Mc Cabe family Rockville Street Belfast.

[bbart]

I keep wondering about Annie Meek as well.

I just had a thought about the baptism names.... but I am heading off so I can't check it out at the moment:

If Annie and James are pretending to be Mr and Mrs McKee,  you really don't want to be giving fake names to the Church.  So, as we believe Annie to be a McKinstry..... could she be giving her parents surnames??  Still a lie, but not as massive as giving a name that is neither parent?

The article with the Margaret Madden on 5th street...... if that is Annie, did their relationship falter, but she had to keep up the ruse of being Mrs McKee? 

This is all just guessing, which shouldn't be done in family history but if we can guess the story, we might be able to figure out what to look for. 

[Gerry Burroughs]

Mc Cabe was appointed RIC on the 7/6/1878 and served in Meath until 31/1/1879 then transferred to Belfast 15/11/1880 ade on joining 18yrs 2 months. Trade or calling Farmer. Fined 10 shillings 14/4/1902 died 27/8/-1902 from acute pneumonia cardiac syncope.

[Gerry Burroughs]

Jim Herlihy has just confirmed that if you married a person from the County your serve in then you are transferred to another county.

[aghadowey]

Next time you are speaking to him could you ask him to clarify the situation if the officer is stationed in Belfast but the wife from somewhere else in County Antrim but living in Belfast.
From the little we know, the RIC seemed to think James McCabe was unmarried up until the time he died. Article mentions wife and family (Annie and her three surviving children?) but if Annie was to get some sort of payment when James died I think she would have had to either show a marriage certificate or at the very least provide details of any such marriage (date and place).

Added- checked for marriage in Scotland in case they married there but nothing showing on Scotland's People.

[Gerry Burroughs]

Yes I was chatting to Jim this morning and he told me that it was odd the police gazette was able to state he was unofficially married with a family and children!! Jim did explain that police who married a person within the county the worked were normally transferred and this happened to my own granddad who was moved to Kerry after he married my granny from the Falls Road. Getting any pension apparently depended having your service endorsed as married on your record otherwise James’s wife would definitely had to produce documents of marriage. Jim calls with me a lot and I will show him all the information you and your colleagues have provided. He is interested in the outcome of this especially the police angle. Many thanks once again for your continuing help which is much appreciated.

[bbart]

FindmyPast has a few Belfast directories that the other sites don't seem to have.  Although they say they are indexed, hahaha... no they are not.  After a few thousand page flips, I finally found something of interest.
Remember the sailor from Burnaby Street?  A bit of that post here, for a reminder:

I agree that the family in the 1901 (Burnaby St) could very well be Annie McCabe.  Perhaps she took the children and left James for someone else, who could well be James McKee, a sailor, as the 1901 directory for the address of 44 Burnaby St lists it to James McKee, sailor.
https://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/bcomplete1901_2.htm

I can't find James McCabe in that directory either...

I'm drawing a blank on the sailor, James McKee, possibly due to reading far too many registers and directories!  It would be ideal to find him to rule in or out that 1901 Annie and children.

Guess where sailor McKee lived in 1895?
Yep...  3 Fifth Street.   

If it is indeed James McCabe as we suspect, what a great alias...  When he has to stay at the barracks,  Annie just says he is at sea!

Edit: As a reminder, 3 Fifth St. was Annie's address on one or more baptisms of her children.

[Gerry Burroughs]

Brilliant, what a find that is. This really is getting into unfolding a really strange family history. So has Mc Cabe been having children outside normal marriage and they are growing up with different names ??

[bbart]

I don't know if the whole story will ever be known, but it really is starting to look like, for whatever reason, Annie and James McCabe didn't marry, but having him at the same address is hinting that at least the two youngest children, John James and Kathleen, are his.

It could be a matter of the girls growing up with the name McKee, and as they didn't marry so never had cause to give a father's name, just carried on with it.  John James preferred to use his real father's name, not an alias.

This is only a guess though!
I will finish looking through the directories in a few days.... too much staring at the screen today!

[bbart]

Actually, all 3 children should be his.... I just rechecked Gaffy's great find of the births, and the oldest, Mary, was born 1886.