Searching for Thomas James Patton, born December 27, 1844

What denomination were the Patton family?

I don't know for certain.  As far back in the US that I can tell, they were Episcopalian. In some research yesterday, I found some Pattons that were Roman Catholic in Ireland but none seemed to be in my family line.  From what I can tell, my great grandfather, Thomas James Patton, migrated to the United States about 1868 which should have made him about 24 years old. I can find information about him and his wife, Annie Jane Keys, from the US Census taken every 10 years but religion i not part of the information. His marriage to Annie was in 1882 and the document shows "Episcopal".

Tom,

The parents marriage is before the start of statutory marriage registration (April 1845, for non RC ceremonies). So you’ll need to rely on church records for both the marriage and the son’s baptism.

In Ireland, Episcopalian is the Church of Ireland. Ballyshannon is in the parish of Kilbarron. That parishes Church of Ireland records start in 1785. There are some gaps but the records appear to be complete for around the time of Thomas’s birth and his parents marriage. There’s a copy of those records in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast.  A personal visit is generally required to view them. My source catalogue indicates the originals are still with the Minister. So you could contact him but be aware that if he agrees to search the records, there will normally be a fee. (I think they charge something like 20 euros per hour).

http://ireland.anglican.org/information/dioceses/parish/11650

I checked Griffiths Valuation (a census substitute) for Ballyshannon (1857) but did not find any James Patton listed then. Hopefully you will find the family in the church records.

Elwyn, thank you very much for your most informative post. I have to be out of town for a couple of days but upon return I will contact the Minister. All my information about Thomas James and Annie Keys have been by word of mouth within the family.  I've used that information to find some facts on them through Ancestry.com but nothing factual has developed on either as it relates to Ireland.  Word of mouth had him from Ballyshannon and some said she hailed from there as well.  Thomas' father's name of James is a guess on my part based upon some information I gleaned from Ancestry.com.  I do hope Ballyshannon is right though.  Otherwise my search will have to start from zero.  There may be a trip to Ireland in my future yet!

Thanks again for your help,

Tom