Gemmell Family
Hello to you all
My mother was Agnes Howard Tennent (née Gemmell) G36D-8SK and after having concentrated on the Tennent side for a while, and there's still much to do, I've switched to the Gemmells. Working my way back in time Agnes Howard's father was Stephen Howard Gemmell LKY4-MNC who may have been born in Ireland. His parents Stephen Gemmell G131-DVN and Agnes Gemmell (née Howard) G13B-YL2 were according to the Scottish census born in Ireland. In fact that dated 1861 seems to be the earliest recording of this family in Scotland (Bothwell) which leads me to think that both sons Robert and Stephen were born in Ireland. What is the best source of information for Irish families, births etc? BTW please ignore what is written in the FS tree for Stephen Howard Gemmell and earlier family data as there is a lot of incorrect information by others which I yet to correct. Any help greatly appreciated. Regards
Comments
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Hi @JohnBromby
Before 1864, when Ireland began civil registration of births and deaths, you will be looking for Church records. What you can find and where you look will depend on the location and the religion.What do you know about the family's religion?
There are more Irish Roman Catholic records online than for other religions, but not all locations have good coverage. If you have found any Scottish civil registrations, you may have details of the family's home County or Parish - both of which would be useful before trying to look in Ireland.
John Grenham's website is an excellent place to learn about Irish records. His surname locator shows Gemmell concentrated around Belfast. That could be helpful in narrowing your search.
https://www.johngrenham.com/findasurname.php?surname=Gemmell
Another excellent website for getting started in Irish research is Claire Santry's Irish Genealogy Toolkit. Claire does a great job of outlining what records and exist and how they are organized.Shane Wilson's website is also useful. https://www.swilson.info/ Both Shane's and Claire's sites are free while John's allows a few free searches per day and also offers a paid subscription.
Best of luck!0 -
@Áine Ní Donnghaile thank you for your guidance. I'll put down what I know in case this rings a bell with yourself or with others.
The information is sketchy at best and started with my mother saying that we have Irish ancestors. In researching my grand-father (Stephen Gemmell LKY4-MNC) I found through the Scottish 1861 census that his father Stephen Gemmell G131-DVN is noted as being born in Ireland - age 44 so birth date would be 1817+/-. I have equally a somewhat disjointed note from my mothers genealogy notes where there is a Robin Howard Gemmell who came from Ballymena (if I've read her writing correctly) - town in county Antrim (thank you Google). Note for my grand-father I've found that documents give different spellings of Gemmell (Gemmel and Gammall). So all in all I've some work on my hands.
I don't know their religions - but being Irish born is there not a fairly big chance that they were of the Catholic faith?
I'll start trying your suggestions and see where that leads me. Thank you once again. Luck of the Irish is what I need.
Regards
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