Renison

 

Hi Willem

I have been researching the Renison/Rennison family in Ireland for a while now and am having the same difficulty as you in getting back further than the early 1800s. Griffiths Valuation gives some clues but is still later than the era I need. There are Renisons in Parsonstown, Tyrone, a few southern counties and mine from Antrim. The ones from Tyrone were Anglican with a few Bishops and Canons. Some who were missionaries in Canada in the later 1800s with a college at University of Waterloo named after them. There are Rennysons, notice the spelling, in county Down also. Mine as I said are from Antrim, Lisrodden Parrish and are Presbyterian. I visited the church in Portglenone and saw the available registers but these too did not go back that far. May I suggest that you also join any local historical societies for Parsonstown. This has helped me. I belong to the Northern Ireland Family History Society, Ballymena Branch. There are also often Facebook groups for specific areas including picture groups. I have learned a great deal from this group and these other groups before and after I went to Ireland to see the area. I know it's hard to research from afar, I'm from Canada. I would love to go back further than the early 1800s. My gg grandfather was also a Joseph and from the naming patterns of brothers and cousins in the area believe his father is John and would have been born in the 1700s. I have also checked out Scotland since there is.an Ulster Scot connection in my family and Renison is not a typical Irish name. So if you find anything else please share.

Thank you, Nancy (Rennison) Huntley

 

Hello Willem and Nancy,

My name is Brent William Renison, and I am descended from the parents of Joseph Benjamin Renison, b. 1836, specifically, Robert Renison and Jane Eddington. Robert and Jane had 12 children, 5 boys and 7 girls, my 2nd great grandfather Robert Renison being the youngest of them. The 12 children went to South Africa, Australia, Canada and the United States. My 2nd great grandfather Robert Renison went to Canada with his family, as a minister in the Church of Ireland, and his three sons became ministers too. One of them was Bishop of Moosonee and founded Renison College. The other two immigrated to the United States around the turn of the 20th century, and that is how our family came to the U.S. 

I have been in touch with Renisons in South Africa, who are both descendants of William Renison as well as Benjamin Renison (the two sons who immigrated to South Africa). They also had their sister Jane with them. I have a copy of William's marriage certificate in S.A. which shows Benjamin and Jane (his siblings) as witnesses.

One of the descendants of William Renison, Winn Renison (whose brother is Mervin), agreed to undertake Y-DNA (paternal lineage) testing along with me. Our Y paternal DNA matches to a degree we can be found related within 5 generations through the paternal line, so there is no doubt of our being fourth cousins. Even more interestingly, our Y DNA is linked to the Romany people, which means our common paternal ancestor came from India around 1000 A.D. when the Ghaznavids of what is now Afghanistan raided India and captured nearly a million Indians as slaves. They later migrated through Anatolia, Constantinople, and into Europe. They were found in England in 1506, and after that point there was a fragmentation whereby many Romany people took various names. Renison is not a known Romany name, but I have now discovered our Romany past through this Y DNA test. 

It is hard to say whether Jane Eddington and Robert Renison experienced discrimination, and encouraged their 12 children to leave Ireland for this reason, or for the general reason that the times were hard then. I do believe that the Renisons from Ireland came from England, because there are Renisons there, although the reverse could have occurred. Old reports of the Romany people have conflicting information whether the Romany in England went to Ireland, or the reverse. A Y DNA test from a Renison male who can trace their lineage back to England will be necessary to confirm the link between the Renisons in Ireland, and those in England. 

Willem's ancestors can be traced back to Jane Eddington and Robert Renison, who were married in 1828 in Roscrea (where Jane was from) and then their first daughter Catherine Renison was born in 1829 in Shinrone (where the Renisons were living at the time). Jane Eddington's parents were Benjamin Eddington and Jane Alloway, and I suppose it is likely that Willem's ancestor Benjamin was named after Jane's father. There is also a Catherine Eddington born near the time of Jane Eddington, and whe was likely Jane's sister. Jane named her first daughter after her sister.

I am in touch with a number of Renison descendants in South Africa. I am also in possession of a lot of original documents, family accounts, etc., in case you want to be in touch with me. My email is brent and then the at symbol, followed by entrylaw, and after that, the usual dot com.

Brent William Renison

Hi Brent, Your line and Willem's seem to be the Tyrone name line with the Anglican Church connection as mentioned in my post. I do know that there has been research on the Renison/Rennison name as being Norse and coming down through the Orkneys. There are many of this name in northern England and the borders, Glasgow, Denmark and Norway. As for our line from Antrim, my nephew did Y testing early on in DNA testing and there was a strong Norse and Germanic connection but no Indian/Romany as I recall when I read the report, matter of fact it held the exact areas I was researching. As for an Indian connection I do know that there were several from your area that were in the army and did go to India early on, other than that I don't have any idea of the connection.Your family who came to Canada were definitely missionaries and worked their way up in the church some Cannon and Bishop positions. So far I haven't found any connection with my line and other Renisons in Ireland. My great great grandfather John was on his land in Antrim in 1825. As I mentioned our family were Presbyterian with strong Ulster Scot connections which makes sense due to the close proximity to Scotland and our locale.I do know that my great grandfather stressed that we were of Antrim. My great grandfather was fair, blue eyed with strong family and church connections and left Ireland for better opportunity as I presume yours did as well since their social position in the Anglican Church would have helped them. I do agree that it's not an Irish name but the Norse did invade there and much of the Scottish lines have strong Norse DNA. Genealogy is very interesting and convoluted, thank you for sharing your thoughts, I'm still road blocked from getting into the 1700s and will eventually have to go back to Antrim. Nancy

 

 

 

Hi Nancy,

The DNA test your nephew took may have been "autosomal" which tests DNA from both parents, not the Y test, which tests exclusively the paternal line. The Y test is used for surname research, and would not yield Norse and Germanic origins as you mention, because the Y locates the particular haplogroup which is passed down only by males to male offspring. My autosomal test also yielded norse and germanic origins, but it is the Y chromosome which yields the origins of the paternal lineage. Y DNA testing goes back thousands of years, even tens of thousands, while the autosomal test goes back 5 generations or so, and indicates more recent origins (thus your reference both to Norse and Germanic, which shows a mixing or autosomal result, rather than the purely male chromosome Y-DNA test I was referring to). A Y-DNA test would not indicate Norse or Germanic origin. A Y test would indicate the course of tens of thousands of years of migration of a particular male group of ancestors, such as an R or I haplogroup.

Paternal lineage does not necessarily mean that everyone with the same surname has the same origin. Some unrelated people share the same surname, and some related people share an unrelated surname. For the Romany people, names were adopted from the host country and so there are Kennedys who share a Romany Y-DNA which originated in India (H1a1a haplogroup), and also Kennedys whose Y DNA is associated with the R haplogroup which is prevalent in Europe, but which originated in central asia in the steppes.

The reason that I decided to do my own Y DNA test was because I had researched the Renison name extensively, coming to the conclusion that it was not Irish, that it was possibly Norse, and prior to the name going to Ireland, it had been used in England. But I could not get very far back with Renison or Rennison - meaning, I could not get past about the 1600s. The Dictionary of Surnames in England says:

"Rennison, Renison - (1) Bapt. 'the son of Reynold,' a corruption of Reynoldson (2) Bapt. 'the son of Reyner' (v. Rayner), a corruption of Reynerson. No doubt both (1) and (2) have contributed. But as Reyner was a great Yorkshire font name in the 13th and 14th centuries, (2) must be looked upon as the chief parent.

When researching Reyner (also spelled Rayner), it shows the name is of early medieval English origin, deriving from the Old Norman French male given name Rainer or Reiner, itself coming from the old German Raginhari. The name was introduced into England by the Normans, who were of course Norse, after 1066. There are also references to the name "Rennie" which is a scottish name appearing as far back as the 1500s.

After 1066, the Normans introduced surnames into England, starting with the nobles, and slowly spreading to the rest of the populace. The first recorded use of Rayner was from 1216. The fact that Renison does not appear very early in the history, and only begins to appear in the 1600s and 1700s in Britain, Scotland and Ireland, does not convince me that it is a name of very early derivation. Instead, it may have developed after 1500 when the Romanies began to enter Britain in around 1506. 

What is undeniable, however, is that our particular Renison family from Ireland traces patrilineal lines back to India when that group left India in approximately 1,000 A.D. Because Y-DNA does not recombine with the mother's DNA, but is passed rather unchanged from father to son (only mutating slightly every few generations), tracing the paternal lineage to others who share the same Y-DNA signature is a matter of science. The Y-DNA test that I performed along with my fourth cousin in South Africa differed only in one marker out of 37 markers, showing an almost exact match, and confirming our relationship not only to eachother, but to the population of Indians to departed India a thousand years ago. Whether that marker is contained in the Y-DNA of all Renisons, or only some of them, or just our small branch of the family remains to be seen because I have not seen any other Renisons who appear on the Y-DNA testing site ysearch.org. It is most likely that other Renisons have only done the autosomal test, and that would probably show nothing of interest in the surname research area.

Hi Brent, you have obviously done lots of research in this area. I wish we could figure out some family connection in the 1700s. Have you found any connection to the Rennysons in Down or Renison/Rennisons in other counties. I'm surprised that there isn't anyone on your database due to the large numbers in York and other northern England areas. I even saw a family that emigrated from Norway to I do believe North Dakodas in the 1800s. I do believe there was the name in Antrim in the 1600s, I'l try to find the location for you. Your family seems to be in one specific location with the weaver in the mid 1700s. Do you have this William's actual baptism. I don't have any certificates from the 1700s as of yet and it may be very difficult due to my family's Presbyterian background. You would have more luck being Church of Ireland. As for the early DNA test it was one of the first Geographic Y only tests that showed genome migration groups. I did look up Roma migration though and they were in the Norse areas as well. My research saw documents, although no relationship, in Norway and Denmark in the 1700s and seemed to come from the base name Rennich. When my great grandfather left Ireland, he first went to the Newcaste, then Monkwearmouth Shore area Sunderland England. There were several families with similar names, it always made me wonder why he specifically went there before going to Canada. Perhaps in your research you will find more names from the 1700s which would help.anyway if I have any other breakthroughs I'll email you. Thanks again for the info. Nancy 

 

Hi Nancy - Thank you for your additional information! I have found no traceable connection to any other Renison (including variations like Rennison, Rennyson) in other counties. I believe that Robert William Renison (b. 1796 in Shinrone, Offaly County, Ireland, a school teacher, and married to Jane Eddington of Roscrea), was the son of William Renison (b. March 6, 1768, Shinrone, Offaly, profession: Weaver), whose father is listed also as William Renison (no further details). That is as far as traditional genealogy research has led me. Regarding Y-DNA testing, to my knkowledge there are only two Renison men who have verified Y-DNA results available to me, and that is myself and Winn Renison who is also descended from Robert William Renison, through William Robert Renison, brother to Joseph Benjamin Renison (Willem's ancestor), and brother to Robert John Renison (my ancestor). I would welcome other Renison men to undertake the Y-DNA test at the 37 marker level, or better yet the 67 marker level, so that we can determine whether the Renison branches are the same family, or different. If other Renison men test out in the H haplogroup, that confirms the relationship. If they test in the R or I haplogroup, then that confirms there is no paternal relationship. In the end, it will come down to what general haplogroup each person is found to be in, whether H (like me), or some other haplogroup which would confirm a split so long ago as to be outside of the existence of surnames in the first place. I believe strongly that traditional genealogical research on the issue of the origin of Renison will not yield any further results. It has been exhausted. What is left is DNA research, and that requires more testing and more sharing their results. The DNA results cannot be compared unless they are uploaded to the ysearch.org website, which is public and used by researchers around the world. 

I forgot to mention, Willem, I would love to receive any information you could share from your family bible, which may shed light on other relatives (names and dates of birth, marriage). I have names and birth dates for many of the 12 children of Robert William Renison (b. 1796) and Jane Eddington, but not all of them.

Here is some information on Robert William Renison, who was the father of Joseph Benjamin Renison:

Robert William Renison was a school teacher and together with his wife Jane Eddington had 12 children - 5 boys and 7 girls. He enjoyed playing the fiddle and Jane played piano and sang. Robert encouraged his children to leave Ireland, and they did, emigrating to Canada (Robert John), The United States (Thomas and later Robert John), Australia and South Africa (Benjamin Joseph, William Robert, and Jane).

The following detail is taken from an account written by his grand-daughter Julia Renison (b. 1875, and my great-grandfather George's sister): He (Robert William Renison) was stern; a sternness born of a puritannical background. His children stood in awe of him. They were brought up under rigid discipline, in an atmosphere intensely religious. On his father's side, there had been a priest of the Church of England in each of the last five generations, and it was a cherished hope of Grandmother's that one of her sons would carry on.

As I mentioned before, Robert William Renison's youngest child Robert John Renison (my 2nd great-grandfather) became a minister, and then his three sons also became ministers in Canada (Robert Renison, William Renison, and George Renison (my great-grandfather)). Robert stayed in Canada, while William and George immigrated to the United States.

Morning William

The information is interesting to me - as I am also trying to find out more about my Renison decendants in Ireland...

My grandmother was Anne Elizabeth Renison. She was born (11.05.1889) in Aberdeen Easten Cape  - few hours from Algoa Bay - NOW - Port Elizabeth.

She married my grandfather Jan Bastian Auret van der Merwe - also from Aberdeen- Eastern Cape. My father came originally from Aberdeen born 29 .03.1915 - Eastern Cape.

He was one of 7 children. His one brother was William Renison van der Merwe.

Does this help? My maiden name - van der Merwe.

The Bible you mention may have names written in - it is of importance to me as well. Can you send me a pic of that please

You can contact me on: info@villapetit.co.za

regards

leonie