Connor Burying Ground

[jdchisim]

Hello all.

Does anyone know where Connor burying ground is?

My ancestor Alexander Bell appears in the family registers written up by the minister of Antrim 1st Presbyterian Church, presumably Rev. Robert Magill.

The record says:

Connor Burying Ground
Grave of Alexander Bell.

Does anyone know where this actually is?

Alexander was likely born in the mid 18th century, given that his son was married in 1797.

I've checked the first OS map for the settlement of Connor and it has a meeting house but no graveyard. The second ordnance survey map indicates graveyard at the meetinghouse and one at the Church of Ireland which existed in the first ordnance survey but no graveyard indicated.

I visited Connor previously and it seemed that the grounds of the Presbyterian church are now mostly a car park.

As well as the settlement, there is the parish of Connor, but I wouldn't know where to begin if it's a generically named place in the parish. I know the Presbyterian Church doesn't use parishes but I can't rule it necessarily out.

Thanks.

[Elwyn Soutter]

When did this person die? In the early 1800s, most burials were in the Church of Ireland graveyard in Kells. Then the new cemetery opened in the late 1800s. It's half a mile down the road from the Church of Ireland. As far as I am aware the Presbyterian church was an overflow church for Connor Presbyterian. It opened in the 1860s and didn't have a graveyard. Its members were either buried in the Church of Ireland graveyard or the new churchyard depending on the date. Unless they had a family plot somewhere else in that area of course.

[jdchisim]

Thanks for the reply.

I don't know when he died. The burial records kept in Antrim 1st are not particularly thorough.

The latest he could have been born I would guess to be about 1761.

Based on this, I would say that he likely died in the early 19th century.

It's just a bit weird that he is buried in Connor when he is recorded in Antrim 1st Presbyterian.

[RBcabal]

Perhaps this might help (at least one Alexander Bell mentioned). … http://www.thebraid.com/ancestor_search.aspx?surname=bell&cemetary=
Further Googling may provide the location for you

Bill

[Elwyn Soutter]

It's just a bit weird that he is buried in Connor when he is recorded in Antrim 1st Presbyterian.

It could be a family plot. If people moved and died in a different area, it was quite common for them to be taken "home" to be buried. Presbyterians didn't often keen burial records so you are lucky that there are any records for Antrim 1st. Given his approx year of birth, I'd suspect he's in the Church of Ireland graveyard.

[rathmore]

try this site

http://www.nifhs.org/resources/graveyard-records

[jdchisim]

Thanks all for the help!

[rathmore]

There is a Rev Robert Magill on find a grave died 19.2.1839

Broughshane First Presbyterian Plot No. 329

http://www.findagrave.com

memorial no. 149568272

[jdchisim]

I'm not related to Robert Magill but he seemed to have crossed paths with some of my ancestors before. My paternal ancestor is a schoolmaster named in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs for Antrim. Apparently that position was posted by Robert Magill.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Magill,_Robert_(DNB00)