Campbell family ..contact

I forgot to say that I plan to be in Donegal on the 11/09/2018

Most Campbells in Ireland are descended from Scottish Presbyterians who settled in Ulster (and some other places) in the 1600's and 1700's.  I wasn't sure from your message whether you know your Campbell ancestors to have come from Donegal.  If so, then their origin is likely to fit that pattern.

However, given your own surname, it seems possible that your Campbell's might have been Catholic.  There were some Campbells who migrated to Ireland before the Reformation. They came as what are known as "gallowglasses", or foreign mercenaries (from various clans) who were brought to Ireland to fight for one chieftain or another in his battles with other chieftains, and they frequently settled down and left descendants.  The original Irish from of  "gallowglasses' is "gallóglaigh", meaning "foreign fighters".

A significant number of the Catholic Campbells who came as gallowglasses settled in County Mayo, where I have Campbell relatives myself (two of my grandparents grew up in eastern Mayo).  The following site has a map showing the distribution of the Campbell surname in Ireland:  https://www.irishorigenes.com/campbell

You have to click on the little map image inorder to enlarge it so that is becomes readable, and you can download the map in its enlarged form.  As you'll see, there is a major concentration in Ulster (mostly descended from the Scottish settlers), and a secondary one in Mayo and neighboring areas (mostly descended from the gallowglass incomers).

I've done DNA testing, and so has a Mayo third cousin whose mother was borrn a Campbell , so if you have been tested as well, I'd be happy to compare results and see whether that might indicate that your Campbells originated in Mayo.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Kevin

I can not provide any additional information about Joseph Campbell other than his second marriage was in a Catholic Church in Orange NSW. He was a widower at this time but I can not find any information about his first wife.

I have not had my DNA test but my sister has and will pass this information on to  her to see if she is interested in following up on this lead. Otherwise I might get my DNA taken

 

In any case your information has given me a firm foundation to start my search

 

Thanks  

 

Peter

My family were/ are Campbell's . They were a strong Catholic family and had a farm in Armagh . What could their history be ? As I know the majority of Campbell's were Scottish and Protestant .

Hi, Claire.  While many of those early Campbell's did settle in Mayo, it's likely that some also settled in Ulster, and that may include your ancestors.  There were people from many Scottish clans who came to Ireland before the Reformation, and whose descendants may have remained Catholic.  Another large group were the McDonnell's, who settled in North Antrim (the ruined Dunluce Castle on the north coast, near the Giant's Causeway, was a McDonnell castle).  They were a part of the MacDonald clan, and many of them later moved on to Mayo from Antrim (I have McDonnell realtves in Mayo as well).

It is also possble that one of your Campbell ancestors in Ulster was a Protestant who later married into a Catholic family.  There was a lot more intermarriage than some people like to think, and a good number of the early Protestant settlers were still speaking Gaelic (even some of those from the Lowlands), so they could fit right into an Irish-speaking Catholic family.