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Hello,

I am looking for a family or other trace of my great-great grandfather John Arnold, born in Newtownards on April 17, 1828, who went to South Africa with the Royal Irish Rifles (16th Royal Regiment) during the Frontier Wars.
The regiment was stationed at the military post of Fort Glamorgan on the West Bank of the mouth
of the Buffalo River about 1847. When John's regiment returned he remained in South Africa. He was a Presbyterian.

Thank you for any references!

Sally Arnold

SallyA

Wednesday 13th Aug 2014, 08:51PM

Message Board Replies

  • Sally,

    There were around 5 Presbyterian churches in Newtownards at the time of John?s birth. Here?s a list with the start dates of their baptism records:

    Non Subscribing Presbyterian 1827

    Ballyblack 1821

    1st Newtownards 1831

    2nd 1832

    Regent St 1835.

    None of them are on-lime as far as I am aware. However there are copies of them in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. A personal visit is required to access them though.

    There?s quite a few Arnolds in Newtownards on the RosDavies site:

    http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Erosdavies/SURNAMES/…

     

     

    Elwyn

    Ahoghill Antrim

    Wednesday 13th Aug 2014, 11:17PM
  • Hello Sally,

    I am very glad to find this post! I am an Arnold from South Africa and I have been trying to find out who it was that originally came over to SA in the mid 1800s. I think this must be the man, though all I have at the moment are hazy stories. I know that he was from somewhere near Belfast and ended up in East London (site of Fort Glamorgan), where the early generations of the family were farmers and publicans. I'm afraid I only know biographical details going back a few generations but I will try find out more from my mother. I'm told the area of East London called Amalinda was built on the family farm of the same name, and Arnoldton in EL is also named after someone from the family.

    I can hopefully be of more use if you would like to know about more recent generations of the family in SA.

    Victor

     

     

    Vas

    Thursday 26th Nov 2015, 07:54AM
  • Dear Victor

    you will find all the research I've done on John Arnold's descendents, of whom I am one, on my faamily heritage website:

    http://www.myheritage.com/site-family-tree-248662711/arnold

    One has to pay to join, and my subscription recently expired. I have stopped researching after a year's intensive work

    as I no longer have the time. My only other focus will be to go to the parishes in Ireland sometime, to find my great-great-grandfather's birth record. Until the time he arrived in SA, we have no earlier records of him. His farm was Amalinda, where he died. His son Charles Robert, my great grandfather, was a member of Cape Town parliament.

    If you send me your SA email, I will forward you some info documents, e.g. from Albany Museum etc.Use info@sallyarnold.com

    as I'm seldom on this site.

    Where are you based in SA? Who is your mother/the connection to John Arnold? The Torrs from Kwazulu are also closely related through marriage. 

     

    Regards

    Sally Arnold

    SallyA

    Friday 27th Nov 2015, 07:20AM

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