Further Genealogical Resources
Graveyards in the Ballymena area which were once the site of a church were vested in the Burial Board of Ballymena Union - Board of Guardians in 1875 and later the Rural and Urban District Councils until 1973 when the present Borough Council was formed.
Ballymena Borough Council holds a number of interment and plot owner records that may be of interest to those researching their family history. These are listed in the table below. These records, which amount to over 14,400 names, have been transcribed and sorted by surname over several years by volunteers, Anne Klintworth, Nancy Crocetti, Alistair McCartney and Kathleen Connolly. Mid-Antim Museum is grateful for their work.
It is hoped that with the availability of these transcriptions, ancestors and kinsfolk can be more readily located and their resting places identified. The records are of two types:
(1) Interments which list the names, ages and addresses of the deceased
(2) Plot Owners which list the names and addresses to whom each plot was registered together with the number of graves.
Unfortunately no cross reference was kept between Interments & Plot Owners (except for Cushendall Road and Kirkhill) so the only confirmation will be if a name is on a memorial.
One of the most useful aspects of these records is that they record the resting places of those who lie in unmarked graves through poverty or choice. This is a sizeable majority as relatively few plots in the older graveyards had headstones and those that did were not always a full list of those buried there - even if they are still legible. Newspapers in early days rarely mentioned deaths of working classes so these little known burial records are often the only evidence of where someone lies at rest. For stillborn infants prior to 1961 this will likely be the only mention recorded anywhere. Transfers of registered owners of plots can also provide a link between families and individuals.
Names are transcribed as is written so variants need to be considered e.g. Metrusty/McTrustry and Rea/Wrea.
