Gordon,
My own experience of Scottish Registrars is that they were generally fairly good at recording the date and place of parent’s marriage, and that included where the marriage was outside Scotland. Sometimes you got the parish rather than the exact location but they did record it. The information was recorded in 1855 and then from 1861 onwards (so none for 1856 to 1860 inclusive). So that would account for there being no information on the 1859 birth certificate you have.
People often try to find where their Irish ancestors originated and where relevant I refer them to Scottish birth certificates, and it normally does record that marriage information. 1855 is the best year because birth certs from that year only, also record the parents’ places of birth. (Scottish Registrars protested in 1855 about the amount of information they were expected to record, which is why the date and place of parents marriage requirement was dropped for a few years before being reintroduced in 1861).
I have played about with the GRONI civil indexes. There’s no shortage of Agnes McMullan (and variant) marriages. Just no McKechnies. Nearest I could find was Agnes McMillan who married Robert Brown in Newtownards 19.11.1859. Can’t see how you might get from Brown to McKechnie though.
Regarding the denomination of the marriages, tradition was to marry in the bride’s church. So that tells you about her beliefs but not necessarily about the groom’s. So Mary Jane was Free Church. For her brothers it’s not really possible to say. There were “Wee Free” churches in Ireland (known here mostly as secession kirks) but by the early 20th century most had amalgamated back with the mainstream Presbyterian church or, in some cases, had changed lanes to other denominations eg Unitarian, Congregationalist or, in one case that I know of, even Methodist. However a Free Church marriage in Ireland in 1858 or 1859 would be in the civil indexes. So being Wee Free won’t explain why we can’t find Agnes & Robert’s marriage in Ireland.
I agree with you about the 20th century movement of shipyard workers. Harland & Wolff had yards in Belfast, Clydeside and Liverpool and routinely moved staff between the 3 as business required. You see evidence of that in the 1911 Irish census. Lots of shipyard workers in Belfast from England & Scotland. I have no doubt your ancestor did work on the Titanic, and clearly thousands of workers also did. However every family tradition says that their ancestor worked on the Titanic and so if always true, that ship must have been a real hive of activity. My own great uncle claimed to have bought a ticket on the Titanic but to have changed it to a later sailing. I suspect there must be a lot of those cancelled tickets about too.
Regarding the O' prefix as in O’Kelly, in Ireland O' & Mc prefixes have always been very detachable and are used and dropped at a whim. So if searching for McMullan, you routinely search under Mullen as well. Likewise for Kelly and O’Kelly. Indeed if you search on Ancestry you’ll find that it is programmed to offer the name without the prefixes. It was down to the whim of the person recording the information or to the family themselves. It was never seen as an integral part of the surname.
I had a look in the 1630 Muster Rolls for Co Antrim. They list all adult settlers capable of resisting an attack by the native Irish, so form a useful guide to incomer families resident here then. I don’t see any McKechnie or Kechnie names listed anywhere in Ulster, so the mystery continues.
For detailed background on the migration patterns, I recommend: The Plantation of Ulster by Philip Robinson, plus also Eagles Wings. You could also read “Stewarts of Ballintoy with notices of other families in the district in the seventeenth century” by Rev George Hill (Feb 1976). The Stewarts of Ballintoy came from Bute. They were the Earl of Antrim factors in north east Antrim, and settled in Ballintoy.
If you are really interested in researching further, someone you might want to approach is Dr William Roulston in Belfast. He’s the author of “Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors – The essential genealogical guide to Early Modern Ulster 1600 – 1800”. In my opinion he’s one of the top genealogists in Ulster and he is exceptionally knowledgeable about Scots migration. He’s a key figure in the Ulster Historical Foundation. He’s very approachable and if he has the time, I am sure you may find him very helpful. I can’t recommend him highly enough. There might be a fee for his advice or as he works for a charitable foundation a donation might be appropriate but he is certainly one of the most knowledgeable people I know on your area of interest. You can contact him via: https://www.ancestryireland.com
Your family background in Jura and the surrounding area strikes a chord with me because I know the whole area very well. I must have been to Islay 30 or more times and to Jura at least 10 times. I sailed through the Corryvreckan whirlpool just 2 weeks ago. There are regular distillery and wildlife day trips from Ballycastle to Islay and Jura all the time and these remind you of how, in earlier centuries, the people went back and forth on a daily basis. So migration from Jura to Antrim was never a big deal. It’s well recorded that, in the days of sail, the fishermen in Portnahaven often landed their fish in Ballycastle as opposed to Oban because it was simply easier to get there. If you wander around graveyards on Islay you see the same names as you find on the north Antrim coast. These were obviously the same people and they went back and forth for centuries. There are some minor spelling differences. McPhail in the Hebrides is McFaul on Rathlin but we know these are just how the names were Anglicized. They are the same names. My wife and I went to Islay in April and we hired someone to take us from Ballycastle to Port Ellen. (An hour and a half). Our boatman (normally the skipper of the Rathlin ferry) told us he had rowed from Ballycastle to Port Ellen a few years previously, as a part of a re-enactment of St Columba’s voyage from Ireland to Iona. It took 11 hours to row across the 30 odd miles. Tiring but hardly a massive journey even then. And they probably used sail in Columba’s day anyway. Or Calmac.
I regularly get asked about whether Scots settlers in Ireland in the 1600s would have spoken English or Gaelic or both. I attach this article which contains information on migration from Argyllshire:
“Native Gaelic-Speaking Protestants
There is much circumstantial evidence of Protestants who were native speakers of Gaelic, and other Protestants who became very fluent through everyday interaction with other native speakers. Many of these Protestant Gaelic speakers came from Scotland. During the plantations of Ulster in the early 1600s only ‘inland Scots’ were supposed to be settlers; this policy was intended to exclude Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, but failed to do so. When the Marquis of Argyll brought his troops to Antrim during the 1640s uprisings, most of them would have been Gaelic speakers, and many settled in Ireland when they had finished their military service. Overpopulation and the commercialisation of estates in Scotland also pushed people from Argyll to Antrim in the 1690s; sometimes the dispossessed were recruited for military campaigns in Ireland.
During the time of the Plantations of Ulster there was little difference between the Gaelic of many Scottish settlers and the Irish of the natives. The Irish of Antrim shared many features with Scottish Gaelic, and the Gaelic of Kintyre and Argyll was very similar to Antrim Irish. 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).
There are some fascinating accounts which prove that some of the Protestant settlers in Ulster spoke Scottish Gaelic. John Richardson (1664-1747), rector of Belturbet in County Cavan since 1693, wrote some interesting letters on the subject. In 1711 a correspondent of Richardson, J. Maguire, noted the following:
I met many of the inhabitants, especially of the baronies of Glenarm, Dunluce and Kilconaway, who could not speak the English tongue, and asking them in Irish what religion they professed they answered they were Presbyterians ... I had the curiosity to go to their meeting on the Sunday following, where I heard their minister preach to them in Irish at which (though I think he did not do it well,) they expressed great devotion ... His audience, (as I understand) was composed of native Irish and Highlanders (Richardson 1711: 16).
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).
Some of these Scottish settlers were Anglican. When Presbyterian government was established in Scotland in 1689, disaffected Scottish Episcopalians came to live in North Antrim (Ó Snodaigh 1995: 33). Cathal Dallat notes that Rasharkin was settled by Anglican Highlanders who petitioned the Bishop of Connor to provide them with a Gaelic-speaking minister (1994: 38-9).
Richardson noted that the Bishop of Down provided North Antrim Presbyterians with the Gaelic-speaking Reverend Archibald Mac Collum, who... has taken such effectual pains with the Irish and Highlanders of them, that by the blessing of God he has not only brought back numbers who had fallen off from our Church to that of Rome, but brought over several who were originally Irish Papists, and is every day gaining upon them (Richardson 1711: 14).
Scottish Gaelic speakers settled in many areas of the North. A souvenir booklet of Loughgall Presbyterian Church in Armagh notes the Scottish origin of the congregation, and continues, ‘ We glean that the Scotch settlers here still used the Gaelic of their native Scotland, a language spoken also by the Irish in the district. The Rev Archibald Macclane, who hailed from Argyle, and was a fluent speaker in the native tongue, preached in Loughgall meeting house in Gaelic in 1717’ (1954: 3-4).”
Source: www.ultach.dsl.pipex.com/ForLearners/Prodhistory.pdf
I hope that some of the above may be interesting to you. Even if it doesn’t directly tell you where your ancestors originated.
