Ireland XO
Back to Message Board

Hamilton and Taylor (Co. Down, Co. Antrim)

Hello IrelandXO Researchers!!

First, you have been so exceptionally helpful, I am hoping you can help me take this line further back in time. I'd like to know more about the persons #1 and #2, and their parentage - though I only know their fathers' names. I do have the 3 documents you previously provided: 1875 Marriage registration, 1890 Birth registration, 1901 Census.

1) John Hamilton (Jul 1841 Co. Antrim ~ 26 Dec 1912 Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada): I am hoping you can help me find more about him prior to moving to Movilla, Newtonards, Co. Down. The 1901 census you previously provided noted his birth location as Antrim. His 1875 marriage document updated his residence to be Movilla, Newtonards and his father to be James Hamilton, a laborer. The 1890 birth registration document for his son Robert noted, I believe, that they lived on Gracewell Street in Movilla, Newtonards. One document I accessed through Ancestry [Ireland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1620-1911] for his daughter Eliza/Elizabeth noted his birth location as simply Bostin or Bootin ~ I have no idea what this might be for as I searched locations in Northern Ireland, there was no match. I am hoping to find-out about his early years in Antrim and his parents.

2) Martha Jane Taylor (1853 Newtonards, Co. Down ~ aft 2 Jun 1921 Calgary, Alberta, Canada): At the time of her marriage to John Hamilton in 1875, the document noted her residence to be Killarn, Newtonards and her father to be James Taylor, a shoemaker. I am hoping to learn more about her and her parents.

3) FYI: Our family member who is a direct male descendant from John and Martha Jane has taken a variety of DNA tests, to include the y700. We belong to the HAMILTON Surname Group and through them we've learned interestingly, that the surnames of Hamilton and Robertson are closely connected, and some of the other members of the same subgroup can trace their lines back to Scotland. I offer this only as information for yDNA testing certainly helps to bring the globe closer!

May you stay safe and healthy! I live in California (between San Francisco and San Jose) where we continue to be under "shelter in place". The upside? Lots of time to do genealogical research and to work on household projects!

Best regards, Harriet

Hattie

harrietgirdley…

4 replies

Hattie,

I had a look at the GRONI birth records and I see the following children to John & Martha:

Eliza 9.10.1876 at Bootown

John 29.8.1879

Thomas 9.5.1882

John 23.11.1884

Un-named male 3.7.1887

Robert 2.10.1890

Alexander Marshall 6.4.1894 at Bootown

Bootown is 183 acres in size. At the time that John & Martha lived there it would have been agricultural land. Today it’s a housing estate on the outskirts of Newtownards. Movilla, where the family lived in the 1901 census, is adjacent to Bootown and is likewise now part of a housing estate. Killarn, where Martha was living when she married, is a townland a mile or so east of Newtownards. Still mostly farmland today. You can see where the townlands are using this link:

http://www.placenamesni.org/index.php

In 1901 Killarn had 12 occupied homes with a population of 67. (These sorts of townlands are often too minor to come up on Google searches etc).

The Hamilton family were Presbyterian. That plus the Scottish name and the general location ie Counties Antrim & Down points almost unequivocally to them being of settler origins. Their ancestors likely arrived in Ireland from Scotland in the 1600s (along with 200,000 other Scots).  So it’s not surprising that your DNA test has thrown up some Scottish ancestry.

Martha married in Newtownards Church of Ireland (ie Anglican). Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church (after which she’d usually attend her husband’s). So that would normally be where to look for her baptism. Unfortunately Newtownards Church of Ireland’s records were destroyed in the 1922 fire in Dublin and they have nothing before 1884. So tracing her back may prove rather difficult. I looked in the Valuation Revision records for Killarn around 1875 to see if I could identify James Taylor’s home but he is not listed. So either he didn’t stay there long enough to be listed, or he was lodging with someone and so didn’t appear in the records himself. Alternatively Martha may have been working in Killarn and her father lived somewhere else altogether. No easy way of finding out.

I noted this James Taylor, shoemaker, living outside Newtownards in 1901, who is of an age to be Martha’s father. However he is Presbyterian rather than Church of Ireland so that doesn’t fit so well.  Birth registration only started in 1864 and tracing someone born before that can be very difficult, especially if they attended a church that no longer has any records.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Down/Mount_Stewart/Drumawhey/1258281/

Likewise tracing John Hamilton’s origins will be very difficult without knowing where in Antrim he came from. Hamilton & Taylor are both very common names in the area and that doesn’t help either.

I had a look at the civil marriage records for people named Taylor, registered in Newtownards 1865 – 1885. There were 45. If you feel energetic, you could go through them all looking for those with fathers names James who was a shoemaker. You might find someone who was Martha Jane’s sibling. Good luck!

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp

Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘IrelandXO Volunteer

Elwyn,

Thank you SO much for your rapid reply ~ as always, the IrelandXO researchers uncover a wealth of information and it'll take me a while to dig through it.  Should I have further questions, I'll be back! 

Best, Hattie/Harriet

harrietgirdley…

I am follolwing this thread and curious who Hattie is? I too live in the San Francsico Bay Area and am the grandson of John Hamilton and the son of Robert C. Hamilton. I've visited Belfast and Newtownards and have friends who live in Belfast. 

Kind regards,

Robert Michael Hamilton

Robert M. HAMILTON

Hello Robert,

How exciting you have visited Newtownards and are aware of your lineage … I am hopeful you may be able to assist me in achieving my objectives for having made this Community posting in IrelandXO.  As you already know:

  1. I am attempting to trace the Hamilton line of John Hamilton (1841-1912) through his father James and beyond … to County Antrim, and hopefully back to the Ulster Scots migration.
  2. yDNA results opened-up a mystery relating to an unexpected alignment between the HAMILTON and ROBERTSON lines.  I am working with the administrators of both surname/research project groups on study as to when/where the connection exists; it is suspected in the mid-1600s in Scotland.

From the lineage information provided in your post, am I correct in identifying the following persons as your paternal line?  Father: Robert Clarence Hamilton (1916-1987), Grandfather: John Patrick Hamilton (1885-1946), Great-Grandfather: John Hamilton (1841-1912), and 2x Grandfather: James Hamilton (?-?).  If this is correct, then you and the person whose DNA kits I manage would likely be “2x cousins 1x removed” with John Hamilton (1841-1912) as the MRCA aka Most Recent Common Ancestor. 

Confidentiality and privacy are very important to our family, but I do enjoy collaborating with fellow researchers and if you wish, you may contact me via email: harrietgirdley@gmail.com.  I certainly look forward to hearing from you!

Best Regards, Hattie

harrietgirdley…

Reply

Reply
One image file up to 2 MB.