Hi John, they also named their farms in Pennsylvania. The big estates in the UK had names, so I think our ancestors, at long last able to buy land, were emulating the nobility. My John Anderson named his land in Westmoreland County "Anderson's Delight". We often get this idea (maybe from reading Leyburn?? <grin>) that our Irish ancestors were all farming 5 acres off somewheres. Not always true. In Ulster the Scots formed the middle class. Though everyone farmed a bit (the supermarket was too far away and poorly stocked), they often worked a trade (which made them middle class): blacksmithing, stoneworking, etc. Every village needed a few of these but none needed 8 so the children often moved after being apprenticed. There are apprenticeship records but I beleive they are in Salt Lake and London so we of course never find or use them. (I learned about them at a lecture of the British Isles Family History Society USA). Many Protestants were merchants. These often lived near ports. Maybe that's why your ancestors were in Waterford: somehow connected with the trade. Larger tradesmen had links ALL over not only the British Isles but beyond. See the archives for John BLACK, the merchant of Belfast. He imported wine and maintained an office in Spain, if my memory does not fail me. So these guys 'got around'. They also 'got around' in the colonies. Think your man came from Ireland? Maybe he came from the West Indies. Maybe he installed a son in every port on the eastern seaboard to expand his empire. Cromwell completed the dispossession of several types of people in the 1650s. One BIG target for him were the "Old English", people who had settled in Ireland in Elizabeth times and were often Catholics. They were also royalists in the British Civil War and therefor his enemies. Some were Protestant. He also targetted Gaelic Irish landowners, who were often Catholic, as well as the very large and prosperous Irish middle class. Every town in Ireland had them and while in some they were largely of English descent (Sligo, I think), in many they were Irish and Catholic. Many of these dispossessed families went willingly or otherwise to the West Indies where they set up shop again. At the time of the Restoration in the 1670s some came back but many continued making money in the West Indies, relying on their network of friends, often in all the colonies in the Eastern Seaboard. Some were Catholic but many, by 1760 a hundred years out of Ireland, were at least nominally Protestant. Some of them assimilated into "Scotch Irish" in the American South. Cromwell also settled his army, the first standing army in Britain, ever, in Ireland since if he left those boys back into England when he had no money to pay them, they were likely to unseat him. He paid them in Irish acres. Many, some say most, sold those acres and took a boat to the West Indies and other colonies. So some of our folk were only Irish when in the army. But they did leave from Ireland. The ones who stayed had no choice but to marry a cute local Irish girl. Their grandchildren were almost inevitably Catholic and could not speak English. They'd assimilated into the Irish nation. Many a fine Irishman descends from an Englishman (and a huge lot of the English have an Irishman in their tree too!). Just trying to expand our rather simplistic views of our ancestors. I might add that some of our ancestors were shanghaied as youngsters and hauled unwillingly to the West Indies and the colonial mainlands to serve as prostitutes and servants. If you take a wee lad or gal out of his/her home and they spend the rest of their lives surrounded by Established Church people and have no permission let alone ability to attend a non existing Catholic or Presbyterian church, what do you have? You have a conformer whose ancestors were Catholic or Presbyterian (etc). He did what the Scots of New England did: Married the daughters of their enslavers and assimilated into Tidewater Planter or Yankee or Quaker, etc. Linda Merle -------------- Original message -------------- From: "John Polk" <jfpolk@earthlink.net> > Rob - > > It happened a lot in Maryland because of the happy practice of patentee's > giving names to their land tracts. All of the original tracts surveyed in > Maryland in colonial times, be they 50 or 5000 acres, were given a name by > the person requesting the survey. There are thousands and thousands of > these with an endless variety of names chosen, some humorous (Fat Arse > Quarter, Eunochs Delight, James Triumph over his Adversary, Franklins > Oyster Haven, Bite Me Slyly, Bugs Hole Marsh), some descriptive (Flat Land, > White Oak Swamp, Rattlesnake Ridge, Prickly Pear Island, Between the > Branches), some philosophical (Batchelors Folly, Littleworth, Beginning of > Sorrow (six years after, and next to, Beginning of Content), Laws Last > Chance, Worst is Past, Purgatory). The foregoing all come just from > Somerset County, Maryland, which is my main concentration. > > Among them there was also a good scattering of names that harken back to > the settler's origin in the ould country, be it England, Scotland or Wales. > There are Corks, Dublins, Belfasts and Derrys, and Coleraine and Glasgow, > but many minor townlands as well. I mentioned some Ulter-Scot names in an > earlier note - Ballybugin, Castle Finn, Ballendrait, Dennigal, Clonlett and > Ballyshannon. > > My own family's first tracts were Polks Folly and Forlorne Hope, found in > the area of Damn Quarter, in the lee of Devils Island. These didn't seem to > portend well for their future prospects. Surprisingly - apropos the issue > of Ulsterites heading to the South of Ireland - two of the next generation > Polks chose the names Clonmel and Ballyhack for the first lands that they > patented. These are in the South of Ireland, not Cork, but in nearby > Waterford, and seems to indicate that the family had a sojourn there after > leaving Donegal, but before heading for America. My conjecture is that the > sons were born in those places and chose the names for that reason, but for > now this is just an unanswered question. There was a thriving colony of > Huguenots in Clonmel and there was a natural affinity between the > Presbyterian Ulster Scots and the Huguenots, so it makes sense. > > John Polk > > > > [Original Message] > > From: Rob Hilliard > > To: > > Date: 3/29/2006 7:52:58 AM > > Subject: RE: [Sc-Ir] Calhoun: Letterkenny, Donegal > PA > Ohio > > > > Linda's note below brings up an interesting situation that can be seen > > repeated all over Pennsylvania (no, not the link between chewing tobacco > > and cancer, although that might be worth looking into too). Her source > > says: > > "[William Cohoun] was born in Donegal, Ireland 4 miles from > > "Letter-Keeney" [Letterkenny]." > > > > Then: > > "He left in 1818, sailing from Londonderry on May 7 for Quebec. > > His destination was Chambersburg, PA. He had 2 uncles there who had > > built and operated a paper mill and a store, where he hoped to find > > employment." > > > > Now the rest of the story is that there was a small village called > > Letterkenny, located just outside of Chambersburg, PA. It's now the > > site of the Letterkenny Army Depot. > > > > Clearly this is not a coincidence. There are lots of examples of this > > around the state so apparently it was a somewhat common practice, when a > > group of folks from one particular town relocated together to PA, to > > take the name of the Old Home Town with them and use it here. There are > > dozens of Ulster town names scattered all over PA, but principally in > > the south-central and western part of the state where most of the SI > > first settled. > > > > I mention this because it may be a useful clue when trying to track down > > your ancestors on either side of the pond. I'm curious, do folks see > > this frequently in other states as well? > > > > Rob > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Linda Merle [mailto:merle@fea.net] > > Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 5:20 PM > > To: Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com > > Subject: [Sc-Ir] Calhoun: Letterkenny, Donegal > PA > Ohio > > > > Hi folks, I found this doing other research and hope someone finds this > > in the archives some day. In any case, he was quite a man! The > > archetypal Ulsterman. His siblings did not emigrate so perhaps his > > family survives in Ireland. He was related to several prominant > > families: CLARK and CULBERTSON. > > > > I found it at the free resource > > > > http://digital.library.pitt.edu/ > > > > The Old and New Mongehela > > p, 42 contains the life of William Cohoun. A lot of his experiences are > > rather typical. > > > > He was born in Donegal, Ireland 4 miles from "Letter-Keeney" > > [Letterkenny] 10 Jun 1796, the son of Andrew who had been born, lived, > > and died in the house. Only William emigrated. > > > > He left in 1818, sailing from Londonderry on May 7 for Quebec. > > His destination was Chambersburg, PA. He had 2 uncles there who had > > built and operated a paper mill and a store, where he hoped to find > > employment. Since there were no large vessels sailing for Philly for 2 > > or 3 weeks, he took what was available, to Quebec, with 3 others, on a > > schooner. It's rather typical that he would take what was available. > > > > > > --- John Polk > --- Havre de Grace MD > --- jfpolk@earthlink.net > > > >