Here's a conundrum for all you Ballymacarrett experts. In 1915 a young man keen to serve his country enlisted in Belfast. His daddy found out and 59 days later he was un-enlisted as he had only been born in 1898. His records show he was born in Ballymacarrett in August of that year and that his father lived at 20 Campbell Park Avenue, Belmont.
He had given his name as Samuel Haire Pentland and his father's as William John. You might think that with two censuses on-line during his short life he would be easy to trace but you would be wrong. There is no trace of any Samuel of the correct age in either 1901 or 1911 and neither is there a William John who fits as his father.
It may be he was less than honest with his name, as he had been with his age. Perhaps he was not even a Pentland but one might have expected the authorities to note any discrepancies on his record as they did with his date of birth but none were noted.
Clearly, I would be delighted if any of you good folks can produce an answer but my reason for posting here was to add to the boundary debate. there has already been one correct answer - The Lagan was the boundary between Down and Antrim. It did not change in the 1880s, however as this chap was born in 1898 in Ballymacarret, Co. Down. No surprise since the borough of Belfast would then have been very much smaller and parts of modern day Belfast governed as a part of either Antrim or Down. Postal addresses are very modern and bear little relation to the boundaries recognisable from the nineteenth century.