Ireland: County Down: Newry Area Project Description

Community Trees ProjectNewry Area Project Description

"The County Down: Newry Area community tree is a collection of extracts from newspapers, diaries, and other local resources for the city of Newry and the surrounding area compiled by Francis Crossle and then organized by his son, genealogist Philip Crossle. These entries cover roughly the period of 1600–1919. This data was extracted from 25 rolls of microfilm at the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. This community tree is an index to these films; therefore, the database includes about 30,000 single entries that would normally have been left out because they are not lineage-linked to anyone else. No additions or corrections are accepted for this community tree. If you see information that you believe is incorrect or incomplete, the information can be corrected or updated in Family Tree.

History of Newry Families, prior to 1910 by Phillip Crossle Microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah at the Belfast Record Office in 1961 The explanation that follows will tell you more about this collection. Some important information about the data that was extracted from these records and the Community Tree we created from it will follow as well.

An Explanation of data and abbreviations Prepared Feb 2011 by Suzanne Ballard, the indexer 25 rolls of microfilm indexed between 2004 to 2008

Francis Crossle, M.D., extracted information from decaying newspapers dating back as far as 1600 into his scrapbooks. They were in no particular order and had no index. His son, Phillip Crossle, was a professional genealogist and took his father’s notebooks and transferred the information by page number (reference # p444, for instance) into booklets which listed a surname on the cover. These are the records that were microfilmed. Unfortunately, he left no index or cross reference to explain why certain names were in the booklets. For instance the ANDREWS book, first book of the microfilms, has many REEDs, DOWDALLs, and GLENNYs listed as well and we don’t know the connection between them, although Phillip obviously did to include them in the Andrews booklet. While mislabeled “History of Newry Families” this collection is not just about families in Newry, County Down, Ireland but the entire surrounding area, and many times all of Ireland. Sometimes it also includes genealogies of families in England or Scotland. More of Phillip’s work is also microfilmed (although unindexed) in the FamilySearch Library, and more are available in Ireland that have not been microfilmed. The originals of all these Crossle booklets are now in the Irish Studies Library in Armagh City, County Armagh, N. Ireland – seen by the indexer in a trip to Ireland in 2004.

Abbrevations Unless otherwise mentioned, locations are in Newry, County Down/ County Armagh. (The town straddles both counties). The following are abbreviations that Phillip Crossle used as he transcribed his father’s records:


 * N.T. is the Newry Telegraph newspaper
 * N.E. is the Newry Examiner newspaper
 * Newry Reporter is a newspaper
 * BNL is the Belfast News-Letter newspaper
 * TCD is Trinity College Dublin
 * ML is Marriage License
 * W is will
 * I is an Inventory in a Prerogative Court case. (Inventory of the belongings of the person.)
 * L is lunatic usually, sometimes it is License.
 * R.N. is Royal Navy
 * Esq. is Esquire (meaning a Gentleman who owned land, usually.)
 * d.s.p. means Died without posterity (ie: no children)
 * do means ditto
 * aet means age at time of death
 * bur means burial date
 * LJ is “Local Jottings” – a scrapbook belonging to his father from which he took the information.
 * A is “Annals” – a scrapbook belonging to his father from which he took the information

Extraction and Data challenges – locality strings When the data was extracted from the “Crossle Collection” the FamilySearch extraction template that was available and used was for vital records. This template allowed for the extraction of names and dates but did not provide a place to enter the locality string for the event. The locality string was entered later in the “back end” processes because all of the data was from the same film which was for a specific locality. Therefore all of the events extracted from this collection received the locality string of Newry, Down, Ireland. However, unlike vital records, the Crossle Collection gave reference to events in many localities which could not be recorded correctly in the template that was used. Since most of the events took place in Newry we have listed all of the events as having occurred at “probably Newry, Down, Ireland”. Each record, or someone they are connected to, will have in their source a reference to the microfilm and page that the data came from within the Crossle Collection. Please review the films for the person you are interested in to verify the locality strings, or to find other places where the event may have taken place. For many people when you review the films, you will also find more information about them that could not be extracted as part of this project. These films are currently available through the branch libraries called FamilySearch Centers. In the future the images of these films will be available on the Internet, when that happens an effort will be made to link these records to those images for easy access. However, for the present the best access is to use the records in Ireland, or on film through a FamilySearch Center. Use the links below to find a FamilySearch center near you and to go directly to the FamilySearch Catalog listing for this collection.

To find a FamilySearch Center click here

To see the FamilySearch Catalog entry for this collection click

Newry Community Tree Process We have taken the data that was extracted from the Crossle Collection and converted it to lineage linked entries. Then we used computerized record linkage technology to merge duplicate records which allowed us to create families and extended lineages for many people in the database. The largest tree contains 685 people in one large inter-connected Community Tree. There are 4 other trees that have more than 100 people in them, and 14 more that have between 50-100 people in them. There are other smaller trees in the final database as well. All of this data can be easily searched, printed, or downloaded from the Community Trees Website, the link is given below.

Normally we only include the lineage linked family data on the Community Trees Website, but the data from the Crossle Collection contained just over 33,000 entries that had no family data connected to them. To make these records more accessible and the “index” to the Crossle Collection more complete, we have included these unlinked entries in the Community Tree for the Newry area. These records were added to the lineage linked collection after all of the merging was done. The lineage linked collection contained data on about 41,000 individuals and 15,000 marriages. After we added the unlinked records the collection now has reference to about 74,000 people that are listed in the Crossle Collection. Use the link below to get to this Community Tree. You can scroll down through the name list and then click on an individual to see his record, or you can use the search button at the top of the screen to search for specific individuals or couples that you hope are listed within this collection. Using the Search from the Home page will allow you to search across all of the Community Trees that are currently published by FamilySearch.

Example of text from the booklets
In the James Harshaw (c1799-1867) Diaries book (of Ringbane, Donaghmore, Newry, Co. Down), films #259201 and #259202, the nicknames for the various family members are as follows:

“The Dandy” – his wife, Sarah Kidd Harshaw (d 1877, m 1816)

Their children: 1. Hugh (1817-1845) unmarried – pre 1845 he was “Hugh”, after 1845 son Robert Hugh was nicknamed “Hugh” 2. Mary “Mary” (1818-1859) m Alexander Douglas “A Douglass” in 1848. Son James Alexander Harshaw Douglas “James Alexander” (1859-1897) 3. John “John” (1820-1896) m Ellen Todd “The Sparten or The Sparten Queen” (d 1892, m 1855). Children were Jane (1856), Elizabeth (1857-1892), Hugh m Jane Jardine, Mary (1862). One of the children was called “Annot child”. 4. Jane “Jane” (1822-1901) m Archibald Marshall “Archie” (d 1907, m 1846). Children were Samuel James “Samuel James” m Mary Small, Mary m John Copeland, and Jane (1853). 5. James “Joseph” (1824-1903). Unmarried although he had 4 children by two women, unnamed in the diary (Jane Bradford and Elizabeth Bradford). 6. William Kidd “Willy” (1826-1902) m Mary E. Merrill (d 1907, m 1853). Children were William Andrew, Emma (1856) m Henry D. Smith, and Gimel (1859) 7. Andrew “Chiefton” (1828-1906) unmarried 8. Rev. Robert Hugh “Wassey” before 1845, after 1845 he was “Hugh” (1831-1896) m Jane McKee. Children were Mary Douglas “Mary Douglas” m James Cummins, James (d 1864), Jessie, Robert, Hugh, Edith Sarah, Helen Margaret, James Gibson, Elizabeth (d 1865). 9. Samuel Alexander (1833-1835) 10. Samuel Alexander “Absalom” (1835-1880) unmarried. 11. Sarah Anne “Wee Chile” until she married, then “Sarah Anne” (1839) m Andrew Hopkins Megaw “A Megaw” in 1862. Children were Robert Hopkins, Jane Kidd m James Shanks, and Anna Hopkins m Edward Maxwell. 12. Elizabeth Martin (1841-1842)

He also had nicknames for the children of his sister, Jane Harshaw Martin (1787-1847) m Samuel Martin (1749-1831) of Loughorne, Co. Down.

1. Jane (1811-1891) m in 1830 to Donald Frazer or Fraser (1805-1862) and moved to Ontario Canada. Of their 13 children the only one mentioned is the one who visited James Harshaw, Lizzy Frazer. 2. John “My Friend John Martin” (1812-1875) m Henrietta Mitchel (1827-1913) in 1868. Young Irelander and later a Member of Parliament 1870-1875. No children. 3. Robert “Robert Martin” (1814-1858) m Millicent Millar (m 1847, 1824-1858). Their deaths are mentioned in the diary. 7 children cared for by John Martin after the parent’s deaths. 4. Mary “Mary Simpson” (1816) m Dr. Maxwell Simpson “Dr. Simpson” (1815-1902, m 1845). 6 children – the deaths of two of these children are mentioned in the diary: both died in 1863, Anna Millicent and Rudolph Benson. 5. Samuel (1817-1826) 6. James “James Martin” (1820-1893) m Rebekah Andrews “young gerl” (1836-1915, m 1861). 8 children. Lived at Deer Park, Co. Armagh after marriage. 7. Elizabeth “The Queen” (1822-1914) m Robert Ross Todd “Mr Todd or Mr. R.R. Todd” (d 1874, m 1847). 13 children, two mentioned were “Johnnie” and “Jennie”. 8. David “David Martin” (1824-1905) m1 Sarah Lindsay (annulled, 1844), m2 Mary Ludgate (1845-1905, m 1864). 12 children. 9. Anna “The Young Queen” (1830-1857) m Dr. Thomas Archer Hirst “Dr. Hirst” (1830-1892, m 1854). No children. Her death in Paris is mentioned in the diaries.

He also mentions “Aunt Young” and “Aunt Kennedy”, sisters of his wife.