A couple of recent posts by Robert Cowan about the Laggan area in Northern Ireland and the Seige of Derry brought to my mind an old chestnut of research that was first published in Boston in 1910, "Scotch Irish Pioneers In Ulster and America by Charles Knowles Bolton." In the chapter on the "Pennsylvania Scotch Irish," Bolton writes that the migration of Presbyterians to Chester County, Pennsylvania began in1719 and that by 1722 they had developed sufficient political clout "to obtain the name Donegal for their township." "The place names in old Chester County, Pennsylvania, such as Derry, Donegal and Toboyne, suggest that the early emigrants came for the most part from lands west of the River Foyle." The Foyle is the river between the province of Donegal and the province of Londonderry. Hello. Isn't this exactly what Robert is saying, that we need to look here for our ancestral sources? This is a quote from 1910. Well, I am a little behind on my research, too. I have done my work in the Ulster provinces of Northern Ireland, but I have focused too narrowly on Cowan and McClay to the exclusion of the associated families. I can go back, I can RE - SEARCH, I can look again. You can, too. I was born in Cowansville in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. There are all sorts of Donegals and Derrys around home so I kind of snooze over those names. But Toboyne is an eye opener. It is one of the townlands in the Laggan area of Donegal. It is where the Laggan Presbytery had a meeting house and the names of several of its members are in those old synod records of the Laggan Presbytery. You are wasting your time on the internet, using the IGI, you've got to go to where the info is. There couldn't have been more than 100 souls living there in the early 1700's. If your name is there, you've got a Bingo, maybe not the Jackpot but you are pulling in chips. Bolton then goes on to identify the names of the landholders in Chester County before 1735. If your name is here (and of course COWAN is) you need to be looking in Donegal and Derry: " Craigheads, Cooksons, McCawleys, Storys, Greens, Blacks, Steels, Montgomerys, McCardys, Templemans, McConnels, McNealys, McClellands, Sherrards, Stinsons, McKimms, Dyers, Lambs, Bishops, McPhersons, Robinsons, Murrays, Bensons, Blyths, Alisons, McClenns, Shennon, McClures, Hughesses, Duffields, Crawfords, Dennys, Scotts, Pennocks, Blackshaws, Buchannans, Gilmores, Musgroves, Higgenbothems, Livingtons, Painters, Saunderses, Stileses, Watsons, Webbs, Irwins, Palmers, Owens, Pendails, Thornburys, Marshalls, Jacksons, Beesons, Nessleys, Herseys, Astons, Steers, McNabbs, Smiths, Lindseys, Longs, Kings, Moores, Fullertons, Francises, McKanes, Douglases, Darbys, Knowleses, McClanaghans, Burtons, Gales, Cowens and others." Remember, this is Bolton's complete list, not mine. I have Gilmores and Crawfords in my lines in addition to Cowan and it was only "Cowen" I saw the first time through. Finally, Bolton tells us that the first Presbyterian preacher on the Elk and Brandywine Rivers was Rev. George Gillespie, "a Scotch preacher [who] had ridden from house to house on his lonely circuit as early as 1713...." The purchasers of the land for the first church were: John Kirkpatrick, James Houston, James Mole, William Smith, Magnus Simonson, Ananias Higgins, John Heath and Patrick Scott. The surnames of the members of the Upper Octorara Church before 1750 were: Alison, Blelock, Boggs, Boyd, Boyle, Clingan, Cochran, Cowan, Dickey, Filson, Fleming, Gardner, Glendenning, Hamill, Henderson, Heslep, Hope, Kerr, Kyle, Liggett, Lockhart, Luckey, McAllister, McNeil, McPherson, Mitchell, Moody, Park, Richmond, Robb, Rowan, Sanford, Scott, Sharpe, Sloan, Smith, Stewart, Summeril, Wiley, Wilkins, and Wilson. In the Rev. Fleming's book I recall reading about Cowans and Dickeys intermarrying someplace in western North Carolina so in this RE - SEARCH I am not surprised to see the pairing of the names. What does surprise is that the preacher in the Rich Hill Associate Presbyterian church in 1814 which was founded by my 5th great grandfather John Cowan, was William Dickey, and this is in Cowansville, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. Not Chester County, Pennsylvania or Salisbury in Rowan Couny North Carolina. The point is, these families stuck to each other like molassas on a biscuit. By the bye, in the list of Ruling Elders and Commissioners in the Laggan Presbytery book between 1672 and 1700, for Taboyn, we find among others ... Alex. Houston, Robert Cowan. jcmaclay John Cowan MacLay "Oorsels, and wha's like us!"