James Devine b.c. 1855 in Derry to William Devine & Catherine Ann Ferguson

[darylr]

Hi,

I'm hoping someone out there can help me find James Devine b.c. 1855 in Derry (according to a Scottish census return in 1911) who's parents were William Devine & Catherine Ann Ferguson.

I can't find any births for James or siblings born around the early 1850's. William was a farmer/labourer, and the family were RC.

According to James's wedding cert. in 1877 his mother Catherine was deceased, but William was still alive, but by 1918 when James died his father William and his 2nd wife Margaret Gormley were both deceased.

Can anyone help ?

Thanks

Daryl

[aghadowey]

Not sure where you've been searching for 'births' in 1850s but civil registration of births started in 1864 so there will be no birth certificates before that date.

Catholic Parish registers are now online but bear in mind that 'Derry' can refer to either the city or the whole county (and sometimes people born in parts of Co.Donegal near the city or even Co.Tyrone would have put 'Derry' as their birthplace).
http://registers.nli.ie/#home_map

Registration of deaths started in 1864 and doing a search (deaths 1877-1918) shows a few possibilites but there are likely others-
William Devine (c1833-1891) https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FTHT-PZ6
William C. Devine (c1825-1880) https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FT97-2Q7
William Divine (c1825-1878) https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FTMN-K62

[scotmum]

For those helping, also see http://www.talkingscot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=18122 to avoid duplication of effort. In particular re potential deaths for William and both wives http://www.talkingscot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=18122#p144188 .

[aghadowey]

Thanks, scotmum. If I'd known about all the details posted on the other forum I wouldn't have wasted my time searching 

[bmcg66]

The 'talking scot' forum has a death for William Devine, who is recorded as dying on December 4th 1879 aged 66 years in Templemore. A forum user tried to find a record of the death on GRONI, but without success.
However, the death record of William Devine does seem to be on GRONI, but his surname had been incorrectly recorded or was incorrectly transcribed: "William DIVER" died in the Waterside, Derry, on December 2nd 1879 aged 66 years.

'Diven' is a common spelling of the surname 'Devine' in Derry records during the 19th century, so it is not hard to see how 'Diver' may have been incorrectly recorded or mistranscribed.

Also, the death for William Devine on December 4th 1879 was taken from Rootsireland's record of deaths in Derry City Cemetery. This date of death was probably the actual date of burial, which would have generally taken place two days after the death of a person. The code 0745 is given to all burials in the Derry City Cemetery recorded on the Derry Rootsireland website, and does not necessarily mean that William Devine (if it actually is the correct person) was sharing the same burial plot in Derry City Cemetery with his two deceased wives.

Best wishes,
Brendan