looking for information

Hi there,

In general, Presbyterian registers start much later than those of the Church of Ireland, and early records of Presbyterian baptisms, marriages and deaths are often to be found in the registers of the local Church of Ireland parish. There are exceptions, however; in areas which had a strong Presbyterian population from an early date, particularly in the north east, some registers date from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The only published listing remains that included in Margaret Falley's Irish and Scotch Irish Ancestral Research, (repr. Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988). This, however, gives a very incomplete and out of date picture of the extent and location of the records.

For the six counties of Northern Ireland, and many of the adjoining counties, the Guide to Church Records: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, (PRONI, 1994) provides a good guide to the dates of surviving registers. The copy of the list held in the Office itself includes a listing of Registers in Local Custody which covers all of Ireland, but is much less comprehensive for the south than for the north.                  
 

Hopefully, someone in the local community of Killyleagh will be able to help you further in your research.

Please make sure you link anyone else in your family who is interested in their Irish heritage to our site - and indeed anyone else you know of Irish heritage.

Kind regards,

Sinead Cooney

Genealogist (Ireland XO)

Microfilm of transcriptions of the registers are on several films at PRONI - these date from cc1692 on with a substantial gap from around 1750 to 1830 ish.   As well as these films at PRONI,  Killyleagh Library has typed transcriptions in both date order and alpha order so may be worth following up by writing if you can't get to PRONI.  As I live in Australia I have had to visit both these places to further my research and have an extensive index of my names of interest, which is on the excellent site by Ros Davies - this lists contains extensive Co Down listings transcribed by volunteers.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rosdavies/

If you can go to PRONI, I would also recommend going through the Parish Vestry Notes films PRONI MIC 1P/53/6,7,8 which include lists of all pew holders (families paid a subscription each year for the use of a pew) and their townland, amount paid etc. I was able to then visit the church and luckily enough my family pew is on the upper level so still there whereas the ground floor pews have been removed and replaced by more comfortable seating. A truly moving visit :-)

Best of luck in your searching