Catherine Shields, b.abt 1840, Londonderry

Keith,

I had a look in the 1831 census for Faughanvale. There was only 1 Shields/Sheilds (many variants) in the parish. That was Patrick Sheills who lived in Cloghole townland. His household consisted of him and 1 female. Both Church of Ireland.

There were plenty other Shields etc in the county but those were the only ones in that parish.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

Birth registration didn’t start till 1864. Prior to that you need to rely on church baptism records.

Faughanvale Church of Ireland baptism, marriage & burial records start in 1802, the Presbyterian baptism records start in 1819 and marriages in 1845, RC records start 1863. The Church of Ireland & Presbyterian records are not on-line anywhere so far as I am aware but there are copies in PRONI in Belfast. Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net

I had a look for deaths for Edward and Margaret in the Londonderry registration area 1864 – 1901. I did not find any. (1864 is when death registration started so if they died before that there may not be a record unless they were Church of Ireland. It’s the only denomination that routinely kept burial records). The 1861 Scottish marriage certificate should tell you whether Edward Shields was alive at that date. If deceased it should have “dcd” after his name. If it doesn’t you can assume he was alive. They were pretty meticulous about that in Scotland (in contrast to Ireland where they rarely bothered).