John McKay from Antrim

Hi,

Thank you for your message.

You could try looking in the local church records in Ramoan to see if you can find John?s birth record to confirm his place of origin. Most Catholic records are held locally so you may need to write to the local parish priest for possible assistance. One website that you may find useful is the Irish Times where they give an overview of what records are available in specific parishes. For Ramoan parish, follow this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/rcparishmaps/index.cfm?fuseaction=showidrecords&CityCounty=Antrim&parish=Ramoan&churchid=388

Unfortunately, as you can see from this link records do not begin until 1838. However, in the19th century new Catholic parishes were created so starting dates can sometimes be misleading. Many parishes changed their geographical spread so you may find earlier records relating to your family in the records of adjoining parishes. Here is a link to the Catholic parishes in Antrim:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/counties/rcmaps/antrimrc.htm

Church of Ireland records generally tend to have an earlier start date.Most surviving Church of Ireland records are still held by the local clergy, although some are in the National Archives of Ireland and others are in the Representative Church Body Library in Dublin. Here are their websites: http://www.nationalarchives.ie/ and http://ireland.anglican.org/about/42

Lists of these surviving registers can also be found at the National Library of Ireland.

Do you know John?s parents? names? If you do, you may be able to use the land records to tie the family to a specific place. There are two:

The Tithe Applotment Books (1823-1838) found at http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp

and Griffith?s Valuation (1848-1864) found at http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/

Have you tried looking into his emigration? Sometimes you can find useful information on place of origin in these records. The University of Woolongong has produced, on microfiche, a complete index and transcript of all information concerning immigrants of Irish origin recorded on ships' passenger lists between 1848 and 1867 for New South Wales. These are useful for finding out an exact place of origin as well as parents' names. The Public Record Office of Victoria has good online databases of settlers at www.prov.vic.gov.au Otherwise, other records may be found in the Colonial Office Papers of the UK National Archives, class reference CO 201. This class contains a wide variety of records, including petitions for assisted passages, emigrants' lists, records of emigrants on board ship, petitions from settlers for financial assistance and much more.

Some other websites that you may find useful are:

The National Archives of Ireland http://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy1/genealogy-records/introduction/

The National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/family-history-introduction.aspx

The National Archives UK ? genealogy search: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/

The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history.htm

Genealogy links: http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/antrim/index.html

Family Search: www.familysearch.org

I hope that some of this is helpful. Please be patient - as our programme has only begun to rollout across the island of Ireland and volunteers in some areas may not yet be organized.

Kind regards,

Genealogy Support

Thank you, Emma

I appreciate the time that you have given to help me locate this ancestor. I've started to chase up some of these leads, thank you.

Kind regards, Deb