looking for McKoy family

Hi Lorraine,

Thank you very much for your message. I hope that someone who recognises the family makes a connection with you and helps you to further your research.

In the meantime, have you tried looking in church records fro more information? Most Catholic records are held locally so you may need to write to the local parish priest for possible assistance. One website that you may find useful is the Irish Times where they give an overview of what records are available in specific parishes. It also shows you where copies of the records are available. For Newry parish, follow this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Down&parish=Newry&churchid=455

Most surviving Church of Ireland records are still held by the local clergy, although some are in the National Archives of Ireland and others are in the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin. Here are their websites: http://www.nationalarchives.ie/ and http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42

Lists of these surviving registers can also be found at the National Library of Ireland.

I also did a search for Michael McCoy in Griffith?s Valuation. This is a property valuation survey carried out in Ireland 1848-64. There was one result for Newry parish:

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=doNameSearch&Submit.x=80&Submit.y=15&Submit=Submit&familyname=Mccoy&firstname=Michael&baronyname=&countyname=DOWN&unionname=&parishname=NEWRY

Some other websites that you may find useful are:

The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/

The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx

The National Archives UK ? genealogy search: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/

The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history.htm

Family Search: www.familysearch.org

Genealogy links: http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/down/index.html

Also, one of our parish volunteers has set up a Facebook where people from Newry and those with Newry descendents can get in touch with each other so it may also be an idea to join that page. Here is the link:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Newry-Ireland-Reaching-Out/508731612529995#

All the best,

Genealogy Support