Devlin / McKee - Northern Ireland to Phila

Looking for info on Francis Xavier Devlin (abt 1827 in Northern Ireland - 1/1894 in Phila, PA) m. to Anna McKee (abt 1833 in Northern Ireland - 8/1879 in Phila, Pa). Francis and Anna had 5 children all born in the US - Mary Jane, Henry, Edith, Thomas and Sarah. Anna has a brother John (abt 1829 in NI - 2/1871 in Phila, PA). Have also identified Mary (abt 1796 in NI - 7/1856 in Phila, PA) mother to Anna and John. Not sure if The McKee’s and Devlin’s knew each other in Ireland or met in Phila. Am trying to pinpoint where they were from in NI. All are RC. My brother’s Haplogroup is R-M222 and shows he shares a common paternal-line ancestor with The Ui Neill Dynasty. This makes me believe our relatives are either from County Tyrone or Donegal. I have searched many of the resources avail online but just can’t nail-down ancestors of Anna and Francis. Any guidance is appreciated.

Hi Maureen,

No fear, even after running into some dead ends it's possible to find the one piece of information that will connect everything. I'm happy to help however we can!

Before 1864 records were kept in the form of church and parish records; while some of these have regrettably been lost over the years, all the surviving records have been sorted into county-based genealogical centres.

For County Tyrone, this would be the Irish World Family History Services, and for County Donegal, it would be Donegal Ancestry. There are several other nearby counties that they may also be from, please try extending your search to some of them if your first tries aren't helpful.

We have also previous posts on genealogy here on the forum which may be of interest to you, Brian's 3 step guide, and Helpful research tips. Please take a look and see if there are some new resources or information that you haven't already tried.

I'm sure our Industry partners and fellow members will have some advice and please let us know which services you have previously tried.

Speak soon,

Martin

Hello Maureen
You could check the co Derry church records. If you check the parish records in Phila, PA which parish were they living in and what are on the baptismal records for the parish church. What church in Philadelphia where they attached to. Also check through local Hibernian bands and Hibernian records for the parish that they were attached to as you didn't get anywhere in  Philadelphia unless you were in one as they controlled the work the money and all else that went on the the city. From the Mc Kee background is there a history of arthritis rheumatoide or over weight?  There was a lot of Mc Kee from the parish of Ballinascreen in Co Derry that went to Philadelphia in the late 1800. A good few of them lived on Irish St and were attached to Saint Agatha  parish which is now Saint Agatha and St James Parish
www.saintsaj.org
Colin

Hi Maureen 

Prior to 1864 and civil registration of births in Ireland you will have to rely on church registers to confirm birth details of Francis Devlin born c. 1827 and Anna McKee born c. 1833. Dates of commencement and quality of information in church registers vary from parish to parish and from denomination to denomination. Access to church registers, in the absence of indexes and databases, is generally gained through knowledge of an ancestor's parish address and religious denomination. 

There is no national index to Irish church registers. To date, only the county-based genealogy centres have attempted any large scale, systematic indexing of church registers in their localities. If you have not already done so, I would always recommend that, in the first instance, researchers should examine the indexes of births, marriages and deaths to this database at www.rootsireland.ie.

For example, RootsIreland records the baptismal entries of 10 Francis Devlins in the time period 1822 to 1832 – 5 in County Tyrone, 2 in Armagh and 1 each in Down, Longford and Louth; and 57 baptismal records of an Ann/Anne/Anna McKee in the time period 1828 to 1838. RootsIreland also records that a Francis Devlin married an Ann McKee in County Tyrone in 1850!

Although RootsIreland is the largest online source of Irish church register transcripts, it must be emphasised that a failure to find relevant birth/marriage entries in this database doesn't mean that the events you are looking for didn't happen in Ireland. It simply means that they are not recorded in the database; for example, they may be recorded in a record source which doesn't survive for the time period of interest or in a source that has not been computerised.