My ancestor's father was from Scotland. Thomas Erskine was born in County Antrim in the 1700's and immigrated to the US. Are there anyrecords for protestants from the 1700's. I will be coming to Ireland in March 2016
The term Protestant covers a variety of denominations eg Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists etc. If you know which your ancestor was, it will narrow the search. If your ancestor?s family came from Scotland, then statistically they are likely to be Presbyterian (though there were some Episcopalian Scotts settlers too).
There are about 11 Presbyterian churches in Co Antrim with some records for the 1700s. There were probably in excess of 100 Presbyterian churches in the county at the time so unfortunately that means that there are no records for 90% of the churches in the county.
If you want to search the records that do survive, copies of most are kept in PRONI, the public record office in Belfast, save for Cullybackey Presbyterian?s church?s records for the 1700s which are in the Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast.
Thank you