I read with great interest submissions about the Lynn family records. Although I have no known links to that family, place names such as Aughnahoy, Ahoghill, and Killcurry are important to my own research. I found especially interesting the photo on the Lynn family web page of the abandoned church/chapel in the Aughnahoy graveyard. I first visited that location in 1954 in the company of Father Frank (?) Stewart who was then the CC at St. Mary parish in Portglenone and Father Felix McLaughlin, a newly ordained priest who now sleeps peacefully next to his mother in that cemetery. Father Stewart opened the chapel for us to view the interior and told stories of embattled pastors who strove valiantly to keep their flock within the fold in spite of presecution and economic stress. At the time I was a young soldier on leave and only vaguely interested in family ties. I was pleased, however, that Father Stewart took me to meet my mother's cousin Barney Hamill, who had a farm in an a! rea cal led the Largy, on Kilcurry Road, to be specific. (Barney's father was Robert. This Barney is not to be confused with his similarly named uncle.) Forty-two years later I returned to the area to find that Barney was long dead and Barney's farm being operated by Paddy Joe Graffin and his family, whom I found to be gracious hosts. At that time the pastor of St. Mary gave me access to records in which I found some items of related Hamills but all of a period later than my ancestors. But I digress. Briefly, I would like find how to get access the Aughnahoy and Ahoghill records so I can go back farther than the 1870s. In the event that someore shares my Antrim connections, the following summarizes just about all I know about my Hamill ancestors. My maternal grandfather was Charles Hamill, born in 1869. He emigrated from Portglenone (civil parish), County Antrim, Ireland in 1893. He was from the townland of Kilcurry. He was a Catholic and married Jane (Jennie) McLenigan (McClenaghan) in Philadelphia in 1896. Jane had emigrated from the same general area around 1891. She was born in 1872. Charles parents were Patrick Hamill and Elizabeth Duffin. He had siblings named Robert (married to Agnes McCorley), Nancy, Mary Ellen (married to John Kane), and Bernard (Barney). There might have been others. Robert and Nancy remained in Ireland; the others came to USA. Barney is believed to have settled in Western Pennsylvania or West Virginia. Oral tradition says that Charles was a schoolmaster in Ireland, but I have found no evidence of this. He worked in the construction industry in USA. [The following was written in response to someone who was researching a Patrick Hamill.] Besides my great grandfather, the only other Patrick Hamills I know of are mentioned in a book about the area around Portglenone. The book is On the Shining Bann by Robert M. Sibbett. The first of these Patricks is named as one of the grand jurors of the Cashel area on Tuesday, April 10,1792: “We appoint Henry O Neill, Charles MFall, Hugh MDill, and John MMeehan to open the old road leading from Patrick Hamills to Charles Graffans dwelling and order proper gates to be put where necessary.” From other citations, I believe the dwellings mentioned were in the Townland of Kilcurry. The second is the Rev. Patrick J. Hamill, who became pastor of the RC parish church (St. Mary's) of Portglenone in 1877. He was not a native of the area, having been born in Armagh. In 1893 he was transferred to a parish in Belfast. The first of these Patricks might or might not have been connected to either your! ancest ors or mine. I have as yet not been able to determine. I will greatly appreciate any help in pursuing this line to earlier ancestors. All the Best! Ray MacWilliams