John O'Neil ¹

  General Notes:

Name is spelled "O'Neal" on son Peter's marriage certificate.
OCCUPATION: Laborer

Have personally searched in Public Records of North Ireland (PRONI) for record of John O'Neal, father of Peter O'Neal. It is known from son's marriage record that John was a laborer. This being the case, John would not have been a landowner --thus, no land records or voting records would exist.

John's son, Peter, was married in the Catholic church and indicates that he was born in County Down (UK census records). Thus we assume that John was Catholic, living in County Down when Peter was born, around 1828. Catholic records earlier than the 1840's are incomplete for County Down, and no baptism record was found for Peter O'Neill (or O'Neil or O'Neal) with a father named John.

The following marriage records were found:

12 Jul 1829, John O'Neill & Catherine Duffy - Civil District: Lego (or Sego) - there was a note on the record: "in forma paupier" which translated means "in form like a pauper" or "very poor in appearance"

7 Jun 1828, John O'Neil married Anne Lord - Dromore, Parish Aghaderg; witnesses: Michael McAvoy, John Conlon

1 Jan 1822, John Neil married Elizabeth Fitzpatrick - Dromore, Parish Aghaderg

These three were the only marriage records located with any potential for being related to our John O'Neil and, of course, all of these could be unrelated. It is intriguing that the witness to the marriage of John O'Neil and Anne Lord is a McAvoy (John's son Peter married Mary McAvoy), but this could be coincidence only.