Ballymacarrett

[swa]

Thanks for your help,

You must be right that the change-over occurred after 1888...

Best Wishes,
Sarah WALKER (m.s. HALL)
Australia

[hdw]

This is all very confusing for an Aussie girl!   

Best Wishes,
Sarah WALKER (m.s. HALL)
Australia



It's confusing for this Scottish boy too! My 2 x great-grandmother Agnes Petticrew and her siblings were brought across to Scotland from the Belfast area in the 1830s by their widowed mother Jane Petticrew, née Murray, after the death of her husband Archibald. I thought I had found every member of the family in the various Scottish censuses, where their place of birth is given simply as "Ireland", but now I've discovered that Agnes had another sister I didn't know about, called Jane Petticrew, who gives her place of birth in various Scottish censuses as Co. Antrim, Ireland.

At about the same time as I discovered Jane's existence, I finally managed (after about 20 years of looking!) to find their mother Jane Murray's death-certificate, which gives her parents as William Murray, stonemason, and Nancy Howat. I have a copy of Martin's 1841 directory of Belfast, which lists a William Murray, "stone-cutter", in Scotch Row, which to judge from my Belfast map is in Ballymacarrett. Looking for Howats on the IGI, anywhere in Ireland, I got 8 hits, nearly all of them in "Ballymacarrett, Co. Down". I suspect Ballymacarrett was where my Petticrews lived before my 3 x gt.grandfather Archibald Petticrew died and his widow Jane Murray brought the family over to Scotland. And the fact that one of the daughters, Jane, gives her place of birth as Co. Antrim rather than Down, just seems to show that even the locals were unsure whether they were in Down or Antrim.

Harry

[Sheilago]

Hi Sarah
Just wanted to add to the confusion. My mother was born in Ballymacarrett. She and two siblings came to US in the 1920s and 30s. They always said they were from County Down tho they did join the County Antrim Society in NY. (I don't even know if there was a "Down" group).
As to current designation, the Irish Times Ancestor site and Ulster Ancestors places Ballymacarret  in County Down.
Good luck with your search. S

[OTTO]

Maybe this will help.
The town of Belfast was established on the County Antrim side of the Lagan river,many moons ago, and all Belfast addresses then and now are County Antrim (ie Tulycarnet Library Kinross Avenue Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 7GH Tel 028 90485079)

Even though Tillycarnet Library is located in County Down by a few miles, it's POSTAL ADDRESS is County Antrim.

Hope this helps

OTTO

[Billyblue]

Trying to find out exactly where Ballymacarret is, I came across this site. 
According to Matier's Belfast Directory 1835-6 which I'm trying to catalogue, it was at that stage (at least) a suburb of Belfast and Belfast has always been in Co. Antrim to my knowledge
Billyblue
Brisbane, Australia

[aghadowey]

Part of Belfast is in Co. Down and if you read back through this thread it looks as though Lewis' Topographical Dictionary (1837) mentions this.

[Flloyd]

Its an area at the bottom of the Newtownards Rd. in East Belfast -  Dee  Street, Templemore Avenue etc. & is quite close to the docks.  Alot of the shipyard workers would have lived there

[captainbeecher]

Your issue here is that Belfast is classed as County Antrim so any reference to anything happening at any time after the 1880s in Ballymacarrett will state it as County Antrim. Prior to that Ballymacarret was a village in its own right and not part of Belfast. However the county boundary for Antrim/Down is the river Lagan which seperates East Belfast from the rest of the city. Ballymacarrett, although part of Belfast is County Down and its citizens would regard themselves as County Down.

The boundaries of Ballymacarrett traditionally would be the railway line, heading east until it meets the river Connswater which provides the east boundary travelling south until it meets the Beersbridge Road heading west onto Castlereagh street and then Mountpottinger Road, which heads north and stops just short of the Bridgend flyover, which then meets the railway and completes the perimiter. The spine of the area is the Newtownards Road. This can be easily viewed from Google maps.

Until the 1960s  the business of the area and shops, pubs, offices, churches and schools allowed the area to be self sufficient with the vast majority of the citizens of the working in the Shipyard, ropeworks and various other local factories and shops. The area went into steep decline in the 1960s through various factors. Most of the heavy industry which employed the community closed down, the affect on the local economy hit the Newtownards Road businesses which began to suffer, the onset of the troubles further isolated the area and large numbers of younger families in the community left for better work, housing and general social conditions in the surrounding towns. The money in the area moved out and the emergence of Shopping centres all but killed the area commercially by the 80s. The population that remained were largely ageing or low income. The last thirty years have seen much of the old Victorian housing bulldozed and replaced while the turn of the century saw plans for a Titanic quarter, providing luxury apartment blocks along the Lagan and improved housing and social conditions in the streets off the Newtownards Road in a bid to try and bring more affluent familys back to the area. To date this has been only marginally successful and the area remains largely down at heel in appearance.

[janiedoll]

It's confusing for this Scottish boy too! My 2 x great-grandmother Agnes Petticrew and her siblings were brought across to Scotland from the Belfast area in the 1830s by their widowed mother Jane Petticrew, née Murray, after the death of her husband Archibald. I thought I had found every member of the family in the various Scottish censuses, where their place of birth is given simply as "Ireland", but now I've discovered that Agnes had another sister I didn't know about, called Jane Petticrew, who gives her place of birth in various Scottish censuses as Co. Antrim, Ireland.

At about the same time as I discovered Jane's existence, I finally managed (after about 20 years of looking!) to find their mother Jane Murray's death-certificate, which gives her parents as William Murray, stonemason, and Nancy Howat. I have a copy of Martin's 1841 directory of Belfast, which lists a William Murray, "stone-cutter", in Scotch Row, which to judge from my Belfast map is in Ballymacarrett. Looking for Howats on the IGI, anywhere in Ireland, I got 8 hits, nearly all of them in "Ballymacarrett, Co. Down". I suspect Ballymacarrett was where my Petticrews lived before my 3 x gt.grandfather Archibald Petticrew died and his widow Jane Murray brought the family over to Scotland. And the fact that one of the daughters, Jane, gives her place of birth as Co. Antrim rather than Down, just seems to show that even the locals were unsure whether they were in Down or Antrim.

Harry

Hi Harry

I have an Elizabeth Pettigrew (Petticrew?) who I think was born in Scotland c1800.  I just wondered if there was any chance she was connected to your family?  She married William McCrae and they had a daughter Mary c1826.




Jane