breaking down brick walls - Thomas Briggs

 continuing from my last post, am going to trace (and hopefully figure out the connection), the witness to my 5x great grandparents' wedding in Banbridge, Down, Northern Ireland in 1788.

WHO IS THOMAS BRIGGS to my ancestors? Usually a witness to a marriage was a family member, so am starting with this assumption.

Next I will find out who he married, his descendents, and see if me or my siblings have any DNA connections (my father died years ago, before I could get him to test, but my siblings and I have)

I found a few baptismal dates (and Ballydown is the area where some of my ancestors are KNOWN to be from). Note there are other Briggs from the area, a shared ancestral space with my known ancestors.

31/05/1765      James           Thomas Briggs       Mary Kinnear           Ballydown

24/05/1768      Jane            Thomas Briggs       Mary Kinnier           Ballydown

03/08/70        Alex’r          Thomas Briggs       Mary Kinnier           Ballygown

16/06/1776      Isabella        Thomas Briggs       Mary Kinier            Ballydown

07/12/77        And’w           Thos Brigs          Mary Kinnier           Ballydown

13/12/1778      Jane            Thomas Briggs       Mary Kinnier           Ballyd--

24/06/1781      William         Thomas Briggs       Mary Kinnier           Ballydown

25/03/1767      Agnes           Thomas Lacky        Martha Briggs          Ballydown

17/11/1776      Thomas          Thomas Lackey       Martha Briggs          Ballydown

I found the aforementioned records here: Bainbridge Presbyterian Baptisms, County Down Ireland 1756-94 (igp-web.com)

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breaking down brick walls - who are the witnesses? BRIGGS

 I have written about past brick walls and some of the ways I attempt to move through them.

One of those is focussing on the witnesses to marriage, as they are often relations (I broke down a major brick wall several years ago by using the witness to my paternal great grandparents' wedding and was able to find that he was a first cousin by tracing back his tree, and confirming it with DNA matches of mine at the 4th cousin level :)

So this is the latest one I have decided to revisit...it is a bit far back (especially for Irish records, where the marker of 1800 is often the date-limit of somewhat reliable research. It is worth trying....

Jun 30,1788     FLEMING, William          GREEN, Isabella
                witness                   BRIGGS, Thomas

wish me luck!

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random research finds - BAPTISMAL RECORDS FOR THE BANBRIDGE NON-SUBSCRIBING PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, COUNTY DOWN, IRELAND 1756-1794

 This definitely qualifies - I found a few details of my own ancestors via this document:

BAPTISMAL RECORDS FOR THE BANBRIDGE NON-SUBSCRIBING PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, COUNTY DOWN, IRELAND 1756-1794

Sometimes, gems come in the most random of places. For me, this was one of them for one of my paternal lines.

I thank those who researched and compiled these as they serve as an access point for documentation that would otherwise be unavailable online.

Sharing should others benefit for their own family research: the records

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ulster-scot names

 

It's a back and forth...my father was Scottish, raised in Glasgow, and yet much of his family ancestry is rooted in Northern Ireland.

I try to gap-fill, and look for resources, even just simply lists of names for guidance.

The searches in Northern Ireland have certainly led to me being better read on the Ulster Plantations, a period of history I learned about on my own, never covered in school

Family history seems ephemeral in many ways...there were few in my own family who ever bothered writing anything down, My mum has told me memories of her childhood in Ireland where her mother and family would talk about the family, and the layers and generations of it...yet they never wrote it down. Though my interest and research in family history has spanned two decades, I was too late...many of those who held the family stories died - and the unwritten family history went with them.

Sigh

a list of Ulster-Scottish names - I sometimes use this as a quick reference...anything to chip away at those brick walls of hidden/lost history.

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