William Blair born 1827 County Antrim, possibly Belfast

The name Blair is a fairly common surname in Ulster. (In 1901 there were 2196 Blairs in Ireland). Aghadowey is in Co Londonderry/Derry.  In the 1831 census there were 193 Blair households in the county, 8 of which were in Aghadowey parish. All were Presbyterians.

Reformed Presbyterians (Covenanters) in Ireland rarely have records back to the early 1800s, partially due to not having settled congregations or churches.  Researching them can be tricky, due to this lack of records. You suspect that William may have been born in Belfast. There are/were 6 RP churches in Belfast but none has baptism records from around 1827.

Aghadowey and Belfast are about 50 miles apart. Plus Aghadowey isn’t in Co Antrim (which is where you appear to think your ancestor may come from). That’s not to say someone couldn't travel from one to the other but there's a lot of uncertainty here. More information is probably required from US or Canadian sources to narrow the search. Or perhaps DNA testing might help.

If William married in Canada in 1855, have you found a marriage certificate and did it detail his parents?  And have you found his death certificate?  And again does that give his parents names?

Whatever their precise origins in the 1800s, the family probably are descended from Scots who arrived in Ireland in the 1600s.

Unfortunately while I have both the marriage notification and his death certificate, neither have either set of parents names.  To be honest I was stuck for a while with his son William E for a while, since the information I had from my mother prior to her passing was that he was born in Boston and his family was from Nova Scotia so I assumed the family progressively migrated South from Nova Scotia and it was just the opposite.  Confirmation of William E and his brother John who both moved to Pennsylvania confirm both parents names which helped to lead me to Nova Scotia census and other records, but getting the names of the GGG grandparents has been tough.  I have done DNA testing with Ancestry and while there have been changes to my estimate I am still 59% Irish, 35% Scottish, 4% Wales, and 2% English.  With my Irish communities being Southern Donegal which jibes up with my Father's Ancestors, and the other being Ulster Ireland which includes Tyrone, Londonderry & Antrim which matches well with the Blair history.  I have also gone through DNA matches in Ancestry for people with Blair in their tree and they are up and down the east coast of the U.S. from North Carolina, Kentucky, Western Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Nova Scotia and other regions of Canada many lead back to descendants of Robert Blair.  However considering that all Blairs of Ireland are related, just muddies the water a bit.  But I keep trying.  :-)

I wouldn't expect all the Blairs in Ireland to be related. That wouldn’t be very likely. It’s a common Scottish name and I would expect many different and unconnected families moved to Ireland in the 1600s. (In the 1841 Scottish census, there are nearly 4000 people named Blair, scattered right across the country. That gives you an idea of how common and widespread the name is).

The majority of Scots who moved to Ireland settled in the counties of Ulster, and the majority were mainstream Presbyterian though there were some RC & Episcopalians Scots settlers too.

The Reformed Presbyterians (Covenanters) in Ireland don’t really have any records for the 1700s. The first ever RP Minister in Ireland was the Rev William Martin who was ordained in Ireland in 1757. His “presbytery” was all of Counties Down, Antrim, Londonderry & Donegal. He lived near Kellswater in Co Antrim but preached all over Ulster. Initially, he had no church and preached in barns or the open air. He kept no records in Ireland (or none that have survived anyway). The first RP church was his built at Kellswater around 1760. A second Minister, Matthew Lynn, was ordained in 1763 and took over the Bannside part of Rev Martin’s presbytery (ie Cos Derry, Tyrone & Donegal). By the time Rev Martin left for America in 1773 with 5 shiploads of emigrants, 4 more Ministers had been ordained. A grand total of 6.

However by 1779 the presbytery collapsed because 2 Ministers had emigrated to the USA and 2 others had died. It was re-established in 1792 with 6 Ministers. There were still only a handful of churches: Kellswater, Letterkenny, Conlig, Dervock & Kilraughts being ones that I know of. Around 1793 the Ministers for Kilraughts and Kellswater both had to go into exile for preaching treasonous sermons. Back to 4 Ministers, all covering huge geographic areas. Some itinerant Ministers from Scotland came to Ireland from time to time and conducted baptisms and marriages, but they kept no records of those events. (Or if they did, none has survived).

So the picture that emerges for the 1700s, is one of an embryonic organization, with few church buildings, a handful of Ministers (some of whom died or left at short notice), and even fewer records.

A fellow researcher told me that the Ballylagan RP congregation near Coleraine, Co Derry, may have some pre-1800 records. If so, they are the only 18th century RP records that I have ever heard of. And if they do exist, PRONI (the public record office, in Belfast) don’t have a copy, and so the only copy must presumably be held by the church.

Kellswater RP church has Kirk Session minutes starting in 1789 (but no baptisms or marriages). They are the oldest RP records I have seen.

In short, if your ancestors were Reformed Presbyterians who lived in Ireland in the 1700s and early 1800s, I don’t think there are any church records you can usefully access. Tracing your family maybe tricky. And without parents names there's no way of being sure whether any particular family is the correct family.

Thanks Elwyn.  I appreciate the help.