If anyone can help me get further back on my father's side, I would be really grateful.
The furthest back I can go is a marriage on 17th January, 1852, of Samuel McKillop (of "full age" but possibly only about 18) and Mary Jane McRoberts (under-age) in Kilbride Parish Church in the parish of Newtonabbey, County Antrim. Both of them are given as resident in Grange of Doagh. Samuel is called a flax dresser and would probably have been born between 1830, and 1834. His father is given as Samuel McKillop, labourer. Mary-Jane's father was John MacRoberts. Witnesses were James Phillips and Joseph Coulter. No mothers' names are given, but Samuel's mother was Elizabeth Dunsmore (later known as Strain, from a second marriage). Elizabeth's parents names were Hugh Dunsmore and Elizabeth Blane. Mary-Jane's mother was Agnes Davidson.
Samuel's sister Isabella Mckillop, then aged 17, also married there, to a James Phillips, also a flax dresser. This marriage was in the same church, on 24th May, 1851.
Isabella's daughter Elizabeth Phillips was also christened there, on 18 February, 1852.
The church was only founded in 1848, so none of them could have been christened there.
Of all four of them, only James could write, the other three making their mark only.
Samuel and Mary-Jane had two children, George and Margaret, (born about 1853 and 1854 respectively) before turning up in Greenock, Scotland in March, 1858 for the birth of their third child, Hugh.
Unfortunately Samuel, Margaret and Hugh all died of scarlet fever within a few days of each other, in September 1859, leaving George as the only surviving child. (A posthumous baby boy, Samuel, born in 1860, died before he was two years old.) The registration of Samuel (senior)'s death gives his age as 25, and his father as dead.
If anyone has any records of these names in their family, I would love to hear from them. I can find no further trace of Isabella and her family and I have no idea where Samuel and Isabella came from before their marriages in Doagh.
I know people travelled frequently between Ireland and Scotland in those days and there is a family story that the original McKillops came from Argyllshire.
I also know how difficult it is to find records in Ireland dating this far back.
If anyone can shed any light at all, I thank you in advance.