William Henry Kerr, born Co. Down, sometime between 1863-1865

Colleen,

As you probably know, birth registration only started in Ireland on 1.1.1864. If he was born before that (as is possible if he was 21 in 1884) then there’s no statutory birth cert to find. Prior to that date you need to rely on church baptism records, where they exist.  Not every church has records for that period, and of those that do, not all are on-line.

Going by the 1901 & 1911 censuses, the Kerr family was Church of Ireland. The Churhc of Ireland lost a lot of its early records in the 1922 fire, and so it’s possible there is no record to find.

Some Co Down baptism records are on rootsireland (subscription) and you could search there for a William son of William 1861 – 1863. Otherwise the only other option seems to be to go through all the Church of Ireland records for Co Down in PRONI. There are 70 parishes in Co Down, so that’s quite a lot of records, even allowing for the fact that not all have any records. 

Possibly DNA testing may be a way of matching with others who have additional information about where the family originate. Family Tree DNA reportedly has more people with Ulster roots than any other company. That obviously increases the chances of finding a match. You might want to try them or, if you have already tested, you can transfer your results to them for no fee.

The North of Ireland Family History Society is running an Ulster DNA project in conjunction with FTDNA and can offer testing kits at a reduced price.  http://www.nifhs.org (Go to DNA project on the website).