James McTeer (Mateer possibly) emmigrated to North America around 1730 for Pennsylvania. Tradition has it he was married with children and that all the family but himself perished during the voyage. No maiden family name or children's name survives.
James married and raised children in Cumberland County Pennslyvania. He helped to found a Presbyterian Church so he would be presumed to be a Presbyterian.
Hi David,
I couldn't find a record on rootsireland.ie for James but he is listed in several public member trees on ancestry as being born in 1695 in County Down; others have 1697 in county Offaly.
Spouse was Margaret Anderson marriage 1730 or 1731 in Cumberland. Also Mary / Molly Sharon marriage 1744
Death in Cumberland 16 Feb 1785
Family Search (International Genealogical Index) has a lot of listings that I suspect were the source of the information above.
The records on rootsireland don't start until 1750 so it's going to be difficult to get a birth record.
A majority of the parishes in Down are Presbyterean so the chances that he was from one of those would be good.
You may want to post a message on the county Down message board through Find My Parish at the top of this page.
Col Cafferky
Thank you very much for your reply. I have found all of the items you mentioned through my research. It is getting anything credible in Ireland I am working on now. I have a message to one person who identified County Offaly to see if they have a reference or not. It does appear that he was Presbyterian so I may be able to find what church he was from in Ireland before leaving, but maybe not.
If I have read some of the information on other Ireland web sites correctly the church records would be in a PRONI database that is no longer available on-line. I will try your suggestion for the find a parish. Thanks again.