Hugh Mullen and Jane Stuart

Diane,

An Irish statutory marriage certificate contains the fathers names, but not the mothers.  RC church records in early years don’t have any parents names but in later years they do. So their records vary.

Non RC marriages were recorded in the statutory records from 1845 onwards. I have searched them for a marriage between Hugh Mullen & Jane Stewart/Stuart but did not find one. RC marriages were only recorded in the statutory records from 1864 onwards. Prior to that you have to rely on church records. Not all have survived. I searched those that are on-line on Ancestry but did not find the marriage.  The oldest RC church in Belfast is St Mary’s which opened in 1784 but which has no marriage records before the 1867. (They were either never kept or have been lost). So if the couple married there then sadly no record survives.

The absence of a non RC marriage in the statutory records points to them having married in an RC church. However those records have gaps as I have explained. If you know that the couple lived in Belfast and married c 1853, I’d suspect they married in St Mary’s RC.

Stuart and Stewart are completely interchangeable in Ireland. That was very common. The concept of a single “correct” version of a name is not one our ancestors would have recognised or been bothered about. There are many interchangeable names in Ireland and you can expect to see either version feature in the same family. So it’s wise to search Irish records using both versions.

Examples of interchangeable surnames, are Robertson & Robinson, Kilpatrick and Kirkpatrick, Nogher & Connor, Faulkner & Falconer, McConnell & McDonnell, Kerr & Carr, Stewart & Stuart. 

The Mc & O’ prefixes on Irish names are detachable and were used and dropped on a whim. So for Mullen you need to include McMullen.

You may be told that Stewart was the Protestant version and Stuart the Catholic (or vice versa). Complete nonsense. Search the 1901 or 1911 Irish censuses and you will find both spellings used by all denominations. (1084 people named Stewart in 1901. 307 were RC, the rest Protestant. 8774 Stewart of which 981 were RC. So the 2 names are predominantly Protestant but both spellings were used by RC too).

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

Griffiths Valuation is largely a record of folk who lived in rural areas.  Not many people in towns are recorded. Unless you have information suggesting your family lived in Dunaghy I would discount them.

Elwyn, 

This is great information.

Would it be worth it to then look at St Mary's for baptismal records of the 5 children who were born in Ireland, or are there no records for them either?  They would have occured between 1854 and 1861.

Also, family lore is that Hugh was a teacher there.  I understand that teachers were not commonly land owners.  Is there a place to look for teachers?

I did find an 1851 census record for an 18-yr-old seamstress named Ann Jane Stewart living with her widowed grandmother of the same name.  2 questions on that: How common is the use of 2 first names like that in Irish records.  In French records that I'm more used to, the use of a second name is common (esp Marie, for instance).  I want to make sure that I'm not missing something in regard to naming conventions. Also, the record is from the Larne parish, Upper Glenarm barony. Nover having been there, is that in the general vicinity of Belfast?

Thank you so much! Your insights are truly helping me connect with a part of our family history that is baffling to me. I so appreciate your time.

Diane

Diane,

St Mary’s has no records at all prior to 1867. So no baptism or marriages.

http://www.stmarysbelfast.org

I would agree that teachers were rarely land owners, especially if they lived in the middle of a city. I searched the 1852 street directory but did not find a Hugh who was a teacher:

https://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/1852names3.htm

Likewise in 1861:

https://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/alphanames1861M2Q.htm

If Hugh & Jane had any children from 1864 onwards they should be in the statutory records of births. I checked them 1864 – 1868 but did not find any. So either they didn’t have any children in those years or had already left Ireland.

I also checked the RC baptismal records on Ancestry for 1853 to 1869 but again did not find any. So that also points to them using a church which has no records eg St Mary’s.

You ask about the use of two forenames together. Yes it was quite common. William John, James Joseph, Mary Jane, Sarah Jane, and so on.

Larne is about 20 miles from Belfast. 98% of the 1851 Irish census was destroyed in the 1922 fire in Dublin. Some fragments still exist especially for a few parishes in Co Antrim. Larne is one, and Dunaghy (which you mentioned in your first post) is another. But the whole of the Belfast census was lost. Unless you have information suggesting your ancestors lived in Larne or Dunaghy I would discount them, especially as the names you are looking for are very common in Ireland. (The 1901 census has 94 people named Hugh Mullan/Mullen/Mullin and 560 named Jane Stewart/Stuart).

Elwyn,

Wow, that's a lot of Janes! This does help me put it in perspective.

It looks like my main options are: DNA matches with hopes that I'll be able to find a 4th or 5th cousin in Ireland who knows our roots, OR finding a ship log that shows Hugh, Jane and their 5 children leaving Ireland for Canada (I've been looking but haven't found one yet), OR perhaps finding a record with his sister, Bridget (don't know if she was older or younger but did know that she stayed behind). I suspect that regarding records with Bridget, I'll have the same luck but I will try. I may also try the Canadian side for immigration records. 

Thank you, thank you again for taking the time to walk me through this.  I so appreciate this!!  Ireland is on my bucket list of places to visit, and this makes me want to go there even more.

Diane