George BYRNE - Co. Antrim

Beck,

Byrne/Burn(s) is a pretty common name in Ireland. Looking at the 1901 census there?s over 200 George B?s in Ireland, of whom 22 lived in Co Antrim (mostly in Belfast). So even if we find a birth for a George born c 1833, how do we know it?s the right one without a father?s name, or some other identifying information?

1833 is well before the start of statutory birth registration in Ireland (1864) and so you won?t be able to get a birth cert for George. You might find his baptism but to do that you need to know roughly where he came from, his denomination, and you also have to hope the records have survived. Not every parish has records for the 1830s.

I searched the rootsireland site for George born Antrim c 1833 and got no matches. However they don?t have all the possible parish records on-line and so it?s possible there is a record but in paper/microfilm format only. Copies of most of the surviving parish records are held in PRONI, Belfast but they are not on-line and a personal visit is required to view them. However the National Library of Ireland are going to put them on-line in the summer of 2015, and so you will then be able to work your way through them. (Sadly, they won?t be indexed).

Elwyn

Hi Elwyn,

Thanks for your prompt reply - much appreciated.

I suspected I might be looking for the Irish equivalent of 'John Smith' and that it might be a dead end, at least for the time being.   I had also come up blank based on what I had.  I know Hannah was RC, and they married in the RC church in Armagh, but that's still a very broad brush.

I will continue to search for any snippet of info at this end, but as he only lived in Aust for 6 years before his death there is not much this end at all.  Other than that I will await the PRONI release and hope for the best!

Thanks again,

Beck

Hi again Beck
Good to see Elwyn you have Elwyn on the case.
rootsireland has a baptism record of Hannah Jane Lynch Shankhill R C Armagh 15 Jan 1834 parents Edward Lynch & Catherine Lavery.
There's also 1 for George Byrne in Upper Creggan ARMAGH 1836 parents George Byrne & Bridget
I assume you've seen the trees on ancestry which have Hannah remarried to William Watts in 1863 & died at Melton 1921.
They also have George's death as Melton; my daughter lives in Bacchus Marsh so I go to Melton regularly. Will have a look there for you next visit if you like; Vic BDM seems to be off-line at present.
Col

Hi Col,

Yes I have Hannah's baptism record, but as 1832 though (Armagh Ancestry).  I also have their marriage record, same church, 1853, and the 1854 passenger records record them as coming from Armagh.

I don't think George was was born in Armagh though.  All I have is 'Co. Antrim' & I'm tending to trust that.  It comes from their son's 1856 birth registration, and multiple alterations were made to the registration, but not to his place of origin.  Almost everything else was corrected, but not Co. Antrim.  I will have to keep looking for that elusive clue that might help me at least locate a parish.  I cannot find a death registration in Vic BDM, which seems odd.  They changed the spelling from Byrne to Burns about 1856, but I cannot find it under any spelling.  I also cannot find birth reg for babies in 1854 (in Geelong), 1858 & 1860 (both in Melton), but I could for 1856 (in Keilor).  Very odd.  

Thanks for your very generous offer - I have loads on Hannah - 'Grannie Watts' was the local midwife, and being a midwife myself she is of great intrest to me.  Hannah & William are my g.g.grandparents, & there is still family in Melton.  You can find Hannah's grave (& George Byrne & Hannah's sister Susan & William Watts & their son James), along with many, many, many of their descendants.   Hannah Watts Park in Melton is named after Grannie.

Thanks again.  Off to do more hunting!  Beck

Hi Beck, Elwyn and Col! 
Great to find you all here. I'm also the great-great granddaughter of George and Hannah, through their son George Burns with Winifred Blanche and their third son Robert Alan Burns. I'm so pleased to get a few snippets of info from you I didn't have, while trying to go further back!

There's one thing that could be a characteristic in the Byrne/Burns line, especially in the males: Asperger's Syndrome. My father, a highly intelligent self-educated man, had the characteristics but was never diagnosed. All his relationships of every kind (with three wives and a few girlfriends) tended to be conflictual as he offended everyone, including me and the government. He had an ASIO file 134 pages long, as he was an active communist who met and discussed the philosophy of political history through an interpreter with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing. The impression he gave of his father George Burns was that he may have had it as well. He was very harsh with Robert, at least, and called him a bastard (which affected him all his life) and deserted him and his mother leaving them with no income. Robert has one son who has been diagnosed with Aspergers, another who seems to have touches of it and his other daughter has a challenging son diagnosed with it. There's a fourth son with twin girls but I don't know him very well, and I have no children. 

An odd story that Robert was told by his mother Winifred: When George Byrne changed the spelling of his name, possibly en route or in Australia where anti-Irish Catholic sentiment was still strong with the English authorities, he remade himself. He put out the story that he was a Scot, (possibly a Presbyterian) and a direct descendant of Robbie Burns. That explains my father's first Christian name, and there was at least one other Robert in that line too. My father believed it and passed it on to me and his next four children. Later he did a lot of tough in-person non-internet research and discovered for himself that it was a myth. Wonder how good George Byrne's Scottish accent was? Ha!

Cheers,
~ Di Burns
Bendigo, Victoria.