William Henry Elliott

Kevin,

An age or date of birth on a death certificate from was generally only as accurate as the informant’s knowledge. Mistakes are common. In addition, in the 1800s people in Ireland didn’t celebrate birthdays and frequently didn’t know precisely how old they were. If officialdom sometimes asked for a date of birth (as in the census) it was quite common just to make one up. So I would take the 2 dates of birth with a large pinch of salt.

Statutory birth registration only started in Ireland in 1864 so Bill’s birth (and his parents marriage) is long before that. To try and trace the family you would need to rely on church records. Not all the records have survived, and not all the surviving records are on-line.

William Elliott’s a fairly common name (293 of them in the 1901 census). I searched the rootsireland site for Henry & Margaret’s marriage and for Bill’s baptism but did not find any matches.

If you know Bill’s precise denomination you could go to PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast and search the church records there. The records are not on-line and a personal visit is required to view them. Be aware that Belfast has about 200 churches. Not all were in existence in 1835 but without an idea of the exact denomination, there’s still a lot of records to go through. If Bill emigrated as a baby with the Allen fmaily, you would wonder what had happened to his parents. Possibly both were dead? Death registration didn't start till 1864, so tracing their deaths if before that year may also be difficult.

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 is running an Ulster DNA project in conjunction with Family Tree DNA and can offer testing kits at a reduced price.  http://www.nifhs.org (Go to DNA project on the website). You don’t need to be a member of the NIFHS to participate in the DNA project.