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Ancestry Daily News
8/12/2003 - Archive
Marriage and Burial Records of Irish Presbyterians
Looking for the records of vital events of Irish Presbyterians prior to civil
registration is not simply a matter of finding the appropriate Presbyterian Church
register. There are several reasons why a search for marriages prior to 1845,
and for births before 1864, requires knowing some background knowledge and looking
elsewhere.
Presbyterians were, like Catholics, restricted by the Penal Laws. From their passage
at the end of the 1690s through 1782, a marriage performed by a Presbyterian minister
was not recognized as a legal union. Until 1845 a Presbyterian minister could
not perform a marriage between a Presbyterian and a member of the Church of Ireland.
As a result, Presbyterians' marriages are found frequently in the records of the
Church of Ireland.
The records of burials either begin late or do not appear in Presbyterian registers.
Similar to looking for marriage records, the registers of the Church of Ireland
should be searched for burials.
The Presbyterians did not have parishes like the Church of Ireland. Congregations
formed where there were sufficient people to support a church. In some areas,
where Presbyterians were numerous, several churches might exist close together.
You cannot look at a plan of the civil parishes of a county and expect to see
one Presbyterian Church neatly placed in each.
Churches may have been located close to one another because of splits within the
congregations, as well as concentration of population. Secession within the Presbyterian
community was not confined to Scotland. The earliest secessions happened in about
1716, and some of these led to the migration of groups to America under the leadership
of a minister. At the end of the 1700s there were fifty to sixty secession congregations.
These factors have an impact on the search for baptisms, marriages, and burials
of known Presbyterians. As already suggested, the first rule is always to check
the records of any Church of Ireland parish within walking distance. In addition,
be sure to identify all the Presbyterian congregations within the area and find
out exactly what records survive; search them all before drawing conclusions that
the recording of an event cannot be found.
If your ancestors were Presbyterian, they probably lived in Ulster; in the 1861
census over 95 percent of all Presbyterians in Ireland lived in this province.
The list of churches in Irish and Scotch-Irish Ancestral Research (M. Falley,
1880) shows nineteen or twenty surviving registers (367 in the list) from outside
Ulster.
You have several tools for identifying churches, finding out the date of the earliest
entry, and locating copies. To get a verbal picture of the community, and to get
some idea of the church denominations, look up the location in the Topographical
Dictionary of Ireland. It was recently added to the Ancestry databases it
is also available on CD and as a reprint. (Ancestry database is available to UK
& Ireland Records Collection subscribers at: www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=4717&key=D7262
).
Samuel Lewis produced this work in 1837 (and there were later editions); he describes
each parish as it was and mentions whether there were Presbyterian churches. These
will probably not be named, but you will at least know whether the village or
town had a Presbyterian church. Using maps, you can identify other places within
a few miles and find out whether any of them had Presbyterian congregations. I
suggest you compare this 1830s information to the listings of Presbyterian Church
records that appear in print and online.
Online there are two useful sites; one is Fianna, which lists the churches and
dates of earliest records for seven of the nine Ulster counties (not Tyrone and
not Fermanagh), and the other is the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
(PRONI), which lists what registers they have filmed. Although this is an extensive
list, be aware that PRONI does not include registers in their possession that
have not been filmed, or registers that are held elsewhere.
There are several publications that you can refer to for information about surviving
Presbyterian registers and their locations.
History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, 1610-1982
(Presbyterian Historical Society, 1982).
Irish and Scotch-Irish Ancestral Research (M. Falley, GPC, 1980, still
in print). Includes a list of existing registers; those in the possession of the
Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast are marked. Dates of earliest baptism
and marriage entries are given.
A Guide to Irish Parish Registers (B. Mitchell, GPC, 1988). Lists registers
of all denominations, with earliest dates.
Irish Records: Sources For Family & Local History (J. Ryan, Ancestry,
1999.) Includes listings of Presbyterian registers.
www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=831&key=P2121
. Editor's Note: This is today's product special.
The largest collection of register copies is at PRONI. If it has a microfilm copy,
and if you obtain a letter of permission from the current local Presbyterian minister,
you may purchase a microfilm copy from PRONI. Further information is at their
website.
FIANNA
www.rootsweb.com/~fianna/guide/
Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
proni.nics.gov.uk
Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA (Scot) is an author, teacher, and lecturer specializing
in English and Scottish family history. She is the author of Your English
Ancestry (2nd ed, 1998) and Your Scottish Ancestry (1997) and she is
a regular contributor to several journals including Genealogical Computing.
Since 1996, she has been a study tour leader, course coordinator, and instructor
for the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University.
She teaches online for the family history program of Vermont College and has lectured
at conferences in Canada, the United States, and Australia. She is the president
of the Association of Professional Genealogists.
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