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Donegal Dugan Roots Update

Donegal

I posted on here a while ago looking for clues to where my ancestors may have been from in Ireland. Since then, I have visited the area in Pennsylvania where several generations of the Irish branch of my family lived. The direct line I am tracing is Dugan, through my grandmother. I've found various spellings, such as Doogan, Dougan, and Deggan may even be a possible one.

My first known ancestor is a Hugh Dugan, who married a Letitia Gallagher. Both are supposed to have been born in Ireland, with Letitia being listed as 19 on the PA and US census of 1850. One of their sons married the daughter of a woman who is descended from a John Doogan and a Honora Hannah Ferry, both of Ireland, with some information leaning more positively towards Honora being from Donegal.

I have also completed an Ancestry.com dna test, and have been talking to someone about a northern Ireland dna project. I got that tip from a reply to my previous post on here, so thanks! My results from the Ancestry test linked me to many with links to Donegal.

While in PA, I visited the cemetary where several ancestors are buried, and many tombstones, though none related to me, listed Donegal as where they came from.

Many records I found in PA mentioned Donegal. The woman at Immaculate Conception told me that most who came to the area came from Donegal. The baptismal records she provided me gave me a few more names which had links back to Donegal. Those names are Curran, Friel, and McFadden. I had dna matches to people with these surnames. The dna searching is still new to me, so as of yet, I do not know what percentage of a dna match is better than another in regards to tracing ancestry.

Online searches have not yielded me anything more than I already know. My trip to the area in PA where many lived is what gave me more documents, information, and other possible leads. Several have given me tips in regards to my first post on this message board, and I am hoping for more at this time. I am considering a visit to Donegal this summer not just to visit, but also to search around some more and see if I can find any more pieces to my puzzle. So what I am looking for are places I should visit where I may find records, people to ask, and I'm open to any and all suggestions on what to do with my time when I'm there.

kr0ssk0untry

3 replies

Welcome Back to Ireland Reaching Out!

Co. Donegal is a very large county and one limitation is that almost all of the RC parishes have records starting 1850 or later which makes it very difficult to research people who were born in the first half of the 19th century.

I looked at 1857 Griffiths Valuation data for Co. Donegal and my 1901 census site  www.leitrim-roscommon/1901census ; and it is very likely that your ancestors came from one of two parishes on the northwest coast of Donegal. Specifically, Tullaghobegly and Templecrone civil parishes.

Unfortunately, RC church records start very late in that area. Did any of your ancestors born in Donegal, die 1906 or later in Pennsylvania? Ancestry.com has Pennsylvanis death records from 1906-1964. My Donegal ancestors from two different families emigrated to South Philadelphia and their death records have provided a lot of parental names which has helped with pinpointing where they were from.

Regarding your Ancestry DNA, the matches should be arrayed in order of closest matches and they now display the strength of the matches in centimorgans. Ancestry has now modified their ethnicity data and can better pinpoint where your family originated in Ireland. Hopefully, they are showing the northwest coast area.  There is also a volunteer run site called Genesis Gedmatch www.genesis.gedmatch.com ; where you can load your raw Ancestry DNA data and see matches with people who tested with other companies and also loaded their DNA data to Genesis Gedmatch.

You asked about places to go to research and at this point, I can suggest an area as indicated above but without more clues, it will be very hard to know exactly where Hugh Dugan came from.

Let me know what questions you have.

Roger McDonnell

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Thanks Roger. Yes, there were several generations in the same area of Pennsylvania. I've seen the death certificates for all the ones I know of, and they say nothing more than Ireland for place of birth. Same with the census data that I have.

The first known to come over died young. I found his estate papers on microfiche in the town, but nothing more. The woman at the Catholic church pulled out names and dates from baptismal records they had, and when I compared surnames to my ancestry dna results, I got hits off of some of those as well.

With the men having such common names, even though I could find oath of allegiance papers, and other items...when all you have is a John or Hugh Dugan/Doogan/Dougan to go by, it doesn't help a lot.

I uploaded my ancestry dna file onto gedmatch. Now I'm just figuring out how to interpret all the data.

Thanks for the tip on Templecrone and Tullaghobegly. I've never seen so many people listed with all the surnames I match. While looking at that data, I found info on Tory Island as well. That was an entertaining read. There was also a mention that if you want to bring back some of the clay the island is known for, you have to ask the oldest Duggan on the island for permission.

Talking to others I've connected with on ancestry, I've heard a lot about people changing names before coming over, or even after, and children being given up. The area they were at in PA was known for anthracite mining. So it's possible he died in a mining accident. But it was also known as a really wild place with the back and forth between the mine bosses and their police and the workers fighting them for better conditions. Fascinating stuff. Whether I get more clues between now and this summer, I am leaning strongly towards making a visit to the area anyway. Thanks again, and if I find any more clues, I'll be sure to post once more and see if y'all have any more tips.

Jay

 

IrelandXO member

I'm searching Dugan's from Donegal who migrated to Pennsylvania too (NEPA). We have a Hugh but I think it's a different one, of course. Always holding out hope that we'll find the link some day!

Laura S. Young

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