Searching for Robert Redmond in County Antrim

You enquire about the city of Antrim. It’s not a city. It’s a small town and in the 1820s it was even smaller. The 1922 fire didn’t affect any records relating to Antrim town. The main churches there all have records for the 1820s, though they may not be on-line anywhere. What denomination were your family? Redmond wasn’t a common name in the Antrim area though there are a couple listed in Griffiths Valuation (1862).

Sorry, I make a big mistake. James Redmond the son of Robert Redmond moved to Edinburgh, Scotland and was counted in the Scotland census. He stated that he was from the County of Antrim. Which of course is a much larger area to deal with. Since the Redmond's were not of a large number I was hoping that they lived in one area. James and his wife belonged to St. Cuthberts in Edinburgh so I assume they were Protestants. They might have belonged to the Church of Ireland. I spent two days at the PRONI trying to find Robert Redmond with no luck. I am hoping to narrow it down to a parish. I was surprised to hear that the fire in 1922 did not destroy record for the City of Antrim. Could you suggest any place to look for records on line other than the PRONI and Ancestry.com?

Dave,

There’s a myth that all Irish genealogical records were destroyed in the 1922 fire. A lot of records were lost but not all. Most pre 1900 wills were lost though there are duplicates, post 1858 for some locations eg those probated in Belfast. A lot of legal and estate papers were lost, the censuses 1821 – 1851 were lost and about half the Church of Ireland’s pre 1881 baptism, marriage & burial records were lost too. However there were no Presbyterian records kept there, nor any other denomination, so the only church records that were lost relate to the Church of Ireland. And even then it’s only about half of their records. The church had instructed that older records be sent to Dublin (ironically for safe keeping) if the local church had no secure place to store them. A lot of churches did have somewhere suitable. It tended to be smaller remoter churches where the records were just kept in the vestry room as opposed to in a safe or vault, that sent them to Dublin. And even then, some of them had duplicate sets. So that’s why Antrim town Church of Ireland, for example, has complete records back to the 1600s, whereas some rural churches nearby do not. They never sent them to Dublin and they remain intact to this day.

You can use Griffiths Valuation to see where the surname Redmond was found in Co Antrim in the mid 1800s. It lists them by parish so you can use that as a basis for further searching in PRONI’s records.

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

There’s about 50 spread across 10 or 15 parishes.

St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh, is Church of Scotland ie Presbyterian, so possibly you might want to focus your search in Ireland on that denomination’s records.

Rootsireland and the Ulster Historical Foundation both have some church records for Co. Antrim on-line (they are pay to view/subscription sites), but they don’t have them all by any means. Probably 50%, if that. PRONI has the most complete set. But, as you know, that requires a personal visit. The Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast also has a pretty complete set of Presbyterian records but they don’t do research and a personal visit is also required to view their records.

Elwyn,

I have located two possible areas from Griffith's Valuation where Robert Redmond might have lived. I noticed that the records for the Presbyterian Church are listed by church. Is there a way to tie the physical land area to the nearest church? Or even find a map showing all the churches in the county?

For the RC Church and the Church of Ireland, where you live dictates which parish you live in, and thus which church you will usually go to (though often in larger parishes there is more than 1 church in the parish). But for Presbyterians in Ireland there’s no such parish based system. Which one you attend is a matter of personal preference, and not necessarily the closest to where you live.

However you can find out which are the closest ones by searching under each parish. So if you have found a particular townland and you know which parish it is in, you can search the PRONI church records catalogue by parish and it will list all the Presbyterian churches in that area together with what records they have. The records themselves are not on-line and a personal visit is required to view them:

http://www.proni.gov.uk/guide_to_church_records.pdf

I don’t know of any map that shows all the churches in Co Antrim. But as a rough estimate, I’d say there are about 400 Presbyterian churches in the county. It is the main denomination in the county. I know there’s about 50 Presbyterian churches in Belfast alone.

I am curious if the Robert Redmond you are looking for is the son of Moses Redmond and Rebecca Dunn.  

My apologies.  Robert had a brother named James.  James is the name you were searching.  We have a few Redmonds that ended up here in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Dave R I sent you an email. There are lots of different Redmond families in Antrim and they range from Coleraine to Belfast. There are also Redmond/Rodman families. While in Antrim in 2013 I learned Rodman was the countrified way of saying Redmond/Redman. There is also a good number in Co Armagh and Co Down in the 1700 - 1800's and still some in both Armagh and Antrim today.

I too am searching for a Robert Redmond but not the same one as you Dave. Kelly the Robert Redmond who is the son of Moses left with Moses for Canada about 1818ish and remained in the America continent didn't go to Scotland. 

We had my brother's YDNA tested and we matched Rodman who had one branch ousted from Ireland and sent to Barbados. John Redmond had a daughter Mary Jane who married Daniel McConaghy of Giant's Causeway and they are from Billy Parish which is considered Bushmills. The Larne Redmond family has a great grandson living in Belfast William Redmond Colin McAlpin, yes that is his full name. Seems the families I match in DNA and many families of the area go back to a Samuel Redmond then beyond him we lose the links. 
33 matches for the search criteria: Redmond (plus variants) in Co Antrim  Griffith'sThe primary valuation of Ireland or Griffith's Valuation - carried out between 1848 and 1864  so if you are looking prior to 1848 then they probably wont be listed.

Name:
Robert Redmond
Date of Birth:
15-Dec-1822

 
 
Date of Baptism:
19-Dec-1822

Address:
 
Parish/District:
1ST DROMARA PRESBYTERIAN

Gender:
Male
County
Co. Down

 
 
Denomination:
 

Father:
Alexander Redmond
Mother:
Jane Weir

Occupation:
 
 
 

Sponsor 1 /
Informant 1:
 
Sponsor 2 /
Informant 2:

This book has a large list of Redman/Redmond from Armagh http://www.stampers.org/pubs_extracted%20family%20data/armagh%20bk.pdf Starts on page 47 - 55.

I actually spent the day with this Redmond family in Armagh this past May. They had a Robert Redmond who went to america with John Wesley to start the Methodist Church in the USA. I went to the defunct windmill where John Wesley preached on Redmond property.

Here are photos from the may proerties of Redman/Redmond in Armagh near Portadown. Same family as in the book link above. https://www.flickr.com/photos/cpred_06/albums/72157666049855913

I also have an extensive photo album of Redmond in Antrim too, which continues to grow each year I go back.