Overend Family

Steve,

You say that Richard was born in Co Antrim but you have traced the family to Armagh. Do you know that Richard moved to Armagh, or are you assuming that the Armagh Overends may be connected to him? (I’d think that unlikely. It was some distance and they are more likely to be separate families).

Overend is not a common surname in Ireland. In the 1901 census there were only 89, nearly all Church of Ireland (ie Anglican). Evenly split between Counties Dublin, Antrim, Armagh and Londonderry.

In Co Antrim there was a group of them around Ballymena (parish of Kirkinriola) and others in Belfast. 1790 is long before the start of birth registration in Ireland (1864) and so you need to search church records to find your ancestor. Ideally you need to know his parents names (from a marriage or death certificate) to be sure of finding the correct person.

If Richard came from Ballymena the good news is the Church of Ireland records for that parish start in 1789 so you might just scrape in, but not all parishes have records that far back (many were lost in the 1922 fire in Dublin) so it may be challenging tracing him. Copy of the Kirkinriola records is held in PRONI, Belfast. There is also some coverage on the rootsireland site (subscription) but it does not say which years or categories ie births, marriages or burials.

Overend is not an Irish surname. The name, the family denomination and general location all point to them likely being of either Scottish or English origins. They are likely to have settled in Ulster in the 1600s, probably as part of the Plantation of Ireland.

Gravestone transcriptions in the Ballymena area are on the Braid website. No Overends on that site.

Researching in Ireland in the 1700s is very hard going due to the general lack of records. If you don’t know where they lived it’s a needle in a haystack. Ideally you need to know the person’s exact denomination and the townland or parish they lived in to have any chance of finding them, and even then there may not be any records for that location.

Possibly DNA testing may be a way of matching with others who have additional information about where the family originate. Family Tree DNA reportedly has more people with Ulster roots than any other company. That obviously increases the chances of finding a match. You might want to try them or, if you have already tested, you can transfer your results to them for no fee.

The North of Ireland Family History Society is running an Ulster DNA project in conjunction with FTDNA and can offer testing kits at a reduced price.  http://www.nifhs.org (Go to DNA project on the website).

Elwyn

Thank you for the information which has been very useful, as I have leads that go back to Yorkshire from the 1600s and also the marriages that I have found appear to be to ladies from Yorkshire. 

I have also found descendant 3rd cousins who emigrated to USA, Canada and Australia. 

Thanks

Steve