Looking for Antrim Assize records.

AEnone have you tried findmypast.ie/? It's a good site for trial info

Col

The Assizes were a higher court, that dealt with the most serious cases and had the ability to impose longer sentences, transportation etc.. These courts were presided over by a judge from the King's Bench, and their records appear to have been kept by the Public Records Office in Dublin ... so likely that no complete records survive. FindMyPast does have some prison records, which might mention John, and he may also have appeared before a lower court such as the Petty Session courts before being refered to the Assizes. 

PRONI have some records associated with the Assizes mentioned in their eCatalogue - e.g. Grand Jury Bill Book; a register of bills of indictment brought before the Grand Jury at Assize Courts (1792-1861) - ref.: FER/4/8/1   EDITED : these may specifically relate to Co. Fermanagh, but are example of the type of secondary records that might be worth checking.

Many thank to you both for your suggestions. Yes, probably wouldn't do any good if records were at the Four Courts - they'd be postage stamp size bits now!!!! 

I'm not sure if it was Assize trial or CPS, as on his Certificate of Freedom in Australia, it just says "Place of Trial: Antrim;   Date of Trial: July1820"  I have had a look at several sites, trying to access the local papers in Antrim for July1820 but there doesn't seem to be much there. They usually reported on the Trials as far as I know, but maybe not in Ireland.

Will have a look at the places you suggest. Thanks again,

AEnone       :)

AEnone,

Though there has been a Magistrates Court in Antrim town since the 1600s, the Assizes for the County were normally held at Carrickfergus. They would be reported in the Belfast Newsletter. Back copies of that are on-line on Ancestry, and you can probably also access them on the British Newspapers on-line site. Both require a subscription to see them.

The Antrim Summer Assizes took place in Carrickfergus on Friday July 28th before the Hon. Justice Moore, and reports on the proceedings are covered over two editions of the Belfast Newsletter - the 1st August on page 1 and 2, and the 4th August on page 4. Most of the details are quite brief - your John is mentioned near the end of the details.

"John M.Clure and Samuel Brown, guilty of a felony, to be transported for seven years. His lordship, however, before passing sentence on those prisoners, held out some hope to McClure that his sentence might perhaps be mitigated."

I presume you've already seen the Certificate of Freedom for John .. but just in case you have not, it includes a few additional details :

Native Place : Belfast
Trade or Calling : Sailmaker
Height : 5 feet 11 1/2
Complexion : Dark Ruddy
Hair : Brown
Eyes : Hazel

AEnone,

Building on Shane's research, I had a look at the 1901 census for Counties Antrim & Down which includes Belfast. There were 87 people named John McClure at that time. The name would have been equally common in 1801. The majority were Presbyterian (so of Scottish origins) though other denominations featured too.  Many early Presbyterian records are not on-line and that will be a factor making it hard to find the right baptism. (Statutory birth registration didn’t start till 1864 so there won’t be a birth certificate). But your first problem will be ensuring you identify the right family. If you know John’s denomination that will reduce the field a little. The majority of surviving church records for Belfast are held in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. They are not on-line and so you would need to get someone to go in person and look them up. If you could get his parents names from a marriage or death certificate that would clearly help too, but it appears from your post that you don’t have that.

Possibly DNA testing may be a way of matching with others who have additional information about where the family originate. Family Tree DNA reportedly has more people with Ulster roots than any other company. That obviously increases the chances of finding a match. You might want to try them or, if you have already tested, you can transfer your results to them for no fee.

The North of Ireland Family History Society are running an Ulster DNA project and can offer FTDNA testing kits at a reduced price.  http://www.nifhs.org (Go to DNA project on the website).

shanew147 - Many thanks for looking that up for me - yes, that would be him, but obviously te sentence wasn't mitigated as he didn't get his Cert. of Freedom until 1827. Rats!!! the paper doesn't say what he was convicted for. I wonder if there would be any more complex Assize record anywhere?

elwyn - No parents - nothing except that trial info. He came to NSW in 1821, remaind here operating a business of sailmaker in Sydney, and died in 1856. Nothing about parents on death cert. He never married but had a relationship and two children, one of whom was my great-grandmother.  It said on his death cert and the notice in the Sydney paper, that his name was John Garrick McClure but I can't find any bapt for him in Antrim. I am wondering at the "Garrick" (or could they have misread it - Carrick? ) and as a long time researcher, I know that a strange second name like that is often a pointer to maybe mother's maiden name or a family name link somewhere.

Have had my DNA done on Ancestry so I could up load it and see what happens, on that site you suggest. So many thanks to you both for your trouble.   :)

AEnone,

I don’t think there are any other court records anywhere. As Shane has said most were probably in the Public record Office in 1922 and destroyed then. PRONI does have a few that escaped destruction for one reason or another but coverage is pretty patchy.  Try searching the PRONI e-catalogue for them. Search under Antrim Assizes as the individual defendants are unlikely to be listed.

In Ireland, having a middle name of Garrick or Carrick does point to John having been Presbyterian. They favour surnames as a middle name more than other denominations. Often it’s a mother’s maiden name but that’s not a universal rule. It probably won’t appear in any baptism record you might find. They tended to be just forename and surname in the early 1800s.

I don’t think you are going to find any baptism record for John on-line. The majority of the population of Belfast in 1801 was Presbyterian. When the first Catholic church opened in Belfast in 1782 there were only 365 Catholics in the city.  There were more members of the Church of Ireland, but the vast majority of the population was Presbyterian. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, many of their baptism & marriage records are not on-line. The Blaris records you referred to in an earlier post are Church of Ireland records. More of theirs are on-line than Presbyterians. Incidentally Blaris covers the town and parish of Lisburn, 10  miles south of Belfast, so now that you know John was  a native of Belfast you can exclude them.  If you want to search Presbyterian records comprehensively you’ll need to get a researcher to go to PRONI.  Having done that for somebody else a few years ago, I reckon there’s probably about 10 to 15 Presbyterian churches in Belfast with records with for around 1800. Checking them would be a couple of hours work.

Ah, many thanks Elwyn (and all the others). Every little clue is helpful, if sometimes only to exclude things and places to search. It was more or less a last ditch effort to see if any new records had come online for him. I've been a researcher for 60 years and in that time, the records are now so amazing, opposed to those with which I began. But we are so fortunate to have even as much as we do because over the centuries, there have been wars, floods, fires, mould and lots of other things that can destroy the fragile records we seek.

I really can't afford to spend money in overseas research - been there, done that in the past and it is never successful, as a researcher is tunnel visioned, i.e. they only look for that which you have asked them to. Whereas when the research is being done by the person who knows the whole tree and family, we can pick up on other family members or peculiar names, etc and maybe find what we want to by lateral means.

John will just have to remain one of my brick walls - and I'm sure that my children, grand-children and especially those who come after that, won't give a fig whether ALL the information is there or not. I have extremely full family trees, fortunately - far beyond what I ever dreamed of when I first began - and I am very grateful for that.

God bless you all for your help and every good wish for your own success.

AEnone.