My great-grandfather is James Neill. All the information I have is he was married in Balteagh Parish on 27 Aug.,1895 to Margaret Gordon. His place of residence at the time was Maine (doesn't say North or South) and hers was Ballyleighery (don't know Upper or Lower). BTW, their last name was spelled "Neil" on the certificate. My grandfather, also James Neill, was born in Coleraine in 1898. The entire family emigrated to Nova Scotia around 1913-14. Must have added the extra "l" at this time. If anyone could point me in a direction to find either James, Margaret, or even just tell me know in what area Maine and Ballyleighery are located I would appreciate it. Thank you Jim Neill

Hi Jim, Not too sure what you or looking for or what you have but here's some suggestions anyway. Bad start - the online Griffiths Valuation (mid 1850s) index for Balteagh has no Neils at all in the parish and only two Gordons, neither of whom is living in Ballyleighrey. Check here for yourself: http://www.failteromhat.com/griffiths/derry/balteagh.htm This means you will have to look at the Griffiths Valuation Revision Books from your nearest Family History Centre (or from PRONI, if you know someone in Belfast). They will show you approximately when, and more importantly, which Neils and Gordons moved into Maine and Ballyleighrey respectively in time for your folks to be married from there - unless, of course, they lived, perhaps as servants or boarders in someone else's house. This is not improving - I have just checked out the LDS index and I see it does not contain ANY GVRBs for Northern Ireland - only the rest of Ireland: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=authordetails&authorno=233104&name=Great+Britain%2E+Office+of+the+General+Valuation+of+Ireland%2C+null&columns=*,0,0 That means Befast is your only source. Civil Records are next. You are back to your local family History Centre here to look at the microfilms of indexes for Births, Marriages and Deaths. The index of marriages will give you the volume and page number for the marriage of James and Margaret and you can then order the cert from GRONI in Belfast and the cert will tell you who their fathers were and where the fathers came from. You can also check the births and deaths indexes for more Neils and Gordons in the saame period in Balteagh. I usually resaearch either East Donegal or the Bann Valley in County Derry so I do not know the Registration District you will need to look out for when searching these indexes but I suspect it will be Limavady (often called Newton Limavady in records), Dungiven or Londonderry because Balteagh is a rural area between those three towns. Perhaps someone who researches this area will tell you where the local registry office was. This is where you order the certs: http://www.groni.gov.uk/index.htm Does the name Watson mean anything to you? Could this be James' father? This is the only James Neil marriage in my BIVRI discs (a selection of LDS Civil Records on CD) and Drumcahose is in Limavady: NEILL, James Watson Marriage Wife: Annie MILLER Marriage Date: 28 Aug 1860 Recorded in: Drumachose, Londonderry, Ireland Collection: Civil Registration Husband's Father: James NEILL Wife's Father: William MILLER Source: FHL Film 101420 Dates: 1860 - 1860 Could this be your Margaret's birth: GORDON, Margaret Birth Gender: Female Birth Date: 6 Oct 1871 Birthplace: 881, Newtownlimavady, Derry, Ire Recorded in: Londonderry, Ireland Collection: Civil Registration Father: Edward Gordon Mother: Elizabeth Wilson Source: FHL Film 255832 Dates: 1871 - 1872 Church records you can check out here: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nirldy2/Records/index.htm Again, only available locally or in PRONI. What religion were they? My grandmother was a Margaret Gordon and in my experience 90% of Gordons are Presbyterian. I noticed on this site that Balteagh Presbyterian Church records go back to 1845. This site shows you where Balteagh is with respect to other parishes: http://www.proni.gov.uk/geogindx/parishes/par046.htm And this is all the parishes in Derry: http://www.proni.gov.uk/geogindx/parishes/index.htm One complication of searching for the Neil/Neill family is that many searches will also throw up O'Neil and McNeil. As to changing the spelling to add an "l", this is often very arbitrary because so many folks could not read or write in the 19th century, rather than a deliberate chioce after emigration. If they did not immigrate til 1913, have you checked out the 1901 census for Coleraine? It is available only in Coleraine and Derry City as far as I know - or, yet again, in your local FHC - what would we do without the Mormons?!. Here's one more interesting online source - the 1912 Ulster Covenant: http://www.proni.gov.uk/ulstercovenantsearch/results.asp It has the following two interesting entries: Neill James Union Street Coleraine Londonderry: North Coleraine Town Hall Steedinan, George F png djvu Neill James Taylors Row Coleraine Londonderry: North Coleraine Town Hall Steedinan, George F png djvu Do you have an address for the Neils in Coleraine - could it be one of the two above? It should NOT be difficult to find your family Jim, but it will be infinitely easier for someone to do it here in Ireland rather than in Canada or wherever you are. Hope this helps, Boyd ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Neill" <jrneill@alltel.net> To: <NIR-DERRY@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 1:17 PM Subject: [NIR-DERRY] James Neill from County Derry,Married in Baltreagh Parish 1895 SNIP> If anyone could point me in a direction to find either James, Margaret, > or even just tell me know in what area Maine and Ballyleighery are > located I would appreciate it. > > Thank you > > Jim Neill > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NIR-DERRY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message