Hi Carol, not generally any registers. You are attempting to find 18th century records in the 17th century. If you check the archives you will find plenty of information, much supplied by the Rev. Andrews. He pointed out repeatedly that the word is used to mean two different things. The first is the lot (most Protestants) who fought against Charles I in a movement against bishops, etc, control of the church by the gov. This was also largely a Scottish nationalist movement. Then after that all got settled in the 1680's you had the 'rump' who refused to accept the compromise and attempted to stage a second revolution and lost. So at the time of the British Civil War most Scots were part of the nationalist movement and later on only a few. The second lot are the target of much romantic thought outside and inside Scotland as well as the victims of a violent persecution in Scotland. The few were largely confined to the lowlands, esp. the western lowlands so it took on a regional dimension. These are largely what is meant by 'Covenanters'. For the first lot, we got OPRs. They were largely most people living in the lowlands, esp. the common sort of man. So think Scottish OPRs. For the second, you gotta ask yourself what kinda fool keeps records of members of an illegal religious movement <grin>? This is aiding the enemy for sure! However as these folk were associated with not church buildings or parishes but certain ministers, sometimes you can find a few records associated with them. This is rarely of any use unless you know where in Scotland your family were and that they were in an area where there were Cameronians or Covenantors. The more history you learn, too, the more likely you are at finding obscure records associated with certain ministers who later were covenantors. However there are a couple big problems: 1. of course the surnames are familiar. They are the commonest surnames in the lowlands. As it is from the Lowlands that the settlers came to Ireland in several waves, of course these surnames are common in Ireland too. Unfortunately even if you find a "John Anderson" in the lists of names, so what? There's a zillion. Proving that man is yours is the BIG problem, not finding your surnames amongst them. That can usually be done <grin>. Esp. with Ayrshire surnames like Brown and Martin, etc. Another wrinkle is Irish "Covenantors" to use the term quite losely. In 1642 when Monroe's Scottish army arrived in Ulster to rescue the Scots from the Irish rebels, it had with it several ministers who were of course Covenantors. The entire army supported the National Covenant. It established the first Presbyterian church in Ireland and also signed up everyone to the national covenant. This is the FIRST (see above). From the descriptions I've read, people flocked to sign. Anything not Irish of course they would support, just as American colonials attacked by Indians were not concerned about who rescued them. Due to political events in Ireland, the Covenant was remembered. Some of the ancestors of people calling themselves Covenantors were in Ireland because they were native Irish but Protestant or had emigrated to Ulster before the 1680s when the persecution in Scotland began. Yet everyone who found this term "Covenantors" appealing believe they descend from the Covenanters of the 1680s who were aggressively and violently persecuted IN SCOTLAND. Not Ireland. What you had in Ireland in the 1680s were different problems altogether. Some Scots fled to Ireland but did not cause a political commotion. In Ireland in the 1680s you have very very very few Presbyterian churches (Belfast had them) because Presbyterianism was illegal and most land owners didn't donate land and materials to build a church. People worshipped in fields and barns. A few had sod meeting houses. Scratch the grey stoned church with the steeple and stained glass windows <grin>! The Covenantors of Ulster were doing the same. The focus of their meeting were societies, small groups of people, often living on the same townland, who met. They had no ministers. Even 80 years or so later when the Rev. Wm Martin left for America, he was the only one and his leaving caused them to collapse. Very very few people with no infrastructure and most certainly no registers. No churches. They worshipped in fields. The Catholics had already laid claims to the hills where they found! handy Mass rocks <grin>. Need I add besides no ministers or churches few could write or read? As late as 1800 in the USA, all the Covenantors were farmers. In Ireland, where they largely came from (the Scottish ones were almost all dead after the problem in the 1680s), you will find they were rural and farmers too. Not the kind of people who write things down. That said if you read a lot on the Covenantors of Ireland you can learn about the societies. When they emigrated the people stuck together so you find them in the same Reformed Presbyterian churches in the early 1800s and late 1700s. Some of the surnames stayed with the same society for as long as we know. The societies were often named after the townland, so if you can locate the society of the ancestor, you can locate the townland. If you can find the townland of origin, the key, did I say the KEY item in Irish genealogy to know, then you can pursue estate records where you might find more information out about the family. Without the name of the estate or the townland, you cannot get very far in Irish genealogy. So if a family were Irish Covenantors, that info can be used to localize a search for estate records as there were only a few. Going back to Scotland for a second, what we do have is documentation on the martyrs who were persecuted in the 1680s. These are published in books like the "Cloud of Witnesses". See the archives for extracts. The Cloud has no index but is now on the Internet. Use google to find it. It's full of the commonest surnames in the lowlands. It is VERY hard to trace your family back to them. There are some baptisms associated with the Cameronians that I found in LDS. These folk were largely in central Scotland, Stirling. I was interested as my father's Scottish line, who remained in Scotland till 1893, were Scottish dissenters. Falkirk and Stirling are the center of Scottish dissent. They actually were in Erskine's congregation. However I found that none of my surnames in the Cameronian records. They were not Cameronians but Erskinites. This website has some info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/union/features_union_covenanters.shtml What I'm saying is that many Irish Reformed Presbyterian aka Covananting families were not part of the Scottish ...words fail me here...homicidal nightmare? in the 1680s. They were in Ireland sharpening their farm instruments to prepare for the little problem Ireland would have in the 1690s. After THAT got settled in the last years of the 17th century and early 18th more Scottish settlers arrived from Scotland, from western Scotland, carrying family stories of the nightmare in Scotland. So in Ulster, the 'folk memory' is very confusing. Reading the "Cloud of Witnesses" can cause foaming at the mouth....very very disturbing stories. It plays right into our ethnic persecution complex. The Irish ones all want to be related to a martyr from the 1680s in Scotland whose names are well documented in the "Cloud of Witnesses'. My mother has her beady eye on a John Anderson who was drowned, though her Andersons, according to local lure, came with the McDonalds from the islands in the 1550s. To answer your question, if you can learn more about this, of course you can. There's a lot of stuff in our archives, but there are also books and other websites. Brian Orr's is very good.....I got carpal tunnel from typing www.google.com. .... Maybe Brian can help. The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland has also published a number of histories, one of their own as well as several congregational histories. They are where you identify surnames in Ireland associated with Irish Covenantors. A certain percentage of those names are Irish. Our ancestors were not racists: they embraced all who shared their views. In the histories the Irish ones were often requesting assistence of the Scottish ones who due to persecution had shrunk to a handful. So once in a while a minister visited, while often, he might be the only one they had in all of Scotland too. A very small group of people. By the late 1700s they did have their own hall at the University of Glasgow, where students from Ireland usually went. You can get those records too. Thus I know the brother of my ancestor Robert Black, named John Black, was a student there. He had to flee in a hurry due to the United Irish Rebellion and became a famous speaker, writer, and the first minister of the RP church in Pittsburgh. According to legend, his roots were with a soldier who came with Monroe's army in 1642 and stayed in Ireland. Don't know if its true or not. If well fleshed out it might produce a novel. It took me literally years of reading everything I could find and lots of hours poking at the LDS Catalog to find out what little I do know. Much of what I learned is in the archives including abstracts of IRish RP congregations. Linda Merle -------------- Original message -------------- From: Scrapcat2@aol.com > > I have been fascinated by this post by Brian and the online information > available on the Covenanters Index. There are names I recognize, not that they > are necessarily my ancestors, but they certainly could be. Are the registers > available? Hopefully, I can learn more about this. > > Carol Reed Kennedy > > Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 19:15:02 +0100 > From: "Brian Orr" _brian@orrnamestudy.com_ (mailto:brian@orrnamestudy.com) > > > > Subject: Covenanters, covenant signatures and Transportations > > Just to let you know, that I have added extracts from the Edinburgh Tolbooth > registers that refer to Scots transported to the colonies ( America and west > Indies). Also pages of signatories to the Covenant of 1638 in the parishes > of Borgue and Minigaff, Galloway. Many of these people ended up in Ireland and > went on to become SIs. > > Go to the Covenanters Index at www.thereformation.info > > Hope they are of interest and even help in the unending quest. > > Brian > > > >