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I began my family research about 1974 when I came in contact with the Mormons.They inspired me to carry out geneaological work and as a result I began working on a small research of my father and mother's family. Working from information gleaned from relatives, I visited the Public Records Ofice in Belfast to further my enquiries which were to lead on to frequent visits to local graveyards and also to Dublin which was the main repositary
for Irish records prior to 1922.However,during the civil war in Ireland in 1922, The Fourcourts in Dublin was shelled and quite a lot of Irish genealogical records were destroyed. I was lucky, nevertheless, in that the census for 1851 of the parish, where my father's family resided (Ballinderry, Co. Antrim - townland of Aughnamoney )was presereved.My father's family were farmers and held a lease from the Marquis of Hertford from about 1745 -the former tenants, I gather , were called "Magee". On my mother's side I also carried out a brief search. Her maiden name was Benson and her father was killed at Paschendale during the First World War.His wife, my grandmother, survived him by many years and lived until the early nineteen-eighties.My grandmother's maiden name was Leckey and she was born in Sikandarabad, India. Her father, William Leckey, was a private in the Hampshire Regiment, enlisting in Lisburn sometime about the late eighteen-seventies.I got this information about his army record from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, which also provided me with a copy of his sevice record.
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