Re: Rev. William Ferguson
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In reply to:
Rev. William Ferguson
Pat Moreland 5/07/04
Hello Pat,
I found an Irish record that I believe pertains to your Rev. William
Ferguson in the Townland of Tievenagh. Tievenagh was located in the Civil
Parish of Ardtrea, County Tyrone in the 19th century.
That record is called Griffiths Valuation, which was a land survey conducted
in all 32 counties of Ireland between the years 1847 and 1864. This land
survey was enumerated in every Civil Parish, and the various towns and
townlands in those Civil Parishes in Ireland.
Civil Parishes, which no longer exist in Ireland, were administrative rather
than religious in nature.
I belong to a subscription website called Ireland of Other Days, which has
Griffiths Valuation available. I found William Ferguson in Griffiths
Valuation at the Other Days website.
The County Tyrone portion of Griffiths was enumerated in 1860. Griffiths
however, unlike a census, only included heads of households, not whole
families, which means it is impossible to tell at this point in time if
other people, such as a spouse, children, and parents were living with
William Ferguson in 1860.
Before getting to the Griffiths record for the Rev. Ferguson , I've pasted a
more full description of the kind of record that Griffiths Valuation is, as found at the Other Days website:
"What is Griffith's Valuation?
Griffith's Valuation is a comprehensive listing of persons who rented land
and property throughout Ireland in the 1850s. These persons are recorded as
'occupiers'. It also includes the names of those persons from whom the land
or property was rented, the 'immediate lessors'.
As most census records for the nineteenth century were destroyed, Griffith's
Valuation represents the most complete record of 'heads of household' for
Ireland at this time. It is of particular importance as it provides a survey
of the Irish population in the years immediately after the upheaval of the
Great Famine of the late 1840s.
Griffith's Valuation only records the person who is the 'occupier' and
'immediate lessor' of the property. Family members such as spouse, children,
etc are not recorded. The names are primarily those of men. Where a woman is
recorded it may indicate that she is unmarried or that her husband had died.
In many cases the immediate lessors were the principal landlords of the area
but they can also be 'middlemen' who rented large areas from the landlord
and then sub-let portions to other tenants.
The Valuers started in the south of the country in 1848 and worked their way
north. The last of the northern counties were completed by the early 1860s.
Griffith's Valuation records the following information;
1. Townland name
2. Ordnance Survey Map Number
3. Plot Number
4. Name of land/house holder
5. Immediate Lessor (the person from whom the property is rented. In many
cases this is the local landlord but it can also be a middle-man who is
subletting a portion of the property which he rents from the major landlord
of the area.)
6. Description of Holding (house, office (meaning outhouse), land, garden,
yard, etc).
7. Acreage (recorded in acres, roods, perches. There were four roods in one
acre and forty perches in one rood.).
8. Valuation (of land, house and total valuation)."
_______________________________________________
The following is the Griffiths record showing the Rev. William Ferguson in the
townland of Tievenagh, Civil Parish of Ardtrea, County Tyrone:
No. and Letters of Reference in Map: 4
Occupier: REV. WILLIAM FERGUSON
Lessor: REV. JAMES JONES
Barony: MIDDLE AND UPPER DUNGANNON
Parish: ARTREA
Townland: TIEVENAGH
County: Tyrone
Description of Tenement: House, offices,and land
Area: 13 Acres, 3 Roods, 27 Perches
Rateable Annual Valuation of Land: 13 Pounds, 0 Shillings, 0 Pence
Rateable Annual Valuation of Buildings: 2 Pounds, 0 Shillings, 0 Pence
Total Annual Valuation of Rateable Property: 15 Pounds
___________
The Griffiths entry above shows that Rev. Ferguson leased a House, Office
and Land from the Rev. James Jones, who may actually have been a colleague. In turn,
the Rev. Jones may have owned the property or may have been the middleman
who leased the property for an absentee landlord.
The landleased by Rev. Ferguson was 13 acres, 3 Roods, and 27 Perches in size, and
was worth 13 Pounds Sterling, while the buildings on the property were worth
2 Pounds.
In the record above you will see, aside from a house and land, reference to
an "office," which was also included in the valuation of the property. An
office in this case doesn't mean a place where a person went to work to do paper work.
An office in a Griffiths Valuation record, could have been a barn, stable,
workshop, etc.
The Total Annual Valuation of Rateable Property for the Rev. Ferguson in
Griffiths was 15 Pounds. He would have been taxed on this amount.
The map number, "No. 4," you see at the beginning of the record refers to an
Ordnance Survey Map from that time period, which shows where the Rev.
Ferguson's leased property was located within the town of Tievenagh, Civil Parish of Artrea.
As noted in the explanation from the Other Days website, Griffiths acts as a
census substitute because most of the census returns for 19th century
Ireland no longer exist.
What the Other Days site doesn't get into though, is that with Griffiths
Valuation a researcher can find the actual property in Ireland where an
ancestor had lived. In some cases, even after 150 years, the dwellings of
our ancestors are still standing.
The Public Record Office in Belfast may be able to locate the property where
Rev. Ferguson had lived, by comparing information in Griffiths, including
the Ordinance Survey Map Number, with modern Ordinance survey maps.
This means if you ever go to Ireland and would like to locate the property,
you would want to write a letter to the Public records Office beforehand and
ask the staff if they would be able to send you a current map of the proximity
of this property in Tievenagh. In your letter you would include the information
about the Rev. Ferguson as found in Griffiths Valuation.
Concerning other records Pat, I may also have found the marriage of Rev.
William Ferguson at the Mormon Church website at www.familysearch.org
I can't be sure this is your William Ferguson, as the record does not state
he was a minister. But, as you will see this marriage took place in 1848, 12
years before Griffiths Valuation was enumerated in County Tyrone. The one
common denominator concerning the marriage however, was that it took place
in Ardtrea, although in the record the name of the town is spelled,
"Artrea."
Please see below:
WILLIAM FERGUSON
Male
Event(s):
Birth:
Christening:
Death:
Burial:
Marriages:
Spouse:MARTHA FERGUSON
Marriage:19 DEC 1848Artrea, Tyrone, Ireland
Messages:
Form submitted by a member of the LDS Church. The form lists the submitter's
name and address and may include source information. The address may be
outdated. Details vary. To find the form, you must know the batch and sheet
number.
Source Information:
Batch Number:7722247
Sheet:67
Source Call No.: 1059334
________
This record was submitted by a member of the Mormon Church, who did not list
the Source Information for the marriage. One other thing I can't be sure of
is if Martha's maiden name was also Ferguson, or if the person from the
Mormon Church didn't know Martha's maiden name and just used her married
name.
There are a couple of ways you can possibly find out. In the year 1845 the
Irish government instituted the Civil Registration of Protestant marriage
throughout the 32 counties of Ireland.
The Civil record of this marriage, if the entry is accurate, would today be
found found at the General Register Office (GRO) in Belfast.
You can actually order the marriage record online or by mail from the GRO.
Information about ordering records can be found at the GRO website at:
http://www.groni.gov.uk/index.htmhttp://www.groni.gov.uk/index.htm
The cost of certificate is £ 10.00. If you are not located in the British
Isles, and if you order by email or regular mail, your credit card company
will take care of converting the currency from your country's denomination
to Northern Ireland Pounds.
The other option would be to write to the Church of Ireland Parish Priest
for Ardtrea, Tyrone, and ask him to look for information about William
Ferguson in the Church Parish registers.
I have a book by genealogist Brian Mitchell called "A Guide To Irish Parish
Registers," which shows that the Church of Ireland registers for Ardtrea,
Tyrone begin in the year 1811. This means that if William Ferguson was born
in Ardtrea, his baptism would most likely be noted in the registers, as
should the entry of his marriage. And, if his children were baptized in the
Ardtrea Parish, their christening records could also be in the registers.
It's possible he baptized his own children.
In your letter you can ask the current Parish Priest for Ardtrea to look for
the marriage of a William Ferguson to a Martha, whose maiden name may also
be Ferguson, with the marriage taking place on 19 December 1848. Your letter
you should mention that you believe the William Ferguson who married Martha,
may have been a member of the clergy of the Church of Ireland either prior
to or following the marriage. You can also mention that you have
information, including an 1860 Griffiths Valuation entry for William
Ferguson which shows he had lived in the townland of Tievenagh, Civil Parish
of Ardtrea.
Contact information for the Parish Priest follows:
The Rev. David James Bell,
Tullyhogue Rectory,
50 Lower Grange Road,
Cookstown,
County Tyrone, BT80 8SL
Northern Ireland
Email: [email protected].
Tel: 011.44.28.8676.1163
______
In your letter Pat make sure you request that the Rev. Bell see if he can
find William Ferguson's baptism record, and the baptism records of any
children that he and Martha may have had.
The Rev. Bell may also have biographical source material that mentions the
Rev. William Ferguson as having been the Parish Priest in Ardtrea in the
19th century.
When I write to the clergy in Ireland requesting help with genealogy, I
always enclose a donation as a way of thanking the clergyman for his help. A
donation of 15-20 Pounds in the currency of Northern Ireland would be very
generous.
I always order the currency at my local bank and enclose the money in the
envelope with my letter to the Priest. If you do not send money this way you
would then have to order an international money order, which would probably
cost more than the amount of the donation you are sending.
Before closing Pat, I believe I also found a picture of St. Andrew's Church
of Ireland in Ardtrea, though in the photo caption, the name is spelled
"Artrea."
To see the photo, go to:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~linka/church/artrea.htmlhttp://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~linka/church/artrea.html
The old Tyrone Civil Parish of Ardtrea was actually on the border with
County Derry, or Londonderry, as it was once called. In Derry, just over the
border from Tyrone, is indeed a Civil Parish called Artrea. In fact the two
Civil Parishes had joined one another when Civil Parishes still existed in
Ireland.
On the Tyrone side the Parish was spelled Ardtrea, while on the Londonderry
side it was spelled Artrea. The larger geographical portion of this Civil
Parish was in Londonderry.
Please don't hesitate to write if you have any questions.
Best Wishes,
Dave Boylan
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Re: Rev. William Ferguson
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Re: Rev. William Ferguson