh. So there were probably equally many Hugh Armstrong – labourers in the 1830s.
A portion of the 1851 census of Aghalee has survived. I searched it but there were no Armstrongs in it.
Armstrong is a Border Reiver name and most Armstrongs reportedly arrived in Ireland in the early 1600s, from the north of England or Scottish border counties.
Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘
Wednesday 1st Apr 2020, 02:48PM