jen5525,
I tried to identify the Stewart family church. Tradition being to marry in the bride’s church, it’s normally very useful to see where a female married. Dorothea’s was in Magherafelt Register Office. That often suggests a mixed marriage. So I am none the wiser about either party’s denomination. Her townland was Ballymacombs, Bellaghy. Her father John was a Gardener. (You thought he was a farmer. It seems not).
William Stewart/Stuart’s marriage was in Ahoghill 1st Presbyterian. Both lived in Craignageeragh, Ahoghill. William was a weaver. His father John was a labourer (again not a farmer). Ahoghill 1st would normally be the bride’s church, and is unlikely to be the Stewart family’s normal church as there are plenty nearer Moneystaughan.
I think the family moved to Scotland after 1891 as they don’t appear in that census. Elizabeth & Jane both married in Scotland in 1897, so they had arrived by that date (and presumably a bit before it). So we are probably looking at 1891 to 1895 for the move. (They may not all have gone together of course).
You would like to know what happened to John jr, Richard & Mary Ann Stewart. If any died before 1864, we may not find that. I looked for marriages for Mary Ann & Richard but did not find any in the period 1845 – 1865. There were about 25 John Stewart matches. A bit too many to go through. I looked in the 1901 Irish census for a Richard Stewart/Stuart of the age but did not see one. He was either dead or living outside Ireland then.
Thinking again about the Griffiths information, the Jane Jones in 1859 was unlikely to be the mother of Dorothea. She’d be Jane Stewart then, not Jane Jones. The lady in Griffiths could be Thomas Jones’ widow, or some other relation, but she was not John Stewart’s wife.
A husband and wife would generally look after their own children. That the children were with their maternal grandfather in 1851 suggests that at least one, if not both were either dead, or unable to look after their family. There’s no obvious way of checking though.
Some of the Stewarts were labourers and weavers. Weaving tended to be seasonal work that a labourer did in the winter months when there was no labouring work available. They wove at home on portable hand looms, such as are still used today in the Outer Hebrides to make Harris Tweed. Their weaving skills were often a key factor in the decision to move to Dundee. It was built on the 3 Js. (Jute, Jam & Journalism). Hemp was imported from Bengal to Dundee where it was woven into jute sacks and other similar products. Huge jute mills sprang up in the 1800s and they needed weavers. If you look closely at the Dundee censuses in the mid to late 1800s, a quarter of the population was born in Ireland.
You mentioned William Stewart’s 1855 child, supposedly born in Dundee, that you cannot locate. You wonder if it was born on the way over. I can’t say it wasn’t but it’s not a big journey. If William and Jane lived near Ahoghill, there was a railway station a couple of miles away at Ballymena (opened in 1848) and a train into Belfast in the mid 1850s would have taken about 90 minutes. There were regular sailings from Belfast to Glasgow. The fares were very cheap as the main business was cargo and passengers were just top-up revenue. Arriving in Glasgow there were trains to Dundee (from the mid 1840s) taking about 3 hours. So you could leave Ahoghill in the late afternoon and be in Dundee by lunchtime the next day. I doubt many babies were born on that type of short migration. If you can’t find it in the 1855 birth records, it could be that it was born in Ireland (and the place of birth is wrong in the census) or perhaps born in Scotland in 1854, in which case you need to check church records on Scotlandspeople. If born in Scotland in 1855 (the 1st year of statutory birth registration in Scotland) it’s a real bonus as those certificates contain a lot of additional information about the parents. A requirement that was dropped after that 1st year as the work was too onerous. If the child was born in the Ahoghill area, then there are 3 Presbyterian churches, 1 Church of Ireland and 1 RC church there. All have baptism records for the 1850s, save for Ahoghill 3rd Presbyterian which has none earlier than 1859. Copies of the baptism records are in PRONI in Belfast but I don’t think they are on-line anywhere. So you need to get someone to look them up for you.
Regarding possible burial sites for the Stewart family, all I can suggest is that you check the Church of Ireland and Presbyterian graveyards in Tamlaght O’Crilly. But as I have said, if the family were labourers/weavers, they may not have a gravestone. And you won’t find any burial records for unmarked graves in the 1800s.
This is a link to a local family history site which covers the Tamlaght O’Crilly area. You might find it helpful.
http://www.magheragenealogy.org