McCain's Corner: Irish & Scots Female Ancestor Names in Primary Sou...

McCain's Corner: Irish & Scots Female Ancestor Names in Primary Sou...: As you progress with your genetic genealogy research you will eventually reach a point where records were not written in modern English. ...

Three Centuries of Life in a Tyrone Parish, A history of Donagheady from 1600 to 1900

Three centuries of life in a Tyrone parish A history of Donagheady from 1600 to 1900

Many of the Scots-Irish that migrated to the Colonies in the 1700s came from the Tyrone parish of Donagheady.  This book by Dr. William Rouston is a well done and recommended history of Donagheady.

This book tells the story of the parish of Donagheady and its families over three centuries. Donagheady occupies the most northerly portion of County Tyrone. It is a large parish, stretching from the River Foyle to the Sperrins. In the period covered by this study Donagheady experienced massive changes with the result that the parish in 1900 was a very different place from the one it had been in 1600. Through the Plantation and subsequent waves of migration in the seventeenth century, especially from Scotland, the character of much of the parish was transformed.

The creation and disintegration of the estate system in Donagheady is also charted in this volume and the fate and fortunes of the landowning families and their tenants is explored. The histories of the main religious denominations are covered, as well as the nature of rural society itself. Other chapters in this book examine the impact of the Great Famine on the parish, the development of the village of Dunnamanagh, attempts to improve educational provision, the rise and decline of rural industries, and the relationship between Donagheady and the wider world.

Dr. William Roulston is from the townland of Gortavea in the parish of Donagheady, and was raised on a farm that has been in his family’s possession since 1830. He is the Research Director of the Ulster Historical Foundation. His other books include The parishes of Leckpatrick and Dunnalong: their place in history (2000), Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors (2005), and Restoration Strabane, 1660-1714 (2007).

This e-book is every-word-searchable and includes Griffiths Valuation for the Parish. 390 pages.  Price for Ebook download is US 12.95

Link:  Three centuries of life in a Tyrone parish, a history of Donagheady from 1600 to 1900.

McCain's Corner: Y-DNA test When No Paternal Relative Is Available ...

McCain's Corner: Y-DNA test When No Paternal Relative Is Available ...: This post will again address genetic genealogy for Irish, Scots, and Scots-Irish, when no male relative is available to DNA test.  Why is a...

Scots Irish Surnames

Below is a list of families participating in the Scots-Irish DNA Project as of November 2015.  There are now over 900 participating families. 

 

The surnames are very typically 'Scots-Irish.'   The Lowland Scottish names draw very heavily from the western seaboard counties of the Lowlands, with many families from Ayrshire, Wigtown, Kirkcudbright, and Renfrew (using the older county names).   Most of the Lowland Scottish families migrated to Ireland post 1609.  

 

Many of the surnames, about 35% are of  Highland Scots ancestry.  The majority of these are from mid Argyll, Lennox, and the southern Hebrides.  Many of the Highland families migrated to Ireland in the mid to late 1500s. Mid Argyll and Lennox were areas influenced by the Reformed faith and this fact influenced their relationship with the Lowland Scots migrating to Ireland in the 1600s.

 

There are several native Irish families that became Scots-Irish, most of these were from the Bann valley and had converted to the Reformed faith or to the Establish Church by the late 1600s.   

 

The deep ancestry of these Scots-Irish families reveal that a large majority of them descend from the indigenous Celtic tribes of Scotland, over 84%, while the Norse and Norman origins coming in at about 10%. 

 

The Scots-Irish DNA Project is open to families of Scots-Irish ancestry.  The project has several goals, including reconnecting Scots-Irish in the Diaspora with their families that remained behind in Ireland.  Another goal is to locate a family's point of origin in Scotland and recover lost or forgotten family history.  

 

Multiple listings of a surname indicate the number of families with that surname participating.  You will see a lot of Highlanders with Campbell and MacDonald the two most numerous.  Several of the participating families are descended from famous Scots-Irish men, such as David Crockett (who turned about to be from Ayrshire ancestry, not Huguenot as often report in older history books).

Families interested in participating can do so by contacting the Scots-Irish DNA Project.

Click on a page to enlarge: