Most of this note has been on a couple of other boards and I have had some success with this one in that a second cousin of my dad contacted me from Australia - I didn't know about this side of the family
My g-g-grandfather was John Hamill, born approx 1830 to Daniel Hamill (clerk) and wife unknown. He married Jane McFarland on 26th May 1853 in Dunluce Church of Ireland. John Hamill was living in Portrush at the time of his marriage. The witnesses to the marriage were John Haughey and John McFarland (brother of the bride). He had a brother Daniel Hamill.
My grandmother told me that Jane McFarland was from Scotland, born about 1833, her father was James McFarland and apparently he was a boat-builder in Greenock (not that I can find him or his family in any Scottish census). At the time of her marriage, Jane McFarland was a servant living in Port Ballintrae.
I believe that John and Jane had 3 children, John (my great-grandfather) born 1860, and two daughters, Mary Jane (born about 1855) and Hannah.
John Hamill was a fisherman and was drowned at sea on 3rd December 1863. He went to the rescue of a ship, the Providence, which was floundering off Portrush, Co Antrim. Four coastguards and five fishermen went out to assist and succeeded in boarding her but a storm arose and the vessel drifted on shore and broke up. Three of the crew, two fishermen, one being John Hamill, and one coastguard were drowned. Jane, the widow of John Hamill received £30 for herself and her three children according to Parliamentary papers of 1863. I understand that his brother, Daniel Hamill, was a sailor on the Providence and survived, although I have no proof of this and have no idea how to find out who was on the crew of that ship.
John Hamill, the son of the fisherman, married Mary Jane Wilton from Coleraine, on 25th December 1888 in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland. They had a large family and lived in Coleraine, Portrush and finally Belfast. Mary Jane married William Doherty/Dougherty in 1876, and they had 8 children. Hannah couldn't speak or hear and was sent to a special school in Scotland and married there and had a family (no information on her at all)
Daniel the brother of John Hamill the fisherman may have been married to Hannah Montgomery but I know he had a daughter, Hannah Hamill who married James McCann in the 1870’s.
Any help on my search for information on the Hamill and McFarland families would be greatly appreciated
