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Andrew McElhinney, Whitehill section of Conwal

DonegalConwal (Donegal)

Greetings. I have been researching my family genealogy for several years now.

I believe that I have found my great, great, great Grandfather, Andrew McElhinney, in the 1857 Griffiths Valuation for Conwal, specifically in the Whitehill township. The name is spelled Andrew M'Ilhenny in the record. He is living right next to James Breslan. Andrew's wife was Ann Breslan and while I cannot prove it definitely, there's a reasonable suspicion that Ann was related to James and married Andrew. Based on other information I have found, I believe that they immigrated to the United States in the early 1870's, along with several of their children (Mary, John, Patrick, Annie and my GG Grandfather, Cornelius). There is also a record for Mary McIlhenney in the 1841/1851 census and it says that her parents were Andrew and Ann and they had children named Andrew, Patrick and Mary in 1851 and were in Breenagh at the time.

I am writing to see if anyone hasany other information about this Andrew McElhinney or Breslans in Conwal? My family tree stops right there and I have always wondered about how I could find out more information about Andrew's or Ann's parents.

IrelandXO member

7 replies

CJ:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

The RC records for Conwal/Leck parish only start in 1853 so you won't find any records for Andrew and Ann and in fact all of their children appear to have been baptized  before 1853.

I also did not find an 1834  Tithe record for McElhenneys or Breslans in Conwal parish

From your note, it would appear that you have a copy of an 1851 census abstract that was obtained when Mary McElhiiney filed an Old Age pension application. Can you confirm? Did she return to Ireland?

Roger McDonnell

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Roger:

Thank you for your response.  

I was thinking the same thing regarding the pension, but I can't confirm that was the same Mary.  Most of my research indicates she married a man named John Ryan and ended up in Kansas, USA, by the late 1800s, but I have not found any record of her death in the U.S.  It's possible she returned but highly unlikely.  I wonder if it was possible to file for the pension from abroad?  Also the information I have about Patrick McElhinney was that he was born after my GG Grandfather Cornelius (believed to be born Dec, 1853), so that may be entirely separate group of McElhinneys.  

Andrew apparently either did not make the trip to the U.S. or died shortly after arriving because he is not in the 1880 census with his wife and children.    

Also Rathmullan has come up several times in my research, specifically to Cornelius's brother, John.  I understand that it is located north of Letterkenny.  It seems that Andrew was a tenant farmer and I do not know how common it was for those in his circumstance to move around.    

Best Regards,

C. J. McElhinney
Las Cruces, NM USA
        

IrelandXO member

Hi C.J.!

I don't believe you could file for an Old Age Irish pension from America.

You mentioned Rathmullan. There is a town called Rathmullan in North Donegal in Killygarvan civil parish. I checked the 1901 census and only located one McElhinney family in the town and the head of household was Bernard Colin McElhinney  http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Donegal/Rathmullen/Rat…

I also checked the civil death records on the free site www.irishgenealogy.ie ; Killygarvan civil parish is in the Milford registation district. Bewteen 1864-1900 there were eighteen McElhinney death records listed. From 1864-1878 only an index record is shown but from 1879-1941 the actual death record image is available. We expect that in the near future the actual images for deaths from 1864-1878 will be added online. You may want to review the records for possible leads. There is an 83 year old Andrew McElhinney who died in 1893 but likely this is a different Andrew since your Andrew either emigrated or died in the 1870s.

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Roger:

Thank you very much for your help.  I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to putting some pieces of the puzzle together.  When I started researching my family history a few years back, I was fortunate enough to get access to my 80 year old aunt's stuff about our family history.  One of her aunts was a very educated woman and had taken the time to actually write down our family history, including family trees going back to my GG grandfather and she was very clear that the McElhinneys came from Donegal, just not any more specificity.  When I matched up her family tree and her notes, nearly all of it was supported by U.S. census records so I consider her info to be very reliable.  She also wrote that this group of McElhinneys was from Scotland and had come to Ireland in the 1600's.  Considering that she was alive when as a little girl when my GG grandfather and his siblings were still alive, it's probable that she gathered that info directly from them.

Best Regards,

C. J. McElhinney  

IrelandXO member

C.J.:

Have you considerd DNA testing? You might match others with McElhinney connections.

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

Yes, I have done DNA testing.  It's a bit complicated for me because I have Irish descendants on both sides of my family and it's difficult sometimes to tell whose side of the family I'm dealing with.  Also my mother's Irish surname, Moore, is relatively common.  But I am related to several other Irish families:  McGonigal, Dooley, Cassidy, McCabe, Wheeler, Stanford.  I've been put in Ancestry's "Ulster Irish" group and "Southwest Donegal" specifically.  
 

The only McElhinney ancestors I've matched up with so far were descendants of my GG grandfather's siblings.  I have always wondered whether there were any that stayed in Ireland and if their descendants are still there today.      

IrelandXO member

C.J.:

I would suggest that you add your raw DNA data to a volunteer run site called Gedmatch  www.gedmatch.com ;   You will get additional matches from people who tested with other companies and also loaded their data to Gedmatch.

Another suggestion is to ask other relatives from your maternal and paternal sides to also test their DNA. That will help you identify which side a match may be from. I had my maternal aunt test her DNA and also a paternal first cousin.

If you are interested there is a tool called DNA Painter www.dnapainter.com which might help sort out your matches.

Roger

Castlemore RoscommonIrelandXO Volunteer

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