James Orr and Rebecca... possible marriage

Kazzad13,

Birth registration only started in Ireland in 1864 and non RC marriages were only registered from 1845. Prior to that you are reliant on church records, not all of which have survived, and not all of which are on-line. There could well be other James Orr=Rebecca marriages, just that the records are either lost or not on-line yet. Monaghan to Derry is about 130 miles and, whilst perfectly possible, strikes me as a slightly unusual movement, especially prior to the arrival of the railways. If Rebecca was in Derry workhouse that generally indicated she had resided in that poor law union for some time. (Otherwise she’d have been referred back to the Poor Law Union responsible for her, eg Monaghan if she came from there). My gut feeling is she is more likely to have originated in the Londonderry area.

If her denomination was recorded as Church of England, then that’s Church of Ireland, in Ireland. I’d be inclined to check Londonderry Church of Ireland records for her baptism and for a possible parents marriage. Londonderry is in the parish of Templemore. Their baptisms start in 1642 and marriages in 1649. There’s a copy in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. I am not sure if they are on-line anywhere.

Orr is a common enough surname in the Londonderry area. There were 12 Orr households in that parish in the 1831 census of the county, 3 headed by people named James Orr.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

It doesn’t appear that the Londonderry workhouse admission records go back to the 1840s. Otherwise you might have found Rebecca’s admission records. The Board of Guardians minutes (management meetings) do exist and you might find some mention of the arrangements for Rebecca and other orphans’ voyage to Australia in them. The Guardians minutes are not on-line and a visit to PRONI in Belfast is required to view them. See this link for information on that workhouse (the main buildings are still in existence):

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Londonderry/

Elwyn,

Thankyou so much for your reply. I have followed as much information as I can (from Australia) including reading minute book entries for Derry Workhouse- all to no avail. I did wonder about the likelyhood of the family having moved from Clones to Londonderry, realising there was a workhouse in Monaghan- a "long shot" .  I will revisit the census you posted, more sure that this is probably where I need to keep searching and try to source information for the church records.

Greatfully yours Karen

Karen,

The family might have moved from Monaghan to Londonderry but in my experience they’d be more likely to have gone from Monaghan to Dublin or Belfast. With Orr being common enough in Derry, I think your family may have originated there.

As far as James & Rebecca’s marriage is concerned, tradition was to marry in the bride’s church after which she’d attend her husband’s. So the marriage and baptism of their daughter may not necessarily be in the same church. Bride might have been Presbyterian, so worth checking those marriage records too. !st Derry Presbyterian marriages start in 1815. (PRONI). The Church of Ireland keeps burial records so given that Rebecca was an orphan by 1849, you might want to search their burial records 1833-1849 for one or both parents. (Some “orphans” had 1 parent still alive. The term had a slightly wider meaning then).

If you think the family might have been Wesleyan Methodist, the earliest Methodist baptism records are for Carlisle Rd meeting house. They start in 1820. They are in “local custody” ie the Minister has the only copy, so you would need to write to him/her.  That meeting house doesn’t have any marriages prior to 1863 which was fairly typical. Many Methodists in Ireland continued to use the Church of Ireland for marriages till the mid or late 1800s. (There was a shortage of Methodist Ministers in Ireland, a lack of licensed premises to marry in, as well as a reluctance to break the ties with the Church of Ireland).

Elwyn.

Thankyou once again- you have given me some more most useful insights and paths to follow- so very much appreciated :)