so confused trying to find Enniskillen as I don't know if it is county/parish, etc

Debra,

Enniskillen is not a county. (It’s in Co. Fermanagh). But it is both a parish and the county town. It is also where the local Assizes were held so could be where Margaret Little was tried. Or it could be where she lived. Or both.

The names you mention are all fairly common in Fermanagh. In the 1901 census of the county there were 932 Armstrongs, 272 Little/Lyttle & 30 Rutherford. The majority of all these people were Church of Ireland or Methodist, broadly indicating they are probably descended from English or Scots settlers who arrived in the  area in the 1600s.

Ideally what you need to do is find parents names from marriage or death certificates in Australia and the US to be sure of identifying the right families. Otherwise there’s no way of knowing if you have found the correct person.

You have said: “Armstrong - I believe they left Ireland to Glasgow, Scotland and he went to College there in Scotland (medical?)”  That doesn’t give us a lot to go on. 

What were their names, when were they born, when did they leave (roughly), have you searched for them in the Scottish censuses? Do you know where and when they died? Scottish death certificates contain a lot more information than Irish ones and may help get back a generation.

Research in Fermanagh in the 1820s is not easy. There are not a lot of records to consult, and what there are not all on-line.

Debra,

Further to my earlier message, there’s about 40 trees on Ancestry that list some of this family. The top one I located was the Moyer (Beaumariage) tree.  It has James Rutherford’s parents as Christopher Rutherford born 12.8.1855 in Enniskillen who married Margaret Armstrong in the US in 1895. It names Christopher junior’s parents as Christopher senior and Sarah Little. However I think there is something faulty with that information. Christopher and Sarah married in 1866 and according to the 1911 census only ever had 5 children, none of whom was named Christopher:

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

Their children, so far as I can determine, were:

James born 2.11.1866

Elizabeth 8.4.1868

Sophia 20.8.1871

Henry 16.12.1876

Frank 15.4.1880.

All 5 were alive in 1911. There was no Christopher born in 1855, which would have been 11 years before the couple married (and when Sarah was around 15). So I am not certain this tree is accurate. Neither Christopher nor Sarah had been married previously so unless Christopher junior b 1855 was illegitimate he doesn’t seem to fit into this family.

Here’s Sophia b 20.8.1871 in Corralongford, which is not too far from Lisnaskea.

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/birth_returns/births_1871/03283/2203282.pdf

Father’s occupation was a gatekeeper. Corralongford is where Lord Brookeborough’s estate is located and so it looks as though that Christopher was employed on the estate as a gatekeeper. Between Fivemiletown and Brookborough village.

 By the 1901 census Christopher and Sara were living in Aghnagrane:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Fermanagh/Cross/Aghnagrane/1356232/

and in 1911 in Brookborough town:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Fermanagh/Brookeborough/Brookeborough_Town/521969/

I’d be inclined to check the information in the US sources. Do you have James Rutherford’s marriage certificate and does it name his parents as Christopher Rutherford and Margaret Armstrong? Does Christopher’s marriage certificate name his parents? (I am struggling to see how they could be Christopher Rutherford and Sarah Little).

I looked at the Houston family tree on Ancestry for Margaret Armstrong’s origins. That tree has Margaret Armstrong born in Glasgow on 25.1.1867 to David Armstrong and Janet Lynn Yardley.  It contains the birth of a sibling Ralph Early Armstrong on 24th Jan 1877. I looked at Ralph’s birth certificate on the Scotlandspeople site. His date of birth is 27th Jan 1877 at The Law, Carluke, Lanarkshire. His name was Ralph Airlie Armstrong and his parents were David Armstrong (a collier) and Janet Airlie. They had married in December 1873 in Shotts, Lanarkshire. (Yardley/Airlie seem likely variants of the same name). On the face of it they don’t seem likely to have had a daughter Margaret born 7 years before they married. Janet would have been 11 in 1867 so again something’s not right. 

I looked at the 1881 census for Carluke (attached), and it tells me that David Armstrong was born in Ireland c 1851, but his wife Jessie (a variant of Janet) was born in Scotland. As were their children, including Margaret born c 1879. So that’s evidently the correct year for her birth. I notice that there was an Early family (another spelling of Airlie and Yardley) living right next door, headed by another Ralph. Presumably some relation to Janet, I would guess.

It’s really important to get Margaret’s parents names verified from her marriage certificate or death certificate to be sure you are researching the correct line. (Marriage certificates are better as most people know their own parents names whereas with death certificates the information has to be 3rd hand and the scope for error increases).

David Armstrong will have gone to Scotland for work. (Tens of thousands of people from Ireland did the same thing as there were many employment opportunities there that didn’t exist in Ireland. Scotland had natural resources like coal and oil. Ireland has almost none). It’s possible that the whole family moved so you might find that David’s parents (whose names you’ll get from his 1873 marriage certificate) also lived and died in Scotland. 

I believe you found my 'ancestry' account, as I am the Beaumariage (Moyer) tree you found.

I got so lost with the Enniskillen, Fermanagh, Linaskea names on the sites, I wasn't sure if I was following the correct path.

David Armstrong was the person I spoke of that went to Glasgow University, and in one instance I found 'medical' was what he was studying, but, no path (meaning, medical doctor, dentist, etc.). I believe he migrated to the US, State of West Virginia.

Christopher was indeed a gatekeeper, but, I couldn't find the location with name. I could only surmise, it no longer exists as a 'manor'. 

There were several siblings.

Why I never thought of the Scots census is beyond me. Maybe because I just couldn't really feel I could 'see' the family connections?

 

I so appreciate your time in drilling down the information and helping to explain some of the things that confused me. Counties, cities, boroughs, following names like Christopher, David as those seem to be quite common, and maybe used several times in one family, (say one infant passed on, given then to another several years later). 

 

My grandmother and grandfather were definitely Methodist; here in the States.

 

There were a couple of family members that were policeman as well, that I found.

 

I still want you to know, how much I appreciate your response to my query.

 

Debbie Hunt (Beaumariage/Moyer)

Debbie,

I am more than happy to help with your research but as I said previously I think there are some mistakes in your tree, or at least information that I can’t reconcile. You are interested in Christopher Rutherford who married Margaret Armstrong in 1895. You have him born in 1855 to parents Christopher Rutherford and Sarah Little. They only married in 1866 and Sarah was only about 15 in 1855, so that doesn’t look to be the right parents. (Plus that couple said in the 1911 census they only had 5 children. If they were the parents of Christopher junior, that would make 6). So something’s not right here. Do you have Christopher and Margaret’s marriage certificate, or their death certificates? If you don’t I suggest you get them to verify their parents names.

The David Armstrong who married Janet/Jessie Airlie/Yardley was a Coal Miner in the 1881 census and also a coal miner when he married in December 1873, aged 22. So I don’t think he went anywhere near Glasgow University. I think he was originally from Co. Armagh, and his parents moved to Scotland with him and both died there. (His father was a coal miner on the 1873 marriage certificate. Since there’s broadly no coal mining in Ireland, he must have been in Scotland too. I think the parents married in Keady, Armagh in 1846).

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1846/09300/5367179.pdf

If you have information that Margaret Armstrong’s father David went to Glasgow University, that doesn’t fit with the family in Carluke at all. So again something’s wrong. But as I say verifying her parents names from her marriage certificate would be the first step in sorting that out. 

 

David Armstrong who married Janet Yeardley/Airlie, married in the Free Church of Scotland. So that was a Presbyterian ceremony.