gmgoods,
I have a query about one piece of your information. You say that Elizabeth (daughter of William Buchanan) married Dennis Brown in 1852. However that marriage certificate gives her father’s name as John Buchanan, not William. So this doesn’t appear to be the same family. Elizabeth was living in Slaghtmanus (as was Jane when she married) so there’s probably a close connection, but they don’t appear to be sisters.
I note that Elizabeth married in Cumber Presbyterian. Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church, so possibly that’s where all the Buchanan family attended. There are 2 Presbyterian churches in the area – Cumber Upper & Cumber Lower. I am not sure which this was, Cumber Lower possibly. You may need to enquire locally. Both churches records start in 1827. The lack of earlier records may make tracing the family back very tricky. There were no Buchanan households in Slaghtmanus in the 1831 census, so they evidently moved there after that. I note that William was a labourer. They often moved around to follow the available work.
I found a death for Mary Buchanan at Slaghtmanus on 1.10.1884 aged 80. Informant was Robert Sherrard. She was a widow at that date.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1884/06307/4808210.pdf
I looked for a death for her husband William. Death registration only started in 1864 so if he died before that there won’t be a record. However there is one registered in Londonderry in 1867, aged 82. It might be worth checking. That’s not on-line free at the moment and you would need to pay to view it on the GRONI site. You can view the original certificate on-line on the GRONI website, using the “search registrations” option:
https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk
You will need to open an account and buy some credits. It costs £2.50 (sterling) to a view a certificate.
There were 3 Sherrard households in Slaghtmanus in 1901. No Buchanans though. Here’s a Robert Sherrard:
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Londonderry/Tamnaherin/Slaghtmanus/1528309/
There’s no sign of Mary Buchanan in the Valuation Revision records for Slaghtmanus. I’d guess she was living with the Sherrards when she died. The revision records show two Robert Sherrards farming in Slaghtmanus. Not sure which one she was with.
No sign of Neil Buchanan anywhere in Co Londonderry in the 1831 census. Nor of Esther. Perhaps both were dead? There was a William in Ballygrole who was Presbyterian and had a family of 3 males and 2 females.
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/Londonderry/Tirkeeran/Lower_Cumber/Ballygrole/17/
He was the only William in Cumber at that time, so that was probably your family.
You ask why your ancestors might have left Ireland. I am sure they left for the same reasons that 2 million others did. To find work. Ireland has very few natural resources (no oil, coal, iron ore etc) and so did not benefit from the industrial revolution in the 1800s, the way Scotland, England, the US, Canada & Australia did, which created hundreds of thousands of comparatively well-paid new jobs in new industries (coal mining, steel making, railways, ship building etc). So that was a big pull factor. There had also been a huge population explosion in Ireland going up from about 3 million people in 1750 to 8 million in 1830. There simply weren’t jobs for all those people. In much of Ireland the only employment was subsistence farming topped up in Ulster and one or two other areas with a bit of linen weaving. And then the straw that broke the camel’s back, along came the famine, numerous times throughout the 1800s. The worst period was when the potato crop failed almost completely 3 years in a row in the late 1840s, and then partially several more years after that.
Unlike earlier famines, in which the population recovers quickly from the catastrophe and continues to grow, the after- effects of the Great Irish Famine were such that the population of Ireland, standing at 8.2 million people in 1841, declined to 6.6 million in 1851. Fifty years later, Ireland's population was still showing a decline (down to 4.5 million), even though every other European country was showing a population increase. Ireland’s population did not return to its pre-famine heights until 1964. Approximately 8 million people left Ireland between 1801 and 1900 - the equivalent of the entire pre-Famine population. The population today is only around 6 million.
Other factors led to the continued emigration too, eg early mechanisation on farms. With new machines to turn the soil and plant seed, farmers no longer needed an army of agricultural labourers to help on the farm. So those jobs were rapidly disappearing. Likewise mechanisation had led to linen factories being set up in places like Belfast. These made home weaving uneconomic and so also upset the labourer’s family economy. Agriculture was the biggest single employer in Ireland, but it was mostly a barter economy. Few people had any ready cash save what they could make from weaving or any government sponsored work such as building new roads. So when the opportunity arose to get jobs with a regular wage packet, as opposed to a few pence from your father each week, the decision to migrate wasn’t really all that hard to make. So it was as much about economic betterment as anything.
There was a massive tide of migration all through that century, including long before the famine. Years after the worst of the famine it’s impact was still being felt across Ireland, and there were still plenty of much better job opportunities in Australia and the USA. (After Scotland and England, the USA was the most popular destination for emigrants with about 40 to 50% choosing it. Only about 5% of Irish emigrants chose Australia and New Zealand, possibly due to the costs and length of the voyage).
For a good description of life in the Cumber area in the 1830s, you could read the Ordnance Survey memoirs. These were compiled on the instructions of the Duke of Wellington (then Prime Minister) primarily for taxation purposes. So a bit like the Doomsday Book. They were compiled parish by parish, and describe the inhabitants, their occupations, pastimes, habits, they analyse the various different denominations by number, and report on health, schooling, seasonal migration patterns as well as permanent migration patterns. And so on. A typical parish contains about 20 to 30 pages of information and some drawings. They are well worth reading if you want to get a feel for life there at that time. (It’s probably the most detailed contemporaneous summary that exists from that period).
There are copies on the bookshelves in PRONI’s main research room in Belfast. Coleraine library may also have a copy. If not you can order a copy from the Ulster Historical Foundation. If you e-mail them with details of the parish(es) you are interested in, they’ll send you the relevant volume(s). Generally there are 3 or 4 adjacent parishes in each volume. I think they are between £5 and £10 per volume depending whether it’s old stock or newer reprints. The parishes of Cumber Upper & Lower are both in Volume 28.
https://www.booksireland.org.uk
