Searching for my great, great, grandfather (John West) and his family...

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MZCQ-3X       Census John West in Boston 1860 aged 26 years and from Derry, others mentioned in the record are Margaret aged 40 years and Richard aged 24 years

The Valuation Revision records show that Margaret West was deleted from the records for Brick Kilns by 1864 so that fits with her having left the area. In general if a woman was listed she was often a widow, so that ties in too. Death registration only started in Ireland in 1864 so there won’t be a statutory death record for John if he was dead before 1859. He might be in church burial records but probably only if he was Church of Ireland. Do you know what denomination the family was? You’ll need that to search for the marriage and childrens baptisms. The records may not be on-line.

Not having received prior text messages from IrelandXO I am unfamiliar with the format of receiving and posting messages. In this case it looks like I was sent two replies to my message. One from Eileen (sent 6th March @ 10:39 PM and the 2nd message (a jpg file) from Elwyn, sent 7th March @ 7:23 PM). I will work a bit more on understanding the protocol for messaging, likely I will be putting my comments in a file type and posting...  

So, at this time my response to the two messages I received I will be in this posted message.

Eileen, thank you for the information  you found on the 1860 census... interesting that John shows being with his mother and brother in 1860 so I am assuming he likely arrived within one or two years before or after Margaret's arrival in July, 1859...  Also this census corrects the age of Richard as 24 years instead of 26 which I had in my posting. Although I have no record to determine when John arrived I did find that he moved to New York and joined the Union Navy in Philadelphia the day following the start of the Civil War. At this time I don't have access to military records so I'll have to delay getting additional service records for John.

Elwyn, Thank you for the attached "Valuation Revision" file... Your comments about Margaret being listed likely because she was a widow is interesting. looks like additional information showing when Margaret was removed from the record in 1864, is likely because she was no longer there. As to the denomination of John, I have no direct information but am assuming he and Margaret where not in the Church of Ireland. This is based upon when they were living in Boston all records I have foung show they were in the Catholic faith.

Again I would like to say thank you for forwarding the information you both sent.

Sincerely,

Joe West

Norwood, MA, USA

Joe,

The date appearing in the revaluation records is the date a change was noted. It’s not necessarily the year it happened, so Margaret clearly may have been gone for a several years at the point it was recorded. 

The RC parish that Brick Kilns is in – Clondermott (sometimes Glendermott) sadly doesn’t have any records before 1864. So if that’s where the Wests were married and their children were born, there are no records for the period. No easy way round that.

I have looked for them on Ancestry’s RC parish records (in case they were born somewhere else, eg in the City of Derry) but there is no sign of them.

West is not a common name in Co. Derry.  In the 1831 census there were only 6 West households in the county and only 1 of them was RC. This one:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/Londonderry/Tirkeeran/Faughanvale/Coolafinny/7/

I had a look at the 1901 census for the County and again there were only 8 West households. 6 were Protestant and 2 RC. West seems to be a mainly Protestant name.  You might want to consider  whether John & Margaret’s was a mixed marriage. In which case, unless John converted, they probably married in the Church of Ireland (which would conduct mixed marriages when other denominations would not).

Clondermott’s Church of Ireland records start in 1810. There’s a copy in PRONI in Belfast plus rootsireland (a subscription site) has some years records for the parish.