Hi John, >Thanks. Out of curiosity what do you mean by "the Irish Army" in mid >1600's. The army stationed in Ireland in the 1600s, just after Cromwell. It was British, just like the army in Ireland in the 1600s before Cromwell and during Cromwell. The Confederates had an army in Ireland in the 1640s and 1650s till Cromwell defeated it - a Catholic/Royalist army. Leading up to the struggle between King William and James, the Catholics purged the British army of Protestants in the late 1680s. Actually in closing the gates of Derry, our ancestors were rebelling against the British army, which at that time was largely Catholic. However this war was a European one and is understood more clearly when studied from a European context. The Pope was rooting for King William, after all!! As my ancestor was an officer he wasn't mustered in locally. One purchased commissions most of the time. It really pays to spend a lot of time reading history not only of Ireland but of the kingdom that she was a part of: Great Britain, because so many of her laws and customs were British. Of course Irsih people living in a Gaeltacht who could not speak English could avoid much of it, but this list is about Protestant ancestors who were part of British Irish at some level so you must study it if you want to research in it -- or you will not get very far at all. It's best to study the British army at length as generally a third of the people in it were Irish (of all ethnic groups in more modern times). Detailed accounting records of the officers in the Irish army in the Irish army after Cromwell and before the purge are filmed and in LDS. You can get their names, what they were paid and where they were stationed in Ireland. >it is said he was in Cromwell's >Army. I do know he was Presbyterian. Eh??? Not too likely. Do you know the history of Cromwell??? He had a very bad time with Presbyterians in Scotland. In fact after he defeated them he shipped lots off as forced laborers to the colonies including Massachusetts, New Jersey, and VA. When he went to Ireland to take it back after its ten years with the Confederates (mixed British Royalists/ Catholics), he planned on transporting all the Presbyterians to Tipperary, I think it was. However he quickly learned that the Presbyterians of Ireland were a different breed from the Scots (due to their different history and experience which had created a new ethnic group distinct in values and tradition from Scots: the Ulster Scot!). They were happy to support any Protestant who might help protect them from the Catholics (Irish ones and Royalist British Catholics). Cromwell's commonwealth failed after his death and his enemies wrote history, as always, but in truth, he was a moderate. He crafted a shaky government that lasted during his life and kept the Catholics and Royalists from continuing a civil war with the 'right wing' English Presbyterians, Puritans, Baptists and such. He was the good guy. In Scotland he fought with Scottish nationalists who were Presbyterian too. I've never read a history of the British Civil War that could REALLY make sense of it though I've read lots who tried and most of them admit at the start that they can't really understand it. It was very, very, very complicated -- so I'll stop here before I say something someone disagrees with. The experts disagree on its causes so none of us here will agree <grin>. I got interested in it due to family involvement in England. I also got a book on Cromwell in Ireland that's very interesting. And there's the usual stuff you read on Cromwell in Ireland. Recently an Irishman wrote a book debunking the idea that he massacred civilians at Drogheda and other places. There's apparently no contemporary evidence that he did. (As I'm not a scholar and didn't do this research, I can't argue about it -- I can just point people interested to the book). However largely Cromwell brought his army with him. They were English lads who were paid off in Irish lands. They settled down, married Irish gals, and their grandchildren often didn't speak any English at all and were Catholic. As most of the Ulster land was already held by Protestants, there were few settlements of English there -- most of the escheated lands were in the rest of Ireland. Ditto for the Williamite settlement in the late 1600s. This solved another problem for Cromwell (not for King William though <grin>): his New Model army was the first standing British army. But it was full of radical 'right wing' English Presbyterians, Baptists, independents (Congregationalists), etc. He didn't want them back in England as he had no money to pay them and he was afraid he'd lose control of the unpaid army and they'd stage a coupe and replace him with someone more of their liking. So he settled them in Ireland -- paying them off in land. Many sold to their officers and moved to the colonies, esp. the West Indies. A couple generations later they manifest in the mainland colonies. It's possible your ancestor served in a locally mustered group in the 1640s and 50s. Those musterings are in LDS. They are on film 5 miles from me, but they are not indexed, so it's a page by page search. The more you understand about Ulster the more you get from them, as people mustered in under their local landlords. So if you get the name of the landlord you know about where they were living. Many Presbyterians did fight in King WIlliam's army in the late 1660s, and many defended their homeland at Derry and Enniskillen. So how old was your ancestor?? We're talking 50 year gap here. However don't be misled by modern day armies. My ancestor was presumely born in the late 1730 in Ayre and so was an adult about 1750. He manifests as a young man in the Irish army and did fight with William in the late 1790s when he was quite old. He died coming to America in 1729. In those days defending your country was a life time job <grin>. From his having the cash to purchase a commission I can deduce that he may have been from a gentle background but not the eldest son as he didn't inherit the estate in Scotland. It's possible he was from a merchant family but often they went into the family business. As he was quartermaster, this is a possiblity. The only way to squeeze clues out of family history is to know the history. If a merchant family it was a larger, more established one as it could afford to pay for the commission for a younger son. As part of the British army, my ancestor was posted to Ireland where he apparently finally settled, marrying the sister of a fellow officer. Later the Beatties and the Clintons came to America. His second wife was the granddaughter of one of Cromwell's soldiers. Her family lost the earldom (I think it was an earldom) of Lincolnshire during the British civil war. As they were dissenters (granddad was trusted enough by Cromwell to be an officer) they could not get their title back after 1670 with the Restoration so they were marooned in Ireland. They brought the ring to America in 1729 and the grandson Dewitt Clinton apparently used it to 'seal' early NY laws when he was governor. And apparently that was how the two British generals Clinton discovered their long lost cousins in America. (O'Brien mistakenly IDs these folks as Gaelic Irish in one of his books). The more Irish history I read the more clues I can squeeze from my family history. You can't learn too much about it. It's fascinating. Many primary documents are reproduced in Hanna "The Scotch Irish" that many know about but few have read. We forget here on the list that the standard statement in Irish genealogy classes about pre 1820's Irish genealogy (before ch urch records) is that it can't be done. It can but it takes a lot of work learning about a time and place that were radically different from our world today and its records. What exists, who's in them, and how to get them. It's fascinating stuff at least. NO one's ever said Irish history was dull!! Linda ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net