Visiting Antrim County-McCurry/Hamilton

Archibald & Ann?s births and marriage were before the start of statutory registration in Ireland (1845 for non RC marriages and 1864 for births). So you won?t find a birth or marriage certificate for them.

You might find their marriage  and their baptisms in church records if you know roughly where that took place, and what precise denomination(s). Otherwise it?s a needle in a haystack.

Some church records for that period are on-line, but many are not. I have searched the rootsireland site but do not see the marriage listed. So that suggests they married in one of the churches whose records is not on-line, or is lost.

There are copies of most surviving church records for Co.  Antrim in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast, but you need to try and find some way, from information in Canada, of narrowing your search to a specific area and denomination. Otherwise you have literally hundreds of sets of church records to go through.

Elwyn

Thanks Elwyn for the response to my post of April 26.  I do know that both Archibald and Ann were Roman Catholics, but I have no information on what parish(s) they came from.  I've been told that the McCurry name was most abundant in the northeast part of Antrim County but that's all I have to search with for a location.  I know the names of Ann's father and siblings, since they all settled together in Canada on farms beside Archie & Ann.  But I have no information on Archie's parents, siblings, place of birth, residence in Ireland, when he (or Ann & family) emmigrated to Canada, or on what ship, other than that it was before 1845 due to the age of their first born in Canada.  I've even checked for an initial USA entry, followed by relocation to Canada, but drawn a blank on that too.   I'll try the PRONI.

Thanks again Elwyn.

Pat.

Pat,

There were very few passenger records to Canada prior to about 1850 (they just weren?t required). PRONI has some for ships from Londonderry to New Brunswick, Quebec and Philadelphia (compiled by J & J Cooke the ships agents for their own commercial purposes) but they don?t start till about 1846.

Since you know the family were RC, that narrows your search a little. You can see what RC parishes there are in Co Antrim, and what records exist on this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/counties/rcmaps/

Another problem you will face is that some parish records don?t go back far enough. For example Cushendun?s records only start in 1848.

Good hunting anyway.

Elwyn