Looking for relatives of Anna McAndrew and John Norton

My great-great-grandmother, Bridget McAndrew, was born in the parish of Killasser in County Mayo, circa 1800.  That's several parishes to the southeast of where your McAndrew's lived, so we are probably only very distantly related, but I can give you some info about the McAndrew's which may be of interest.

Before doing that, however, I thought I would share a tip I learned while researching my own family.  In the time period where you are searching, the process of re-establishing Catholic churches was still underway, and not all rural parishes had their own church building yet.  Where that was the case, people were sometimes baptized or married in a neighboring parish.  As Miriam pointed out, the parish records for Ballycastle only go back to 1864, but the next parish to the south, Kilfian, has records going back to 1826, so you might find records for your family there, especially if they lived near the parish border.  If you want to check that out, here is a link to the parish records for Kilfian, and you'll see an interactive map there which will let you move to other nearby parishes:  https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0749

On that map, you can also see the parishes of Backs and Attymass to the southeast of Kilfian.  That is what one could call the "homeland" of the McAndrew's (my ancestor's parish, Killasser, adjoins Attymass to the southeast).   In Irish, the surname McAndrew is Mac Aindriu.  The McAndrew surname was adopted by a branch of the Barrett family in Mayo.  The Barrett’s were an Anglo-Norman family which became fully Hibernicized.  The McAndrew’s became like an Irish sept, having a well-defined territory on the eastern side of Lough Conn (the general area of Backs and Attymass).  In the seventeenth century they occupied half a column of the large page index of the Mayo Book of Survey and Distribution (they also appear in it under the synonym FitzAndrew), and all sixteen of the Mac Andrew births registered in 1890 in Ireland were in Mayo.  In Griffiths Valuation, there were 232 McAndrew’s listed in all of Ireland, of whom 186 were in County Mayo, and 19 in adjoining parts of County Sligo (which adjoins both Attymass and Killasser).

There were also some McAndrew’s in County Kerry, whose presence is indicated by the place-name Baflymacandrew in the Tralee area.  They are believed to have been a branch of the Fitzgerald’s whose descendants later resumed their original patronymic.  At one time, MacAindréis, anglicized as MacAndrew, was adopted as a Gaelic patronymic by the Scottish family of Ross, but their descendants generally later resumed the surname Ross,

Thank you, Miriam and Kevin

The 1861 England census shows Bridget McAndrew, "mother" born in Ireland 1793 (age 68) living with John and Ann Norton as "mother".   James McAndrew, born May 2, 1833 on the border of County Sligo and County Mayo, Ireland to James and Bridget Healy McAndrew. I'm hoping that's the same half-brother to my relative.    

Robin, I'm interested in how you know that James McAndrew was born on the border with Sligo.  Ballycastle is not near the border, but Killasser is right on the border, and the townland where my McAndrew's lived, Coolcastle, is quite close to the border.  I've had my DNA tested, in case you have as well and want to compare notes, since we might be more closely related than I suspected.  My results are posted at GEDMATCH as kit number T780556.

-- Kevin

Kevin, I'm not sure how to find your DNA results.  Yes, I've done mine on Ancestry as well as 23&Me.  How do I search on yours?  - Robin

My results are not on Ancestry or 23andMe, Robin, so you'd need to upload your DNA to GEDMATCH in order for us to do a comparison.  First, you download the raw data from Ancestry (there should be instructions at Ancestry for doing that), and then you go to the GEDMATCH site [www.gedmatch.com], create an account for yourself, and follow the instructions there to upload the raw data. After they process it for a few days, it will be available for comparisons.

As I rcecall, there are also instructions at GEDMATCH for doing the download at Ancestry, in case the instructions at Ancestry are not clear emough.

Ok, Kevin.  Got it.  

Kevin, it doesn't look like we have a DNA match.  My kit # is KZ2137865 and if I'm reading the results correctly, I don't have matches with anyone.  I'm assuming that since my ancestors supposedly left Ireland many generations ago, it would be difficult for me to find anyone with more than a 3-4 match.  Disappointing.  

Hi, Robin.  I think you made a mistake when doing the comparison.  I compared our results as welll, and we are definitely related, and not necessarily all that distantly either.  You've even shown up fairly high on my list of matches at GEDMATCH, so I should be on yours as well, if you look at the level of 30.cM of total match, with a longest segment of 14.2 cM .  Actually, we share a total of 53 cM of DNA, when one counts some smaller segments which GEDMATCH doesn't include in the total for the match list.  I checked the locations of the longer segments which we share, and they are ones which I've already identified from triangulation with other matches (including some second cousins who've been tested) as pointing to a connection in eastern Mayo.

The amount of match which we share could easily put us in the range of third to fourth cousins (sharing a 3x-great-grandparent).  Since my 2x-great-grandmother, Bridget McAndrew, was born circa 1800, she could statistically even have been an aunt of your Anna McAndrew (born 1828).  Very interesting.  Of coures, we could also be connected through families other than the McAndrews, since many families in the area have intermarried for centuries.

You can see my email address where the DNA match is shown at GEDMATCH, if you want to discuss any of this further.

In any case, fáilte romhat sa mhuintir!  {"welcome to the family")

-- Kevin

One more thought, Robin.  You may want to use the name search function on the main message board page to search for the surname McAndrew.  I just did that and saw that there were a half dozen or so Mc Andrew inquiries from before the time that I joined this site (plus some others to which I responded), and some of the older posts discussed Ballycastle and Kilfian parishes.  I didn't go through all of the info, but some of it may relate to your direct ancestors.