Joseph Lester

[Littleworth]

My maternal great-grandfather Joseph Lester was born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland on August 8, 1852 the second son of Thomas Lester and Bella Reid. His siblings were Mary Reid; Samuel, John; Annie (who married Robert Williams) and Jane (who married David Magee)
At the age of 21 Joseph migrated to Australia on board the sailing ship Gauntlet.
His brother John migrated to America about the same time.
Any information on the Irish side of the family would be appreciated - as there is an extensive Australian connection who know very little of the original family.

[kiterunner]

The parents' marriage is listed on FamilySearch:
Thomas Lester married Isabella Reid 12 Mar 1846 Tartaraghan,Armagh,Ireland.
It is also listed in the Irish Civil Registration Marriage Index:
Thomas Lester 1846, registration district Lurgan, volume 7, page 543, with a corresponding entry for Isabella Reid. You can view the marriage certificate online at the Northern Ireland GRO website:

https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk/
If you type either name into the Free Search on that page with a year range of 1846-1847 (for some reason it comes up with an error message if I type 1846-1846) it comes up with a matching marriage. You need to register on the website and buy credits to view the actual record (I believe it costs 5 credits to view an image - make sure you select to view the image rather than a transcription.)

[Shona]

If you have access to Ancestry, you will find a number of public family trees with a lot of info on the Lester-Reid family, including photos and copies of documents.

I was looking at one (which I can't find any more - grrr) which had further details of Thomas Lester and Isabella Reid's marriage.

Here are the notes that I made, though:

13 Feb 1846., Thomas Lester, Breagh, son of John Lester, farmer, married Isabella Reid, 16 years, Clonnicale (??) townland, daughter of Samuel Reid, a sergeant of police.

Some trees have Isabella being widowed in 1861. She went on the marry two more times - to James McGeoen in 1863 and Robert Capper in 1877.

Breagh is a townland in the parish of Tartaraghan.

There are mentions of the Lesters in Breagh, Tartaraghan, in the Griffiths Valuation records - an Isabella and a John, who rent land and property and also sublet the land to others.

Going further back, there is a John Lester recorded at Breach in the 1834 Tithe Applotment records.

The Hearth Tax rolls of 1664 record two Lesters in the townland of Breagh - John and Stephen.

Samuel Reid is likely to have moved from place to place as a policeman. I can't find mention of the Reid family in the Tartaraghan parish.