McCormick and McAllister

Molly,

Henry & Nancy’s marriage and Alexander’s birth are all before the start of statutory birth and marriage registration in Ireland, meaning it will be hard to find a record of those events without more specific information on their denomination and the parish or townland that they came from. Even then it may be hard going as not all churches have any records for the period you need.

I searched the rootsireland site but did not find a marriage or Alexander’s baptism. What are the names and years of birth of Alexander & Jean’s  children born in Ireland?

The marriage in 1840 in Paisley seems to have been Church of Scotland so I assume the family were Presbyterian. Is that correct? I ask because there was an Alexander McCormick and Jane Andrew who had several children in Culfeightrin parish in Co Antrim in the 1840s and 1850s but they were RC, so presumably a different family.

Usual advice in this situation is to try and exhaust Scottish sources in the hope that they reveal a place of origin in Ireland. Check every census, will and obituaries etc. Another approach might be to check Scottish Poor Law records. If your ancestors claimed under the Poor Law in Scotland (as many many Irish did), then the Poor Law file usually records their parish of origin in Ireland as well as details of next of kin there. Poor Law records for the Glasgow area are kept in the Mitchell Library. They will normally do a look up for a small fee. You might want to contact them:

http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/the-mitchell-library/archives/collections/poor-law-archives/Pages/default.aspx

Molly,

Now that I have details of the children born in Ireland, I think your family has to be the one I mentioned previously in the Culfeightrin RC parish records (that’s near Ballycastle).  It contains baptisms of 4 children:

John 16.6.1849

Jane 6.7.1851

Mary Anne 28.1.1854

Patrick 25.3.1859

With the exception of Mary Anne who perhaps died young the ages and names fit perfectly with the Scottish censuses. Here’s a link to Jane’s baptism:

https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000633142#page/26/mode/1up

So I’d say your family are from Culfeightrin RC parish.

Going back and forth between Co. Antrim and Scotland as this family did was very common. You often find that. It was a short and easy journey with regular sailings from Ballycastle.

What was Henry McCormick’s occupation? (It should be on Alexander’s death certificate in 1881).

Molly,

The link to the website with the baptisms is in the previous message.

It wasn’t Alexander’s occupation I was interested in but his father's (Henry). Knowing his occupation may make it easier to locate the family in Ireland. If, for example, he was a farmer then he should be in the tithes or Griffiths Valuation. And you might also be able to find him in the Antrim estates records in PRONI.

I am not related to the family. I am a volunteer for Ireland Reaching Out and I cover Co. Antrim. That’s why you got a reply from me.

Regarding James Tennyson’s place of birth, if he was born in Coatbridge, then that would suggest his parents must have moved to Scotland in the 1840s. So have you searched for an RC baptism for him there, or for the family in the 1851 & 1861 censuses? I can’t see them in either. Nor can I see his mother’s death in Scotland. (You can search Scotlandspeople’s deaths using mother’s married & maiden names so it’s fairly easy to identify). He appears to arrive in Scotland around 1871. So I think he was born in Ireland. But a birth c 1847 is too early for statutory registration.

I searched for Thomas & Nancy’s marriage 1830 -1850 and for James’s birth c 1847/9 in the Irish RC baptism records but without success. However that may be because they lived in a parish that doesn’t have any records for those years.

Again it’d be helpful to know Thomas Tennyson’s occupation. It should be on both of James marriage certificates, as well as James death certificate.  The other piece of information you can get from those Scottish certificates is whether the parents were still alive at that date. The Scots were pretty meticulous at putting “dcd” ie deceased after someone’s name to record whether they were alive or not. So on the 1872 marriage certificate, are James’ parents recorded as alive or dead? Likewise what do the 2nd marriage and death certificates all say? Knowing roughly when they died, should help narrow the search, in both Scotland and Ireland.

I can see a death in Ireland for a Thomas Tennison aged 75 on 13.8.1898, a farmer in Derrylard in Co. Armagh. He had a wife Ann who died there 15.6.1898 aged 84. Ann & Nancy are interchangeable names in Ireland (and in Scotland) and so that’s one possibility but I’d like to know Thomas’s occupation before searching further.

Judy,

If the Gillen & McAllister families were RC and lived in Glenariff then the earliest parish records start in 1825 (Carnlough). So there won’t be a record of Alexander & his wife Elizabeth McCallister or the baptisms of their children. I searched the on-line records on Ancestry for Alexander junior’s marriage to Ann O’Neil and the baptisms of their children but did not find them. The surname Gillen/Gillan is common in the area and there were Alexander Gillans in Loughguile, Ballintoy and Ardclinis.

Ardclinis is the civil parish which includes Glenariff. There were 2 Gillan farms there in 1828:

http://www.irishgenealogyhub.com/antrim/tithe-applotments/ardclinis-parish.php

There are very few records for the early 1800s (and pretty well none for the 1700s) so researching this period is always hard going. Death registration didn’t start till 1864 so there’s often no record of anyone who died before that unless they had a gravestone. Only wealthier folk had gravestones.

McAllister is a very common surname in the Glenarm area. There’s about 100 in that area in the 1901 Irish census. According to an article by Aodhan MacPoilin & Roise Ni Bhaoill,  published in the book “Antrim & Argyll – Some aspects of the Connections”, the McAlisters arrived in north east Antrim from Argyllshire. It’s described there as a well documented galloglass name, with the comment that it does not mean every McAlister was a galloglass (mercenary). “The constant to-ing and fro-ing of people between Antrim & Argyll, both pre and post plantation, brought many Argyll names to Antrim, including settlers who came on the invitation of Randal McDonnell…and people who simply married across the sheugh.” (A sheugh is a Scottish and Ulster word meaning a ditch). A local term for the narrow channel of water between Ireland & Scotland.

Judy,

This Scottish site provides advice on genealogical queries in Scotland:

http://talkingscot.com

This site below shows you where the surname Gillan/Gillen was found in Ireland in the mid 1800s. It speculates that the name originates in Tyrone or Connaught. It is found along the north Irish coast quite a bit which could also point to Scottish connections. Many people in those coastal areas did go back and forth over the years. There were few good roads in Ireland so overland journeys were slow and difficult whereas water was the equivalent of a freeway, and much trade and business used the seas. (The modern ferry from Ballycastle in Co. Antrim to Campbeltown in Kintyre takes 40 minutes. Ballycastle to Port Ellen on the Scottish island of Islay takes 1 hour. Gives you an idea of how close the places are. Even in the days of oars and sail they weren’t big journeys).

thttps://www.johngrenham.com/findasurname.php?surname=Gillan

If you visit a graveyard in Islay you will find many of the same surnames as in graveyards in Ballycastle, Cushendall and places like that. It doesn’t take a great deal of research to realise that these folk went back and forth all the time. They also spoke the same language (the Gaelic in the Glens of Antrim is almost identical to that spoken in Islay or Argyll, but different to the dialects in other parts of Ireland). Robert MacAdam wrote in 1873:

Even yet the Glensmen of Antrim go regularly to Highland fairs, and communicate without the slightest difficulty with the Highlanders. Having myself conversed with both Glensmen and Arranmen, I can testify to the absolute identity of their speech (Ó Baoill 2000: 122).

Richardson noted that many Highlanders had settled in deserted lands in Inishowen and Antrim after the Williamite conquest, and as they spoke no English, were supplied with Gaelic-speaking ministers from Scotland:

In the Northern Parts of the County of Antrim, which being also deserted by the Irish, upon the landing of the English army near Carrickfergus in 1689, many families from the Western Isles of Scotland, who understood no other language but Irish, settled there. At their first going over, they went to church; but not understanding the divine service celebrated there, they soon went over to the communion of the Church of Rome, only for the benefit of such exhortations, as the Popish priests usually give their congregations in Irish. And when they were asked the reason, why they did so? They said, ‘It was better to be of their religion, than none at all’ (Richardson 1711: 28-9).

Ownership of the island of Rathlin (just off the coast from Ballycastle) was reportedly disputed between the Scots and the Irish many hundreds of years ago. The matter was resolved by investigating whether snakes would live there. (There are no snakes in Ireland but Scotland has plenty). Reportedly they took some snakes to Rathlin but they died. So clearly the island was Irish.

Judy,

Just post here. Probably easier for continuity's sake.