Looking for James Foster 1863-1944

Lauren,

The Scottish death certificates should give you Samuel & Agnes’s parents names and occupations. The 2 events were registered in Uphall registration area. I can see both events in the Uphall indexes. You can view the certificates on the Scotlandspeople site.

What looks to be Samuel’s marriage to Agnes Ballentine (sic) was registered in Ballymena on 28.10.1850. You can view the original certificate on-line on the GRONI website, using the “search registrations” option:

https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk

You will need to open an account and buy some credits. It costs £2.50 (sterling) to a view a certificate.

There’s a transcript of the marriage on rootsireland and from that I can see that the couple married in Ballymena registry Office. That can sometimes indicate a mixed marriage but in that part of Co Antrim it can also be for folk who were Brethren. There are quite a lot of Brethren in that area. Or the couple may just have had their own reasons for marrying in a Register Office. I can’t say for certain.

Both came from Andraid townland, which is near Randalstown. (On the other side of Ballymena from Broughshane, about 15 miles from it.) Neither had been married before. Samuel was a weaver aged 30, and Agnes was 25. Samuel’s father was Robert, a weaver, and hers was James, also a weaver. Witnesses were James Foster and Robert Boyd. The bride’s name is given as Nancy which is a common variant of Agnes.

Statutory birth registration didn’t start till 1864 in Ireland. I searched for children born to Samuel & Agnes 1864 – 1872 in Ireland but did not find any.  Perhaps they were all born before 1864, in which case you need to rely on church baptism records.  If you have found the family in any of the Scottish censuses, that should tell you where the children were born (ie Scotland or Ireland). Those censuses are also on the Scotlandspeople site.

There was 1 Foster household in Andraid in the 1901 census:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Antrim/Drumanaway/Andraid/941625/

That family was Presbyterian. No Ballantines there then.

Griffiths Valuation for 1862 lists just 1 Foster household in the townland. That was William who had plot 8c which was a weaver’s cottage on Hugh Morrison’s farm. That was near the modern Caddy Rd, north of Randalstown. No Ballantines. (Weavers and labourers tended to move around a lot to follow available work and can be tricky to trace).

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

If the family was Presbyterian, then they probably attended one of the 3 Presbyterian churches in Randalstown or Grange Presbyterian in Taylorstown. All are within a couple of miles of Andraid. Copies of those churches records are held in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast.

If you are sure James was born in Broughshane in 1863, then that’s before the start of statutory birth registration (1864 in Ireland. 1855 in Scotland), and so you will need to rely on church records. Broughshane 1st is the most likely church for a Presbyterian in that area to have attended. Again their records are in PRONI. If the family were Brethren, then that will be difficult as any baptism records they hold are not in the public domain.

According to the Ulster Historical Foundation site, there are Foster graves in Drummaul Old churchyard. (That’s an old churchyard in Drummaul townland) plus there is also a Foster grave in the Old Congregation Presbyterian churchyard in Randalstown.  There’s an RJ Foster grave in Grange Presbyterian graveyard. Can’t see any Ballantyne graves in that area. Weavers and labourers often couldn’t afford a gravestone so there’s no guarantee either family has one.

I noticed in Griffiths Valuation that the only Samuel Foster in Co Antrim in 1862 lived in Sharvogues townland. He had a weaver’s cottage on the Allison farm. Sharvogues is immediately adjacent to Andraid and so I suspect that’s your family. The Valuation Revision records show Samuel remaining there till around the late 1880s. It isn’t totally clear when he left.

Looking at the 1891 census of Scotland, it’s fairly evident that your family moved there around 1882/3. Jane aged 9 is shown as born in Ireland, and David aged 7 was born in Uphall, Scotland. If you view David’s birth certificate it should record the date and place his parents married together with his mother's name. What looks to be David’s birth was registered in Uphall in 1883 GROS ref 672/88.

You say that James may have married Eliza Gray.  I don’t see any such marriage in Ireland or in the Scottish records up to 1920. 

The only possible marriage I did find was between a David Foster residing in Drumbo in Co Down (father Samuel) marrying Sarah Ann Davidson on 27.12.1876. Again in Ballymena Registry office. Is that your David who later moved to Uphall?

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_re…

Hi Lauren. There is still a lot of fosters that would be around the areas of randalstown I can give you a look at my family tree and maybe you can find some answers there if you wish. Darrenf7@gmail.com feel free to contact me. I'd be also interested in any input you have to add .