Genealogy: William Patrick Hanvey

Very difficult to provide help with such limited information. Few churches in Co Down have records for the mid 1700s and without some idea of the family's denomination and where in the county the Hanvey family lived, I would struggle to suggest where to search.

The surname is quite common in that area and there are plenty of Hanveys mentioned on this Co Down site:

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~rosdavies/genealogy/SURNAMES/H/Han.htm

Possibly DNA testing may be a way of matching with others who have additional information about where the family originate. Family Tree DNA reportedly has more people with Ulster roots than any other company. That obviously increases the chances of finding a match. You might want to try them or, if you have already tested, you can transfer your results to them for no fee.

The North of Ireland Family History Society is running an Ulster DNA project in conjunction with FTDNA and can offer testing kits at a reduced price.  http://www.nifhs.org (Go to DNA project on the website).

Thank you. My grandmother told me her Hanvey ancestor was Protestant.

Being Protestant fits with a departure from Ireland in the 1700s. Most of migrants who left in the 1700s were Protestant, the majority were Presbyterian and came from the counties of Ulster. In contrast, Catholics didn’t start migrating in large numbers till the 1800s.

That said, Hanvey was a mostly Catholic name. In the 1901 census of Co Down there were 73 Hanveys. 12 were Presbyterian, 5 Church of Ireland and the remainder Catholic.

So to try and find your ancestor you would be best to focus on Church of Ireland and Presbyterian records. The problem there is that not all churches have records for the 1700s and of those that do, not all are on-line. PRONI in Belfast has the most complete set of records for those denominations but to go through all the churches in Co Down would be quite a task. (And would involve a personal visit to PRONI).

The other problem is that without parents names, it would be hared to know for certain that you had the right William Hanvey. (Middle names were very rare in Ireland in the 1700s and he’ll likely appear in records as plain William Hanvey.)

There are several trees on Ancestry showing that Wm. and his parents were born in Co. Down and that Wm. died in 1780 in South Carolina. However, I do not know the source of this info.