Thread: John Kirkpatrick

It would help if you could say where in ireland John and Rebecca were born. John Calhoun Kirkpatrick where was he born ? where were the family living in 1851?

Statutory records of births, deaths & marriages started in Ireland in 1864 (1845 for Protestant and Non-Conformist marriages). Prior to that you are heavily dependant on church records, where they exist. (Some have been lost, some are incomplete and some are not yet on line).
To use church records effectively, because there’s no centralised index, ideally you need to know the ancestor’s exact religion, townland and parish in Ireland. (Otherwise it’s a needle in a haystack). Good sources for finding this are immigration & naturalisation records which can show town/townland of origin as well as parents and siblings traveling together. Census returns sometimes include place of birth, and age (eg England/US. Look out also for other Irish people nearby in the censuses. Immigrants often settled near people they knew from home. Check military records, old diaries, gravestones, family bibles, wills and obituaries. Birth certs for some locations (e.g. Scotland) include place of marriage of parents. Marriage certs in some locations (e.g. US States) can include places of birth, parents, etc for bride and groom. Funeral home records can be very informative. Death certs (e.g. US, Australia & Scotland) can show parents names.