Nicholas Thornton of Belfast

[Neko]

this is all I know about Nicholas. he m. a Catherine and they had at least one child, James, b. 10 Nov 1835 in Belfast.
James came to America and settled in Worcester Co., Massachusetts where he married on 3 Jan 1878 to Ellen Flynn who was born 26 Dec 1854 in Leitrim, Ireland, the daughter of Terence Flynn and Bridget.
James may have married previous to Ellen as I find a James Thornton b. 1835 Ireland in the 1870 Worcester, MA census with a wife Margaret Franzen and 3 children. we don't know what happened to Margaret and the children.
James and Ellen had at least 8 children, Katherine Marie aka Katy, Ella, Anna Elizabeth, Helen aka Nellie, Jane, Margaret Gertrude, Nicholas F. and John aka Johnny.
can anyone fill out this family tree?

[Neko]

it's amazing how fast some research can be done.
a very kind soul took some time to look in the Massachusetts archives for me, and found that Nicholas' wife's name was Catherine Bowden, and that James has siblings who came to Worcester with him. they were Jane who m. in Worcester to William Stafford, Ann who m. in Worcester to John Connor, and Richard, who never married and died at the age of 48. they also found that James and Ellen's unknown child was James R. so now the family is as complete as I can find, unless the volunteer finds some more births...
there's still much to learn about Nicholas and his family, both in Ireland and in America.

[Christopher]

Hello Neko,

Nicholas must have been born sometime around 1810 and possibly earlier if James was not the first child.

There are several items which need to be established when searching for Irish ancestors.

1. Denomination.
2. Parish.
3. Townland.

You'll have to rely on Church records when searching for Nicholas as he was born prior to the introduction of Civil Registration in Ireland. This happened in 1864. Marriages of Non Catholic were registered from 1845 onwards.

Christopher

[Neko]

hi, Christopher,
we have the city, thanks to that researcher in Massachusetts. James was born in Belfast. but a townland is a smaller section than a city, isn't it? the rest is still unknown. I haven't found a satisfactory site for Irish records and cannot afford the Irish archives fees for records, so I'll continue to muddle along and hope for records to eventually be available some day.