john mclaughlin

The McLaughlin's are found mostly in what is now Counties Donegal and Derry, where the main sept (tribe) originated (on or around the Inishowen peninsula).  The name is Mac Lochlainn in Irish, and is based on a Norse given name (common in Scotland as Lachlan).  A separate sept originated in Connacht, however, and is found in Mayo and nearby counties.

The surname Higgins is likewise originally from Ulster, but the family essentially all migrated to Connacht.  The Irish form is Ó hUigin, and is basd on an old word for Viking, so once again there are Norse origins.  According to Irish Origenes, it is now found mostly in Mayo and Galway.  You can see a map of its distribution at this link:

https://www.irishorigenes.com/higgins

The family of the famous Chilean liberator, Bernardo O'Higgins, came from Sligo (which is part of Connacht).  The former Irish President, who spellshis name Mícheál Dónal Ó hUigínn, was born in Limerick, but his family may have been from Galway, because that's where he got his start in politics.

I checked the Family Search database, and found a James McLaughlin married to an Elizabeth Higgins, living at the right time, but with no indication of where they were born.  A number of children are also shown, but all seem to have been born in Québec.  If you want to check out those records at Family Search [https://www.familysearch.org], you'll see James under ID number 9H1X-BKL and can access the other records easily from there.  The site is free to use, but you do have to created an account.  You might be able to contact whoever created those records to compare notes (maybe they weren't sure about the name James).  There are also a number of other entries at Family Search for the name Elizabeth Higgins, and most show birth in Mayo (if they show a location), with the places named usually in East Mayo.  MacLaughlin is harder to search, because so many people show up in Ulster.

I know the name Higgins was found in Killasser parish in East Mayo, where my grandparents grew up, because it has appeared in several records related to my family (an Ellen Higgins married one of my distant cousins, and there were several Higgins witnesses at baptisms).   As Roger noted, though, records do not go back far enough there to find your known ancestors.  However, I sometimes suggest that people try searching the parish records in Swineford, since there are some baptismal records there from the 1820's.  It may be worth a look, at this link

https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0133 ;