I can't imagine why, but I've only just signed up to this list, after years of searching for information on my family's history. I will doubtless post subsequent messages about individuals and specific branches of the family, but as a first step I would like to post a general note about the families of interest to me, to see whether anyone has knowledge of or a connexion with them. The main Antrim family names of interest to me are: KILLEN, YOUNG, EKIN, McCAUSLAND, GILBERT, WILSON (several different families), ANDREWS, MAGILL, MAGEE (or McGEE), MILLAR, KIRKPATRICK, REID, BRYCE (or BRICE), DOOL (or DOOLE), and GILLILAND. The "core" locations for these families are (variously, and chosen slightly at random) Ballymena, Broughshane, Glenwherry & Galgorm, Belfast, Greencastle, Whiteabbey, Cavehill & Carnmoney. My entire family history data base is posted to Rootsweb, and is configured to allow downloads of information by anyone who is interested in retrieving it. It can be viewed & accessed at: http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=tedmarr Let me explain a little of the background of the KILLEN & related families of, first, Carnmoney & nearby, later Ballymena, & then all over the world: The earliest of my known ancestors was Revd Edward BRICE of Broadisland (Ballycarry), apparently the first Presbyterian Minister to go to Ireland at the time of the Plantation. One of his descendants, Edward BRYCE, (a great great grandson, I believe) was baptised on 22 September 1710 at Carnmoney Presbyterian Church. On or about 29 January 1739 this Edward Bryce married Mary KIRKPATRICK, also at Carnmoney Presbyterian Church. These Kirkpatricks were i believe a long established Carnmoney Presbyterian family. Edward Bryce and Mary Kirkpatrick had a daughter Blanche BRICE who was born, it seems, in November 1739 at Carnmoney or nearby in Belfast. She probably had a brother John Brice, born around 1741, and I expect other siblings. In the early 1760s or thereabouts Blanche Brice married James KILLEN, a tenant farmer on the face of the Cavehill near the present Greencastle, who was born to an old Irish family in the Lecale area (Co. Down) probably around 1730. We do not know whether James Killen had moved to the Greencastle area alone, or with other members of his family: from this time there is, however, evidence of other Killens residing at or near Carnmoney. James Killen is said to have been before his marriage a Roman Catholic (as it seems were most of the Co. Down Killens), but then to have adopted the Presbyterian faith of his wife. In doing so he founded a branch of the Killen family for whom to be Presbyterian was central to their identity, and whose descendants include dozens of Presbyterian ministers, some of them very prominent, in Ireland, Scotland, England, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. James Killen and Blanche Brice had a family, including (probably) Thomas (1766), James (1775) and Mary (1782), and (definitely) John Killen, born 1768 & baptised at Carnmoney Presbyterian Church. Many of their Killen descendants stayed in the Carnmoney area, and we know that Blanche BRICE KIllen was still resident there around 1791 at the time her son John (by then resident at Ballymena) married a woman called Martha DOOL from Duneane, heiress of her grandmother Martha REID of Glenwherry, and through her father a descendant of the Covenanter Willie GILLILAND. John Killen and Martha Dool had a large family at Ballymena. Their sons included Revd William Dool Killen DD (1806-1902), Presbyterian Minister at Raphoe, Co. Donegal, after 1831, and from 1841 Professor of Church History and Pastoral Theology at the Assembly's College in Belfast, and Revd James Millar Killen DD (about 1810-1879), who was Minister at Comber, Co. Down from 1843 till his retirement in the 1870s. These two sons, and a third, Edward Killen (1800-1856) who lived at Glenville, Glenwherry, married women called YOUNG (who were probably sisters, the daughters of Thomas YOUNG of Ballymena) and had numerous children, many of whom emigrated in the latter part of the ninetheenth century to Scotland, England, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, and there are now hundreds of their descendants in those countries, as well as, still, in Ireland. The daughters of John Killen & Martha Dool all married and three of them had families. Elizabeth Killen (1796-1875) married Revd Henry Reid ANDREWS (- about 1840) around 1820 (?) and had a family some of whose descendants are in Ireland and probably England & Scotland, and some in Nova Scotia & British Columbia & probably other parts of Canada. Jane Killen (1803-1895) married around 1829 (?) Samuel McCAUSLAND (1801-1895), and their descendants (who had the famous seed business whose premises are now the McCausland Hotel) are in Belfast, still, and England. Sarah Killen (1808-1874) married about 1830 William WILSON (1800-1877) of Broughshane, and their descendants (the "Knowehead" & "Newgrove" Wilsons and a large number of Gilberts and Killens) are in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland and Ireland. Several Killens and related descendants have over the generations (in Ireland and in Australia) married members of the EKIN family, originally I believe from Co. Tyrone. As a result, very large numbers of Killen descendants, both in Ireland and in Australia (and probably elsewhere) are called EKIN. Information on the Ekins is very scant, and I would be pleased to hear from anyone who is part of or knows about this family. The YOUNG family into which three of the sons of John & Martha Killen married supplied wives for other Killens in later generations in Australia, and my research is also directed to the family (originally Huguenots who had settled at first it seems near Belfast, perhaps at Whiteabbey, and some of were later in the Ballymena area) of my great great grandfather Charles YOUNG (1825-1908) of Belfast (who emigrated to Victoria, Australia). His brother Robert Young (1822-1917) was the distinguished architect, engineer and polymath, who along with his son Robert Magill Young (1825-1921) was a member of the Belfast firm Young & McKenzie. Charles Young's sister Margaret (1813-1912) married James BRYCE whose father was from Scotland, and their son was Viscount (James) Bryce MP (1838-1922), the renowned diplomat, statesman and scholar. Charles Young's parents were James YOUNG (1787-1846) of Dunrod & Whiteabbey and Mary MAGEE (1791-1890), of a prominent (and probably Catholic) family on Island Magee, about whom I know next to nothing. I would like very much to find out the relationship between this James Young and Thomas Young whose daughters, or at least some of them, married some or all of the Ballymena Killen brothers. I would be delighted to hear from anyone who has knowledge of connexions with these families. Ted Marr Hong Kong 8 Sep 2001