Hello,
My great great grandfather wass John McClelland born abt 1817 near Holywood, his parents were Thomas McClelland born abt 1784 and Elizabeth Nimik (not quite sure of the spelling) born abt 1788. Both Thomas and Elizabeth stayed in the area and died there. Thomas and Elizabeth had at least 3 children; John (my ancestor) James born abt 1812 and Jane born abt 1814. John McClelland met Jane Steele who lived near by and the two of them left abt 1840 and were married in Glasgow, Scotland and then went on to settle in Lancashire County, England. I have not been able to find any record on this family as I don't know what church they would have attended, but I do see several McClellands near Bainbridge and Bango.
I have tried writing to a couple of Presbyterian churches but there are so many in the area and only a few respond with no answer. Any help would be appreciated.
Cheri McClellan Bosh
Kirkland, WA USA
Cheri Bosh
Wednesday 29th Apr 2020, 01:27AMMessage Board Replies
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Cheri,
Statutory registration of births and deaths didn’t start in Ireland till 1864. Non RC marriages were registered from 1845 onwards. So those dates are all too late for your family. Prior to that we have to rely on church records (where they still exist).
McClelland (and variant spellings) is a common surname in Ireland. I can see about 1300 in the 1901 census, of which about 330 lived in Co. Down. The majority were a mix of Presbyterian and Church of Ireland. There were a number of Methodists too but Methodism hadn’t been established as a separate denomination in Ireland in the late 1700s/early 1800s and so they’d all have been Church of Ireland then.
If you know that the family lived near Holywood then the Church of Ireland there has baptisms from 1806 onwards plus marriage and burials from 1823. There are 2 Presbyterian churches in the parish. Neither has any records earlier than 1840, plus Presbyterian churches generally don’t keep burial records. So if they were Presbyterian, and attended either of those churches, there are no records to find. The only records worth looking at are the Church of Ireland baptisms. There’s a copy in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. They are not on-line. If you are unable to go yourself, you could employ a researcher. Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net
The originals of the records for Holywood Church of Ireland are still held by the Vicar. He/she may look them up for you but expect to pay. The Church of Ireland charges about £20 an hour, assuming the Vicar is willing to do the work.
Bear in mind that tradition was to marry in the bride’s church, after which she’d normally attend her husband’s. So marriage and children’s baptisms are not always in the same church.
If you don’t know where in Co Down the family lived, then it’s a needle in a haystack. There are probably 150 Presbyterian and Church of Ireland churches in the county. Many don’t have records for the period you need, and of those that do, many are not on-line. PRONI holds copies of most of the surviving records but that’s a lot of records to go through if you aren’t sure which church they attended.
Can’t help you with the surname Nimik. That sounds like it’s been corrupted or mistranscribed over the years. There are none of that name in the 1901 census anywhere in Ireland, and I can’t imagine what it could be.
Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘
Wednesday 29th Apr 2020, 05:29AM