Ballylane/Tullyallen

Mary Ann,

According to the PRONI guide to church records, there are baptism records for Tullyallen for the years 1792 to 1834 which are in the Minister’s custody. For 1834 onwards there’s a copy in PRONI, the public record office, in Belfast. So you could confirm Benjamin’s baptism by getting someone to look up the PRONI copy for you.

For the earlier records you’ll need to write to the church. They have the only copy. Though there is no Minister at present, a Minister from another church will probably be standing in, and so a letter or e-mail to the church might get a response. Can’t guarantee it though. Including a donation for church funds tends to increase the likelihood of getting a positive response. (Nowadays churches in Ireland get a huge number of genealogical enquiries, and not all have the time to deal with them. Some are more helpful than others.).

Mary Ann,

Sorry, I understood your enquiry to mean that you were pretty sure your family attended Tullyallen Presbyterian church and that you wanted to know how to access their records.

You say a couple of the Horner family married in Tullyallen. Were they daughters or sons? Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church, so if it was daughters who married there, then that was probably the family church, but if it was sons, then it may just have been their brides’ rather than the Horner family’s church.

Looking at available records for that area, Mountnorris Presbyterian has baptisms from 1810, & marriages from 1804. Loughgilly Church of Ireland has baptisms & marriages from 1804. Ballylane is a Reformed Presbyterian church (Covenanters). They only have baptisms from 1860 onwards, so probably of no help, as too late. Copies of all the above records are in PRONI, save for the early Tullyallen records as mentioned previously.

Looking at the 1901 census for Armagh, Horner isn’t a very common name in the county. There were only 16 and all were Church of Ireland so perhaps that was the family denomination. In which case you might want to try the Church of Ireland records first.

I note that Mathew died in Lisdrumchor, but that in the period 1850 – 1854 he was in Drumgane. They are close to each other. His occupation was a labourer (according to his death cert). They tended to move about a bit to follow the available work on different farms, so it can be tricky keeping track of them. 

You mention Lisnadill Church of Ireland. There are 3 churches in that parish. According to the PRONI guide, Aghavilly has baptisms from 1844 and marriages from 1845; Lisnadill and Armaghbreague both have no baptisms prior to 1877 as their early records were lost in the 1922 fire in Dublin. Their marriage records survive from 1845 onwards because of the duplicate set held in GRONI.

If you write to any Church of Ireland churches these days, expect to pay. They usually charge £19 an hour for any research they do. Some get rather more enquiries than they can cope with so sadly they don’t always respond.

Regarding payment, only the Church of Ireland ha s a formal fee structure. They charge £19 an hour if the Minister agrees to do the research. And it’s £12 an hour if you turn up in person and the Minister gives you the books to go through yourself.  With the other churches, none really has a formal payment structure.  Indeed my local RC priest usually refuses payment, though I usually drop something in the church donation box anyway. Though he sometimes also refuses access to the records too, so you never can be sure which way the wind is blowing.

If you think it’s a fairly easy task (eg searching for 1 baptism in a shortish period) I would enclose £5 or something like that. Obviously if it’s a bit more, just ask and see how they respond.

Being honest, I have found that some Ministers in Ireland are sick of genealogical enquiries, they get that many, and you won’t always get a response from them at all. (“My priority is my living parishioners, not the dead ones.”). Others are quite happy to help. And with some churches, they have a little admin team that actually does the work and lets the minister get on with their more important tasks. Others aren’t that organized, and so it varies a lot. However offering money does seem to help. Every church has a roof repair fund.