McBride family from Ardstraw

Gail,

I assume you have located both birth certificates? Is the residence shown as Carnkenny for both? What’s the father’s occupation? Is it labourer? I have looked in the revaluation records for Carnkenny c 1879 – 1881 and cannot see a McBride household in the townland. That could mean that they were lodging with someone else but it often meant they had a house of too poor a value to be listed in the Valuation records. In which case they wouldn’t have been able to afford a gravestone either. (Sadly). Labourers tended to take short leases so they were free to follow any new work that may arise. That makes them especially difficult to trace. What denomination was your family?

Charles in Urbalreagh appears to have been married to Matilda:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Tyrone/Altaclady/Urbal…

Thank you so much for your reply Elwyn. I really appreciate your assistance.

The only birth certificate [copy] I have at this stage is for Samuel McBride.His father Charles was indeed listed as a labourer. Geoff has no idea about their religion, other than they were probably not Catholic. His cousin sent a copy of a Griffith Valuation [not sure of the year sorry] report which makes reference to a few McBrides. One was a Charles McBride of Urbalreagh. Another one was John McBride, listed as [living at?] Castlebane. It seems quite odd to me that the name John has not carried on through the family either. Charles, Samuel, William.....but no John. There there was quite an age gap between Samuel [b 1881] and a sister, Ann Jane McBride, born in Milltown in 1848. The word in the family is that Samuel's parents died when he was relatively young and he went to live with a relative.