Thomas McKee & Jane Morrow

Linsa,

Tracing a marriage around 1833/1834 in Ireland can be tricky. It’s well before statutory registration of marriages started and so you have to search church records. Not every church has records for that period and of those that do, many are not on-line. (RC records mainly are but in this case it appears likely the family were not RC. Only some Protestant records are on-line, and of course quite a lot of Church of Ireland records were lost in 1922).

Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church, after which she'd usually attend her husband’s. So the marriage is not necessarily in the same church as the children are later baptised.  To complicate things further labourers, like Thomas, moved around a lot to follow the available work and so it can be very hard to track them in the records, as they often changed churches.

I have no easy answer for finding the marriage. You would need to go to PRONI in Belfast and search all the church records for that area. But that’s a lot of records.

I searched the 1901 Irish census for the surname Morrow in Co Down. There were 810, of which 141 were Church of Ireland, about 600 Presbyterian, 30 RC and the remainder were a mix of Baptists, Unitarians etc. So statistically Jane was likely to be Presbyterian but unless you know something about her background, we can’t be certain about that.

You haven’t been able to find Jane’s baptism, but the next 2 children were baptised in Bangor 2nd (Trinity). Their records start in 1829 so presumably the family was attending a different church when Jane was born. Again, it would be a matter of searching all the Presbyterian records in that area.  (That’s 20 or 30 churches, as you probably know).

Regarding Thomas’s death, death registration began in 1864. I searched the records for Newtownards registration area for 1864 – 1880. There were no adult Thomas McKee deaths. So I suspect he died before 1864 in which case there is unlikely to be any record to find. Presbyterians generally didn’t keep burial records, and if he was a labourer he’s unlikely to have had a gravestone.  I’d say it will be very difficult to trace his death.

I searched the Valuation Revision records on the PRONI website to see how long the McKees had been living in Little Francis St, and who the tenant was, as that might be a clue as to when Thomas died. However it appears that Grace only arrived there in 1880 (plot 36a) and there‘s no way of telling from those records where she and her mother lived before that.

Though most of the Irish censuses prior to 1901 have been destroyed, some fragments still exist, and I believe that Emerald Ancestors has part of the 1861 census for the area around Bangor.  You would need to verify that but if correct you might find the family in that.

Sorry that I cannot provide any more positive information.

In addition to my earlier message, I noticed that when Maxwell married in 1867 his townland (address) at that time was Gransha. I searched Griffiths Valuation 1863 and the subsequent Valuation revision records to see if there was a McKee household there. I noted 2 both headed by James McKee.  That makes me think that James McKee born 1835 had taken over as head of household, and consequently that Thomas had died before 1863. So no death certificate will exist.

Hi Elwyn,

Thanks so much for your detailed explanation & for the time it's taken you to look up the records you mentioned - very much appreciated.

I would dearly love to be able to go to PRONI to search whatever church records were available, but unfortunately, that's not very likely, especially with the COVID situation at the moment.

I have been able to utilise the NIFHS lookup service, but so far no luck in my requests.  I shall keep at it though, and thought it was worth asking here,as well.

That is interesting that the Valuation Revision records show that Grace was only at Little Francis street from 1880.  Grace is Thomas & Jane McKee's daughter in law >> she married their son James b1835, and James died in 1869 at Little Francis St N'Ards also.  James & Grace's 4th child, Ellen b1864 (the first of their children born after civil registrations) was born at Little Francis Street, and so were another 2 of their children, Thomas 1866 & Thomas George 1870.  So as I mentioned previously, that is interesting that Grace is only showing on the Valuation Revision books from 1880, when they had children born there prior to that?

As the McKee's lived, and continued to live in the Ballygrainey/Conlig area right up until my dad, when I found the death record for Jane McKee in 1880 at Little Francis Street, and with daughter in law, Grace McKee being the informant, I took it that Jane was either living there with son James & daughter in law Grace, after Thomas had died (I agree that it's probable that he died before 1864), and continued to live there after son James died in 1869 - or she was staying there because she was not well, and that resulted in where she died.

The James McKee you mentioned found in the Griffiths Valuation records 1863 at Gransha, I think could possibly be a brother to Thomas McKee.  I found an entry on the Ros Davies website that says the following:   James McKee - of Ballygrainey then Granshaw; married Fanny McCroberts 7 Nov 1835 at 1st Newtownards Presbyterian Church, witnesses were Thomas McManus & Thomas McKee & David Orr ; father of John b. 29 Jul & bpt. 14 Aug 1836 at 1st Newtownards Presbyterian.  I have always wondered whether the Thomas McKee who was the witness, could be my  3 x G Grandfather, Thomas McKee.  I need to put a bit more research into this James McKee and see where it leads.

Thanks again for your help!

Kind regards,

Linda