Hi,
I have a marriage record for my husbands ancestors and it says the town for the groom and the town for the 1847 marriage are in Derry BUT I can’t find either in Derry.
I would appreciate help finding these two towns as we will be in Ireland in September. (We will also be going to Downpatrick where the other side of his family is from)
The towns are Lisboy and Agahdowney. I tried to attach a photo from my phone but it was the wrong format.
The groom was John Black (1827–1895) and the bride was Jane Bradley (1823–1886).
Presbyterian Marriage Date: 23 Nov 1847 Marriage Place: Civil Marriage Records,
FHL Film Number: 101285 Reference ID: 2:1SZ0T51
SBC
Saturday 24th Jun 2023, 11:26PMMessage Board Replies
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Those are not the names of towns, but of "townlands", which are what were usually specified as residences in older parish registers. A townland is an ancient division which came to be used as an address within a civil parish (there were also some sub-townlands in some areas). Wikipedia has a good article about the history of townlands:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townland
You can find more info about the townland of Aghadowey at this link, along with a map:
https://www.townlands.ie/londonderry/coleraine/aghadowey/aghadowney/agh…
You can find more info about the townland of Lisboy at this link, along with a map:
https://www.townlands.ie/londonderry/coleraine/aghadowey/aghadowney/lis…
If you search using the interactive maps at those sites, you can see that Lisboy is not far south of Aghadowey, separated from it by just one other townland, Drumacrow. Both townlands appear to be in the Catholic parish of Coleraine, and you can search the parish registers for that parish at this link, which has baptisms from 1843-1881:
https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0341
kevin45sfl
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On the marriage it says the address at the time of marriage.
John was from Movenis
Movenis Townland, Co. Londonderry (townlands.ie)Jane was from Lisboy
Lisboy Townland, Co. Londonderry (townlands.ie)Margot
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SBC,
In the 1831 census there was a Samuel Black in Craigmore, in Aghadowey (close to Lisboy). His family was Presbyterian and contained 5 males and 2 females. Possibly John Black’s father:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/Londonderry/Coleraine/Aghadowey/Craigmore/16/
Griffiths Valuation for Movenis in 1859 lists a Jane Bradley on plot 5C(b). That was a labourer/weaver’s cottage. I’d suspect that it could be Jane Bradley's widowed mother. This might possibly be her death:
Ardreagh is a mile or so north of Movenis. Jane is in the Valuation revision records for Movenis till 1869 when she left. She died in Ardreagh but does not appear in the Valuation records for that townland. However her 1879 death was reported by Thomas Millican and he does appear in the Ardreagh records. He had plot 9b (another weaver’s cottage) so I’d guess she was lodging with him. I think Thomas’s wife Mary Anne was Jane’s sister, or sister - in – law.
Thomas in 1901:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Londonderry/Aghadowey/Ardreagh/1515819/
Thomas & Mary Anne’s daughter’s baptism which gives the mother’s maiden name as Bradley:
They married in 1861:
The families seem to have used Aghadowey Presbyterian church. It’s baptisms only start in 1855 and marriages in 1845 (though the church was founded in the 1600s). Copy of those records is held in PRONI.
There are at least 3 Black gravestones in Aghadowey Presbyterian church graveyard. Whether they relate to your family is hard to say. Weavers, bleachers, labourers often couldn’t afford a gravestone and so would have been buried in unmarked graves. No Bradley gravestones there as far as I know.
The families being Presbyterian and living in the Aghadowey area point strongly to them being descendants of Scots who settled there in the 1600s. Many came from Ayrshire. Speaking of his youth in Aghadowey in the 1830s, page 25 of Autobiography of Thomas Witherow 1824 – 1890, pub 1990 by the Ballynacree Historical Society:
“Aghadowey had originally been settled by a Scotch migration and I found that my new neighbours spoke as pure Scotch as a man might hear in any part of Ayrshire.”
Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘