Montgomery/ McCurdie

Hello Diane, there is a baptism of a James with father Philip and mother Sara on the 25th April 1815 (born 24th) in Derry, address is Grenan, FAUGHANVALE, County Derry. This is now in Northern Ireland, so you should also look in PRONI in case there is further info. All records should be for Ireland pre 1921 but later it is Northern Ireland in case geography is not a strong point and two Irelands is confusing. 

There is a lot of children baptised (8) to this couple in that parish but slightly different addresses, on some records the mother is Sara and on others it is Sarah McCurdy, the names are Samuel, May 1816; Robert in March 1814 (William April / May 1822, address Evish, Glendermott parish, Faughanvale, mother is give as Sarah McCurdy; Sally Jane Apr/ May 1822 address here is Gortnessy, Faughanvale, mother is Sally McCurdy. Thomas March 1826 Gorticross, Glendermott Parish, Faughanvale, mother Sarah McCurdy.

I do not see a marriage record. I am not sure if we have a Derry or Londonderry volunteer and I am not sure enough of the geography to identify why the different addresses, you can see the civil areas here https://www.townlands.ie/londonderry/faughanvale2/ 

The PRONI site is here https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni There was a land valuation in the 1850s and there is a William Montgomery in Faughanvale but not in the townlands shown above. http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=nameS…;

The Church of Ireland are putting their records online free here over time https://www.ireland.anglican.org/about/rcb-library/online-parish-records These are Anglican or Protestant records. 

In Looking for a birth of Philip I see that there are 3 Montgomery births in Faughanvale (Falloward) to a Samuel Montgomery and a Margaret and thats all, amazing to me nowadays how often this occurs. 

Good Luck

Pat

Philip Montgomery is in the 1831 census 6 males and 3 females in the family in Gorticross townland. Family were Church of Ireland (Anglican).

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/Londonderry/Tirkeeran/…

The various different places of birth for the children tells you Phillip was probably a labourer moving around to follow the available work. Plus he’s not in the tithes for that townland which again indicates he didn’t have any land. I checked Griffiths Valuation for 1858 and there were no Montgomery households there then so the family had moved on again. Labourers can be very difficult to trace. A lot of their life was lived beneath officialdom’s radar.

I had a look for marriages for the children Pat found, post 1845 in the Londonderry area but did not find any. If Phillip & Sarah died in Clondermott parish then they may be listed in the parish burial registers. (Statutory death registration didn’t start till 1864 so you won’t find a death certificate for either of them). Labourers rarely could afford a gravestone so you may not find one for this couple.

Clondermott parish is also known as Glendermott so you may see that in some sources.

Gorticross is a farming townland on the edge of the City of Derry.  It’s 470 acres in size. In the 1831 census there were 32 homes there. By 1901 that had gone down to 14 with a population of 73, mostly engaged in farming or related work.

Thank you soooo much Pat and Elwyn. I was so excited to get replies so soon. I'm definitely going to follow these up once it's daylight here in NZ haha. I know that when James Montgomery; the son, went to Australia with his wife, his occupation was farm labourer and Hannah, his first wife was listed as cook. So he sounds like he was following in his daddy's footsteps.  With his daddy passing in 1835, I wonder what would have become of his mum.  Thank you again for the very interesting information you have shared with me. Di

Dianne,

The widow probably went to live with one of her daughters. That's what often happened.