I am looking for more information about my 2nd great grandparents, James Todd and his wife Rebecca nee Cleland who emigrated assisted passage on the ship Mandarin which left from Belfast on June 13, 1838 and arrived in Australia on October 17, 1838. They came with their three daughters.
Passenger arrival records give the following information:
James Todd, Protestant/Presbyterian, farm laborer, from Saintfield. Approx dob 1805. Parents Andrew Todd, farmer, and his wife Sarah Hyland.
Rebecca Cleland, Protestant/Presbyterian, laundress and dairymaid, from Kilmore parish. Approx dob 1802. Parents James Cleland, farmer, and his wife Margaret McMaster.
3 children, Sarah Todd - dob 3 March1832, Margaret Todd - dob 12 June 1833 and Jane Woods Todd - dob 16 January 1837.
Where could I go to look for records - birth, baptism, marriage, death, census, etc? The only information I have is family lore which says that Jane Woods Todd was born "near Belfast". I suppose Kilmore parish could be thought of as near Belfast...
Jane Woods Tood was my great grandmother. She and her sister Margaret ended up married and in New Zealand. Descendents of these two women live in Australia, New Zealand, England and Alaska.
I have often wondered where the middle name Woods came from - whether it had something to do with the extended family of her parents/grandparents. I'd like to solve that little mystery, also.
I appreciate any help you can provide.
With best wishes,
Jenny Leguineche
Monday 24th Dec 2018, 03:56AM
Message Board Replies
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Jennifer,
There are no censuses to search. The 1821 and 1831 Irish censuses were destroyed in the 1922 fire in Dublin. Apart from a few fragments, there are no complete censuses in Ireland earlier than 1901.
Regarding the middle name “Woods” it was, and still is, quite common practice for Presbyterians to use a middle name like that. It was usually in respect of someone held in esteem. Sometimes the mother’s maiden name (though obviously not in this case) it could also be a close relative or someone the family particularly respected eg their Minister or the local school teacher. That sort of thing.
Regarding church records, Saintfield has 3 Presbyterian churches. Saintfield 1st has baptisms starting 1854; Saintfield 2nd from 1831 and 2nd Boardmills 1846. In Kilmore parish there are also 3 Presbyterian churches. The Non Subscribing church has records from 1833 and Kilmore Presbyterian from 1833; Lissara has records from 1809.
Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church and thereafter she’d attend her husband’s, so it’s possible that Rebecca wasn’t Presbyterian prior to her marriage. (Though it is a fairly Scottish surname and I’d think it likely she was Presbyterian. But if she was Church of Ireland, Kilmore COI has marriages starting in 1822). The 1901 Irish census has 281 Clelands in Co. Down. 91 were Church of Ireland; the remainder were Presbyterian of one creed or another. None were Catholic. So the family are pretty clearly of Scottish settler origins.
There are copies of all the above records in PRONI in Belfast. They are not on-line there and so you need to go in person to look them up, or get a researcher to do it for you. Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net
If Andrew Todd was a farmer and still alive in 1834, you would expect him to be listed in the tithe applotment records. There are 2 Andrew Todds listed in Saintfield parish. One lived in Glassdrummond and the other in Drumnaconnel.
http://www.irishgenealogyhub.com/down/tithe-applotment-books/saintfield-parish.php#.XCC33hSqCns
There were 6 James Clelands farming in Kilmore in 1833:
http://www.irishgenealogyhub.com/down/tithe-applotment-books/kilmore-parish.php#.XCC4bxSqCns
So that might narrow the search for where the 2 families originated. There’s a couple of mentions of Andrew Todd of Saintfield on Ros Davies Co. Down site:
If Jane Woods Todd wasn’t born in Saintfield or Kilmore, then finding her baptism may be difficult. There’s a couple of hundred Presbyterian churches in Co Down. Only some of their records are on-line and not all have records for the 1830s either. It would be a question of slogging through a lot of records at PRONI. Needle in a haystack job. Statutory birth registration didn’t start in Ireland till 1864 so church records are usually the only way to locate a birth before that.
Saintfield and Kilmore would certainly be described as near Belfast. Saintfield is just about 10 miles from Belfast. Today Saintfield a commuter town for the city. The surrounding land remains farmland. I would certainly start your search in that area. Farm labourers, such as James Todd, can be difficult to trace. They often moved about to follow the available work and don’t show up much in land records (in contrast to farmers who tend to stay put and do show up in land records). Tradition was for the farm to go to the eldest son. Other sons had to make their own way in the world, which for many meant emigrating, due to the lack of work in Ireland. So probably James Todd wasn't the eldest son. The industrial revolution largely passed Ireland by because it has very little in the way of natural resources such as coal, iron ore, oil etc which generated hundreds of thousands of new jobs in places like Britain, North America and elsewhere. There had also been a massive population explosion in Ireland, increasing from 3 million in 1741 to 8 million by 1841. There just weren't the jobs for all those folk. (Population today is only 6 million).
Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘
Monday 24th Dec 2018, 11:08AM