Wilsons (Culfeightrin / Ballycastle in County Antrim)

[KrisWilson]

Thanks aghadowey, I’ll have a look through those links.

Unfortunately I do not know the denomination, just had a look through the records I have again and the only records marking religious denomination are in three Poor Law applications and they just mark Protestant. Would there be any other way of finding out?

Apologies about the Ballycleagh that was an error on my part pasting over the information, I’ll update the original post.

[gaffy]

There are bits to read about the immediate area of Ballyreagh here:

https://niarchive.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Placenames-and-Fieldnames-BOOK-WR.pdf

A 1903-1904 map I've seen online shows the various collieries along the cliffs leading from Ballycastle to Fair Head, we used to holiday there when I was young and I remember seeing the bits of coal strewn across the stones, the map also shows  a row of houses not far east of the village of Ballyvoy at the southern end of Ballyreagh Upper called Collier's Row (a.k.a. The Row) , the 1868 newspaper reference might have been about it, on a modern map it looks to have been on the Torr Road, possibly these ruins adjoining some modern properties:

http://www.rootschat.com/links/01t83/

[KrisWilson]

There are bits to read about the immediate area of Ballyreagh here:

https://niarchive.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Placenames-and-Fieldnames-BOOK-WR.pdf

A 1903-1904 map I've seen online shows the various collieries along the cliffs leading from Ballycastle to Fair Head, we used to holiday there when I was young and I remember seeing the bits of coal strewn across the stones, the map also shows  a row of houses not far east of the village of Ballyvoy at the southern end of Ballyreagh Upper called Collier's Row (a.k.a. The Row) , the 1868 newspaper reference might have been about it, on a modern map it looks to have been on the Torr Road, possibly these ruins adjoining some modern properties:

http://www.rootschat.com/links/01t83/

Thanks gaffy, this is great! Amazing to see what could be the remains of what was once there. Ballycastle does look beautiful, I'd love to visit one day with the knowledge of my heritage from there.

[gaffy]

Do any of the Scottish census records give any indication where William was born?

[KrisWilson]

Looking through them now, unfortunately Scottish records only seem to list Born:Ireland in the census records I own for 1881,1891 & 1901

[KrisWilson]

You can trace properties in Northern Ireland in the Valuation Revision Books which start from the printed version of Griffith's Valuation until c1930. PRONI has the images online (free)-
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/information-and-services/search-archives-online/valuation-revision-books

I have found records of Martha Welsh and William Wilson marked as Protestant. Am I right in thinking the Wilsons will be harder to trace if that is the case?

What denomination? The problem with tracing the Wilsons at the moment is that you don't have an exact location or denomination to start looking to see what church records might survive (not all that do are online or even microfilmed at PRONI, some are still in local custody). Here's PRONI's Guide to Church Records which is a good stating point-
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/proni-guide-church-records

I think the townland of Ballyreagh was clarified for you earlier because you called in Ballycleagh in your original post.

Not sure if this gives much but I found this, which marks Church of Ireland as denomination, is that just a catch all? Apologies, I'm not very clued up on specific denominations.

[aghadowey]

Civil marriage registrations DO NOT include religion of bride or groom. That site simply, and incorrectly, uses the denomination of church where ceremony took place and says bride and groom belonged to that religion. You can clearly see on the civil registration that there is no religion mentioned for the couple.

[KrisWilson]

Civil marriage registrations DO NOT include religion of bride or groom. That site simply, and incorrectly, uses the denomination of church where ceremony took place and says bride and groom belonged to that religion. You can clearly see on the civil registration that there is no religion mentioned for the couple.

I thought that might be the case, thanks for confirming. I take it there are no other records that would cover their denomination in Scotland or Ireland?

[aghadowey]

The problem is that you don't know their denomination. The Wilsons could have been Church of Ireland or Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian, Methodist ...