You ask whether I have known people to change denomination. Yes it happened quite regularly, especially where a couple were of different denominations, prior to their marriage. Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church after which she’d attend her husband’s. So if, for example, Catherine Peacock was Church of Ireland, but William Morrison was Presbyterian, then I would expect them to have married in the Church of Ireland, after which she’d have become Presbyterian. Not every family followed this tradition especially if the couple were a mix of RC and Protestant, or if one party was particularly staunch about their denomination and refused to change. Sometimes they stayed with their old denomination and then you may see the boys brought up under the father’s denomination and the girls under the wife’s.
And of course some people switched denomination for other reasons eg they preferred a particular Minister or they wanted a different interpretation of the bible. (For example, many Presbyterians sought a stricter interpretation of the bible than the mainstream Presbyterian church offered, and became Reformed Presbyterians or Brethren. Many members of the Church of Ireland decided to become Methodists). The Roman Catholic church really only offers the one flavour of religion so not many changed there, save sometimes if marrying a Protestant, but within the Protestant churches there was movement between denominations.
I note that William & Catherine married in a Register Office. People use register offices for various different reasons, but a common one in the 1800s was because they were from different denominations and could not agree on where to marry, or because no matter which church they chose, it was going to upset one of the families. Of course some must have gone to a Register Office because they were non-believers too. I don’t think being pregnant would be a reason though. Half the brides who married then were pregnant. You see a baptism in the records a few weeks after the marriage all the time. And they married in church. They sometimes got reprimanded for “pre-nuptial fornication” especially in the Presbyterian church which took a stern view on those things. But it would not have prevented them marrying in church. Indeed the church would have positively encouraged them to marry so that the baby was provided for and the relationship regularized.
I wondered what denomination the Morrisons may have been. There was just one Morrison left in Dam Head in the 1901 census and she was Church of Ireland, so perhaps both William & Catherine were Church of Ireland.
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Londonderry/Knockantern/Dam_Head/1519415/
On the other hand, I spotted a marriage for what may be William’s sister. Isabella Morison of Dam Head, daughter of Samuel, a farmer, married Hugh Freeman of Loughan on 17.6.1846 at Ballyrashane Presbyterian. So that would point to the Morrisons being Presbyterian. Unfortunately Ballyrashane Presbyterian has no baptism records earlier than 1863. They were presumably lost or never kept.
Samuel Morrison is noted as farming in Dam Head in the tithe applotment records in 1834.
http://www.irishgenealogyhub.com/derry/tithe-applotments/kildollagh-par…
He had evidently left by the time of Griffiths Valuation of 1859, so he probably died between 1834 and 1859. The Mathew there in 1859 might be his son. Death registration only started in 1864 so finding out when Samuel died may be tricky unless there is a gravestone. The only Morrison gravestone in Ballyrashane Presbyterian churchyard reads as follows:
In memory / of / Jane / the beloved wife of / Andrew Morrison / Knockinkeeragh / who died 13th May 1873 / also her infant son / also her daughter / Anna Dunn Morrison / who died 22nd Feby 1880 / aged 13 years / also her husband / Andrew Morrison / who died 28th Decr 1894 / aged 65 years
I note that Catherine’s father was a weaver. They sometimes moved about a bit to follow the available work, so they may not always have lived in Pullans. She might have been born in a different parish, probably nearby. Weavers could rarely afford gravestones so that makes them harder to trace too. William’s father was a farmer, and they tend to stay put. I see one Morrison farm in Dam Head in Griffiths Valuation in 1859. That was Matthew Morrison who had plot 1 which was a 28 acre farm. There were only 12 farms in the townland so that’s probably William’s home.
You ask about searching church records on-line. Some protestant records for the Londonderry & Antrim areas are on-line on the rootsireland site (subscription) but a lot are not.
http://www.rootsireland.ie
A lot of the records have been microfilmed and are in PRONI in Belfast but you have to go in person to view them. In addition one or two churches still have the records, and the only way to search them is to go to the church.
The PRONI guide to church records tells you what records survive for each church and where they are held. (Usually in PRONI but not always).
http://www.proni.gov.uk/guide_to_church_records.pdf
Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net
