Isabella DICKSON (b. 1838) & William John FEE (b. 1830s)

Willie,

There’s a death for a Nancy Dickson on 28.1.1865 aged 50, registered in Banbridge. I wonder if that might be your Nancy? You can view the original certificates on-line on the GRONI website, using the “search registrations” option:

https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk

You will need to open an account and buy some credits. It costs £2.50 (sterling) to a view a certificate.

If Nancy attended Castlewellan Presbyterian church then the bad news is their baptism and marriage records only start in 1845 so you are unlikely to find her baptism or marriage. There’s also a Presbyterian church in Leitrim but its records start in 1839 so not much better.

Hello Elwyn.

Thank you so much for responding.

I have already looked at the Nancy Dickson who died in 1865. According to the death record, she was a single woman, out of work, who died in the Union Workhouse, Banbridge.

Thank you also for the information about the Castlewellen and Leitrim Presbyertian records - that is very useful to know. As John Dickson was in the Royal Sappers and Miners, I'm hoping that his marriage record will be in the Regimental record books of the Royal Sappers and Miners or the Royal Engineers (apparently the RS&M records often appear as part of the RE records). Isabella's birth/baptism record was amongst the UK overseas birth records, indexed under Royal Engineers. And I have ordered the birth/baptism record for William J Dickson from the same set of records. With John Dickson's marriage, the General Register Office UK is currently doing a manual search of the 1833-1835 Royal Sappers and Miners/Royal Engineers record books - those records are not indexed, hence the manual search (a manual search, which spans three years, is the same price as ordering an indexed record).

Cheers, Willie.

A manual search by the General Register Office UK of the Royal Sappers and Miners/Royal Engineers record books for 1831-1833 has revealed that John Dickson married Nancy Herron in the parish of Drumgooland, County Down in 1833.

There are a number of churches in Drumgooland. The Church of Ireland has marriage records for 1833; Drumgooland Presbyterian’s records start in 1836, Drumlee Presbyterian start 1845; Leitrim in 1836 and RC Drumgooland Lower 1832. Drumgooland Upper RC 1838.

The RC parish records are on-line free on the National Library site:

http://registers.nli.ie/parishes

For Drumgooland Church of Ireland, there’s  a copy in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast but they are not on-line. So you either need to pay PRONI to search them or get someone to make a personal visit. Don’t expect too much from a pre 1845 marriage record. Often all you get is the couples names, the date and their 2 witnesses.