Junkin (MacJunkin )ancestors

I think you might struggle with this enquiry.

I looked at the 1901 census of Ireland. There were 43 people named Junkin in Ireland (essentially from just 3 or 4 families). None named MacJunkin though the Mc/Mac/M’ prefixes were often added or dropped at whim in Ireland so don’t read too much into that.  They weren’t considered as part of the actual name. The few Junkins that there were nearly all lived in Cos Antrim and Derry/Londonderry. None in Co. Monaghan. Most were Presbyterian or otherwise of likely Scottish descent, so that fits with your broad background.

MacLysaght’s “The Surnames of Ireland” doesn’t list the name at all indicating it was very rare (as the 1901 census also indicates).

There are almost no records in Ireland for births, marriages etc for someone born c 1715.  From the information you have given, your Junkins probably only lived in Ireland for a generation or so, so that also reduces the likelihood of finding any documentary record of them in Ireland. They were just “in transit” you might say.

PRONI is the public record office in Northern Ireland. The PRONI e-catalogue records just one entry for Junkin in Co Antrim. That was for a Samuel Junkin in the parish of Raloo (near the modern port of Larne) who was on the voters list in 1776, and voted in Carrickfergus in a parliamentary election that year. D1364/L/1 at PRONI.

Researching in Ireland in the 1700s is very hard going due to the general lack of records. If you don’t know where they lived it’s a needle in a haystack. Ideally you need to know the person’s exact denomination and the townland or parish they lived in to have any chance of finding them, and even then there may not be any records for that location.

Possibly DNA testing may be a way of matching with others who have additional information about where the family originate. Family Tree DNA reportedly has more people with Ulster roots than any other company. That obviously increases the chances of finding a match. You might want to try them or, if you have already tested, you can transfer your results to them for no fee.

The North of Ireland Family History Society is running an Ulster DNA project in conjunction with FTDNA and can offer testing kits at a reduced price.  http://www.nifhs.org (Go to DNA project on the website).

Joyce,

My understanding of the Huguenots background is that France was essentially Roman Catholic. In 1598 the French King Henry IV granted tolerance to Protestants there in an edict signed in Nantes (The Edict of Nantes). So most Protestants were comfortable with that. However in 1685, Louis XIV revoked that edict (Revocation of the Edict of Nantes) and this led to widespread persecution of Huguenots and other French Protestants. Many fled France and sought sanctuary in Ireland, England and Scotland (and presumably elsewhere).

So the big influx of Huguenots to Ireland was in the late 1680s and 1690s. I don’t think there would have been a big Huguenot population in Inverness in the 1500s. They didn’t really have any significant reason for going there at that time as far as I can tell.  Neither for reasons of persecution nor for economic reasons (ie work).

Huguenots in Ireland did establish their own churches in Dublin and elsewhere but after a period of time most realigned, often to Presbyterianism which being based on Calvin’s doctrines fairly closely aligned with their views.  And there were plenty of Presbyterian churches in Ireland, especially in Ulster, because the area had been so heavily settled by Scots earlier in the 1600s. (Presbyterianism was established in Scotland in the mid 1500s, by John Knox).

Something like 200,000 Scots settled in Ireland in the 1600s (representing 20% of the entire Scottish population). There were some who fled to Ireland for religious reasons during the “killing times” in the 1680s but most came for largely economic reasons. The Plantation of Ulster in the period 1610 – 1625 brought the first big wave attracted by offers of cheap land with low rents and lots of work. Other Scots stayed behind in Ireland when a 10,000 strong Scottish army was disbanded in Carrickfergus in the 1640s, and there was a huge wave of new arrivals in the 1690s because of famine in Scotland. So some did come because religious persecution, notably the Covenanters, but that wasn’t the main reason for the Scottish influxes.

If your ancestors fled France because of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, I suspect that must have been in the 1680s or thereabouts. I also suspect they may just have come direct from France, rather than via Inverness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Nantes

I can’t find any trace of anyone named MacJunkin, either in Ireland or in Scotland. And if they were of French origins, I can’t see them adopting a Mc prefix in Scotland because that originates in the patronymic naming system, which the French didn’t use. 

I had a look at the 1841 Scottish census. (That’s the oldest census in Scotland) The name Junkin is not common in Scotland. There were just 12 (and no MacJunkins). There were about 6 Junkin families in the whole of Scotland. None in Inverness though there was a 3 year old child in Morayshire which is not too far away. So they were thinner on the ground in Scotland than in Ireland, and that’s not saying much.

Jenkin/Jenkins is much more common in Scotland with 774 in 1841. MacLysaght’s The Surnames of Ireland says Jenkins is an English name. So who knows?

You are correct that there are 2 Ballyscullion parishes. The bigger one is in Co Derry/Londonderry and then there is Ballyscullion East in Co Antrim.  They are divided by the river Bann. The tithe applotment records for 1828 list farmers in Ireland (the tithes were a tax on land). There was a Joseph Junkin farming in Ballymacomb (Ballyscullion Co Derry) at that time:

http://www.irishgenealogyhub.com/derry/tithe-applotments/ballyscullion-parish.php

He’s also in the 1831 census, and from that we know there were 9 in his family, (plus 2 servants) and the family were Presbyterian.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/Londonderry/Loughinshollon/Ballyscullion/Ballymacombs/50/

Joseph died in 1875 aged 82, so born c 1793:

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1875/020638/7240862.pdf

Ringing Junkin died in 1871 aged 95, so born c 1780.

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_retu…

I can see 3 marriages, all for female Junkins from Ballymacombs 1845 onwards. Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church. One was in Bellaghy Presbyterian church, another in Castledawson and the 3rd in Moneymore 1stPresbyterian. Bellaghy Presbyterian has no records before the 1860s (the original church was burned in the 1798 uprising and the Minister had to flee to America because of his part in the uprising.  The next Minister didn’t bother keeping any records for nearly 40 years), Castledawson has baptisms for 1703 – 1706 and then nothing till 1809 & Moneymore 1st has nothing earlier than 1827.  And that is broadly the general position for much of Ireland. Only a handful of churches have any records for the 1700s. And so there’s no obvious documentary way of identifying who Joseph or Ringing Junkin’s ancestors were, nor any of the other Junkins in Ireland at that time.

Regarding transferring your DNA results, my understanding is that there is a way of downloading them from Ancestry and then you can send them on to another DNA site/sites. I don’t know how to do it myself but if you contact the NIFHS their expert will tell you how it’s done. It should all be free too.

 

 

 

 

I had a look at the Great Parchment Book. No Junkins listed in Derry in 1639:

https://www.greatparchmentbook.org/book-history/

It’s possible that there was a Junkin at the siege of Derry but we don’t have a comprehensive roll or record of who was living there then (1688) so it’s difficult to say.

In 1831 Joseph Junkin of Ballymacombs was the only Junkin listed in the county.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/Londonderry/Loughinsho…

Joyce,

Being honest with you, to have got back to 1715 is pretty good. Most irish research comes to a stop around 1800 due to the lack of records. So to have got back another 100 years is exremely lucky. We simply don't have any records In ireland or Scotland to get back any further than that. Nobody was keeping them, in the 1600s. When I see trees that claim to have done that, alarm bells generally ring because it's very unusual and often points to guesswork.

There was a broad tradition in Ireland & Scotland of naming children according to the following rules:

The 1st son was usually named after the father's father

  The 2nd son was usually named after the mother's father

   The 3rd son was usually named after the father

    The 4th son was usually named after the father's eldest brother

     The 5th son was usually named after the mother's eldest brother

 The 1st daughter was usually named after the mother's mother

  The 2nd daughter was usually named after the father's mother

   The 3rd daughter was usually named after the mother

    The 4th daughter was usually named after the mother's eldest sister 

     The 5th daughter was usually named after the father's eldest sister

 

The problem with relying too heavily on naming patterns is that, apart from the fact that not all families followed it, there are lots of things that can upset it. Common ones that I have encountered are: 

when the father and either of the grandparents have the same name. So you obviously can’t really have two or even three sons all with the same name, so a different name is often needed though some families did actually use the same name again on the birth certificate, but differentiated with another more informal name for day to day use. So if you had two Georges (as per birth certs) you just called one of them something else eg Simon;

if a child dies young, then it was common practice to re-use the name for the next birth. But if you don’t know about the death, your analysis of who they were named after could be completely wrong; 

Or if a close relative had just died and their name was used out of respect. 

I have also noticed that many families liked to name the odd child after the local Minister/Priest, schoolteacher or a relative with no children of their own. 

Sometimes people were christened with one name, but went by a different one (and would appear in censuses and other records by that alternative name), eg Henry & Harry or Ann & Nancy. 

So for all these reasons, whilst tradition says, for example, that the 4th son was named after the father's eldest brother, it isn’t always so.

 

 

315 Junkin baptisms in the Church of Scotland (ie Presbyterian) records on Scotlandspeople. The oldest dates to 1621 and was in Canongate (Edinburgh). However very few Scottish parishes have records for the 1600s and frequently for the 1700s so there are likely to have been many other baptisms that are not recorded.

1 Catholic baptism in 1850 in Greenock.

Grant,

It’s possible that your ancestors are Huguenots who fled France. It’s also possible that your ancestors came from Inverness. I think it much less likely they were both. History doesn’t really make that very likely.

The Huguenots weren’t significantly persecuted in France till the Edict of Nantes was revoked in October 1685.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Nantes

That led to an influx of protestant Refugees to Britain and Ireland.  So if your family fled France because they were persecuted Huguenots, then it was some time around 1685 onwards.  I am not aware of any fleeing to Scotland in the 1500s, let alone to Inverness (then a very small town), nor of a political reason for them to do so. As I have said previously I don’t think there were any in Inverness then at all. (Presbyterianism – which was established in Scotland in 1560 - took time to expand across the country. In the mid 1500s Inverness would have been mostly Catholic. An odd destination therefore for any Protestant fleeing Catholic persecution in France. I don’t think that can be correct).

This thread says John Junkin was born in Ireland in 1715.   Accepting that the main Huguenot refugee outflow was in the 1680s and 1690s, there doesn’t seem to be sufficient time for them to have gone to Inverness, flee again (for reasons unknown), and be established in Ireland in 1715.

It is true that Presbyterians in Scotland were persecuted in the late 1600s. The 1680s were known as “The Killing Times” when Covenanter Presbyterians were persecuted because of their beliefs. However that stopped in 1688 with the protestant King William’s accession to the thrones of both Scotland and England.

So Huguenots and other Presbyterians had no reason to flee Scotland for Ireland after that, though there was a big influx in the 1690s due to famine in Scotland.

https://www.scotland.org.uk/history/killing-time

Grant,

Happy to accept there were some folk from Flanders in the Moray area pre 1685, but they appear to have gone for the normal economic reasons.  And for those arriving in the early period, they’d have been Catholic, not protestant. They certainly weren’t Huguenots refugees so far as I can see. That was a quite separate movement after 1685.