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Thank you for your response.

I could not find the previous post probably a lack of forum experience and my partial blindness.  As much as directness can be helpful it can also come across as rude.

Following on for the previous post, a researcher helped find George’s war records and things developed onwards substantially so I can find records that had alluded me for many years just not his birth or family in Belfast. That help provided documented evidence and I looked into Durham Street.

I contacted the records office in Belfast and they recommended coming to the office as the records were not all online. I still have the email somewhere.

I will look into all that you have said. If you need to be so aggressive in your help or outreach then perhaps best just not bother?

I haven’t been able to find out what happened to sister George or Caroline since he left the army 1869z

Dear All

I discovered last year that I have a great great grandfather from Belfast having received his military records.  He was born in Belfast around 1827.  His father is listed as David Smith a mechanic. George served in the Royal Artillery and married in Norwich 1857. His military records name a part of Antrim called Shankhill.

Would much appreciate any lookup for George, David Smith and their family.

His military records lists that he served in Lisburn Antrim in 1847.

Last piece of information I have is that when George left the army the address given “Intended place Of residence: Durham Street Belfast” dated 13 April 1869.

I can’t trace his birth or any family information for his paternal or maternal family in Ireland and it’s been a dead end for 10 years.  An AncestryDNA test hasn’t yielding anything either.

Wonder if you are able to lookup for me and see if I can over come the roadblock?

Thanks, Elliot.

That’s very helpful.  There is nothing in his army records which indicate a religious denomination and its not something that has occurred to me until you explained the two different sources.

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/services/go-groni-online

Is there any benefit of in joining the above to search as it only contains historical records and given we are taking the earlier quarter of the 1800s the two may reconcile both George and his father David.  The name Smith itself doesn’t stand out to me immediately as Irish name.

Lastly there is reference to a Belford in his later military records and also Durham Street in Belfast was a place he would return on discharge from the Army before returning to Norwich around 1869 at the end of his army life.

I can’t seem to reconcile the Belford with Shankhill and Belfast but I guess parts of the county change name over time?