John Ferguson born abt 1776

You don?t say what denomination John was. Ferguson is a very common surname in Co Down. In the 1901 census there are 1039 in the county, 77 of whom were named John Ferguson. The majority (599) were Presbyterian reflecting the fact that the majority of the population in that county are of Scottish origins. 201 were Church of Ireland and 43 RC. The rest were mostly other protestant denominations.

The Church of Ireland in Comber has records back to 1683. No other denomination has any records before 1838.

You could certainly search the Church of Ireland records (which are kept in PRONI ? the public record office in Belfast) to see if there are any JFs there, but you would really need some additional information to identify him from all the other John Fergusons from Comber b c 1776 that were about.

Here?s a link to a Co. Down site that lists a few JFs from Comber.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Erosdavies/SURNAMES/…

Lisa,

PRONI will get you a copy of a document like that for a fee. They charge around ?15 for each 15 minutes work. However it?s a fairly simple query. If you don?t mind waiting a week or so, I?ll get you a copy next time I am in PRONI. Do bear in mind that there were many John Fergusons in that area, and so this might not necessarily be your family. However you can decide about that after you have read the document.

The will itself was destroyed in the 1922 fire in Dublin, so this will be a transcript. (The prefix T in PRONI reference numbers indicates a transcript).

 

Elwyn

Yes that?s fairly straightforward. Castlereagh estate has deposited their old records in PRONI, under the series reference D671. Those records include various leases and tenancy agreements. So, a farmer named John Ferguson probably from Lisnabreeny entered into a 3 lives lease on land rented from the estate, but had left to go to America on the given date.

3 lives leases were very popular in the 1700s and, in short, lasted till all 3 of the people named in it were dead. Farmers liked them because you had a fixed rent for the duration of the lease and couldn?t have your rent increased if you had worked hard and improved the land. There was an element of risk on both sides of course. No-one knows how long they will live. It was common to put a child on a 3 lives lease for obvious reasons. Sometimes royalty would be included, eg the Duke of York, because royalty were expected to live a long time too. If John Ferguson had gone to America, then the farm would be worked by the others on the lease, or by his sons or he would have sublet it.

I see a Robert McConnell farming land there in Griffiths in 1863 (though they lived somewhere else), so perhaps the McConnell family eventually acquired the farm. Lisnabreeny is on the southern outskirts of Belfast 10 or 15 miles from Comber. I wouldn?t expect this to be the same John Ferguson as your family, if yours came from Comber. I can get a copy of the original in PRONI, if you want.

Lisa,

Having 3 names on the lease was simply standard practice at the time. They wouldn?t have added extra names just because someone wasn?t going to be there. Indeed I suspect when the lease was originally agreed in 1789, Ferguson was still there and didn?t know he would be off to America in 1795. The child will be there because hopefully he?d live 60 years, thus making the lease last 60 years. He?s probably a relation, perhaps a grandson or stepson, but he needn?t necessarily even be living there. It can be hard to tell. Probably Ferguson and McClements were farming together but not necessarily so. Probably McClements took over after Ferguson left. But there?s no Fergusons or McClements there by the 1860s, so clearly there were further changes. (The tithe applotment records should tell you who was there in the 1830s, and you might find rent books in the Castlereagh Estates papers which could also show changes of tenant.).

Regarding immigration records, there were no comprehensive records kept of people leaving Ireland. No-one in Ireland had any real interest in gathering that information (neither in the 1700s nor even today). Such records as do exist are an amalgam of data collected from ships masters on arrival in the US; shipping agents receipts, newspaper reports and so on. A lot of early emigrants to the US went there via Canada and unfortunately no arrival records were kept there till about 1850. So lots of gaps.

Here?s a selection of sites that you can search which contain some information on migrants at that period:

http://www.dippam.ac.uk/ied/

http://www.billmacafee.com

http://www.ulsterancestry.com/forums/ they have published early emigrants lists in their newsletters

www.ancestryireland.com

There are no records of the original Scots settlers, save for the major landholders. Emigration data wasn?t kept in the early 1600s but in any case it was just a movement from one county in the UK to another. In most cases a distance of about 30 miles! No-one keeps records of that sort of local population movement, even today.

County Down was settled from 1606 onward as a part of the Hamilton & Montgomery settlements. (If you google that you?ll get information on their backgrounds). They encouraged people from their Scottish estates to move to Cos Antrim & Down. The majority tended to come from counties in the south west of Scotland. Both came from Ayrshire, and so lots of the Scots settlers will have come from there, but there is evidence of them coming from Wigtownshire, Kirkcudbrightshire and other nearby counties. However the initial batch of settlers was followed by additional waves all through the 1600s, with a huge influx in the 1690s due to famine in Scotland. Some estimates pout the total number of settlers in the whole of the 17^th century at about 100,000 representing 10-% of the entire Scottish population at that time.

I looked in the Muster Rolls for Co Down c 1630 and there are no Fergusons listed. So that suggests your ancestors arrived some time after 1630. They could have come from anywhere in Scotland, though Highlanders were not really encouraged to settle in Ireland (and mostly didn?t want to anyway because they were unaccustomed to lowland ways of life) so statistically your ancestors probably came from somewhere below a line drawn between say Glasgow and Dundee.

http://www.ulsterheritage.com/maps/ScotsInUlsterSurnamesMap.pdf

You can search the Scottish censuses to see where the name Ferguson is found in Scotland. I looked briefly at the 1841 census (the oldest for Scotland). There were 11,068 people of the name in it. 932 in Ayrshire, 646 in Renfrewshire, 634 in Edinburgh. And so on.

I?ll get you a copy of that lease next time I am in PRONI.

 

 

Elwyn

Lisa,

I have attached a copy of the Ferguson will T1158/3. 

Regarding the lease information, D671/A/4/8A doesn?t contain anything additional to what you already have. It?s simply a rather large paper folder containing lists of the tenants and their holdings, by townland with a few comments (which you already have). Nothing more.

 

Elwyn

Lisa,

He owned an inn in Comber and his chidlren are named so shouldn't be too difficult.

 

Elwyn

 

Lisa,

 

I had a look at the Street Directory for Comber in 1824. There?s a Jane Ferguson listed, publican, in Mill St. I suspect that?s who inherited John Ferguson?s inn.

 

http://www.failteromhat.com/pigot/0096.pdf

 

Elwyn

Lisa,

I probably can?t add much more than sympathy. I have dealt with many previous queries similar to yours, relating the 1700s or early 1800s. They are notoriously difficult to deal with.

You are correct that a lot of records were lost, notably early Church of Ireland records, the censuses, most wills, and a lot of other legal documents. However the Presbyterian church didn?t keep its records in Dublin. Yet they have huge gaps in them too. For other reasons.

The problem you face is that, in Ireland in the 1700s and 1800s, most people lived out their lives leaving little or no paper record. Most were illiterate, most transactions were oral, and they had little need of paper documentation. Their encounters with officialdom were mostly few and far between, and rarely led to a permanent record that has survived to the modern age.

There?s a note in the Drumgooland Church of Ireland records in the Public Record Office in Belfast, which says: ?The entries of baptisms from this date 2^nd Jun 1833 were made from papers collected by me J. A. Bears, lying about the church and vestry room and put in this book after I received it from ? Thos I. Tighe at Parsons Hill on my becoming curate of the parish 1837.? Drumgooland church had existed since the early 1600s but no-one had evidently kept any records for 230 years. That probably tells you all you need to know about the standards of record keeping that sometimes prevailed in the 18^th & 19^th centuries. I came across a similar story relating to the Presbyterian church in Bellaghy, Co Londonderry where a new Minister arrived in 1838 to replace the previous one, Rev Charles Kennedy, who had been there since 1801. The incoming Minister asked the outgoing one for any records and papers he had to pass on. After a pause he said he had none. So no records for a 40 year period. An entire career and not a single written record! So all these factors lead to a situation today where often few or no surviving records exist at all for many people who emigrated from Ireland in the 1700s and early 1800s.

What is bizarre is that when these same people arrived in the USA they kept perfect records. Not sure what happened on the voyage over to make them change.

The pool of surnames here is much narrower than in the USA. We only had native Irish plus Scots, English and Welsh settlers. We haven?t had waves of migrants from all over the world (well not until recently anyway). I met a lady here last year from Ohio who was interested in the surname Linton (Presbyterian Scots origins like your Fergusons). She told me that there were 4 Lintons in the whole of Ohio and she was related to all of them. So she got very interested when she saw a Linton grave here. I had to show her the local phone book which has several pages of Lintons just for Co Antrim, to get the message across that whilst she might be related to all 4 in Ohio, she probably isn?t related to all the ones in Ireland. And they are not all descended from a single patriarch, as some seem to think. Dozens of them came from different parts of Scotland, and consequently there are dozens of families here. I had a quick look for Ferguson in the Comber area today and there?s 24 listed in the phone book (and 75% of the population here are ex-directory). And that?s a fairly small town. So a very common name, so will need to be careful when searching for records to make sure you get the right one.

You ask whether a father was likely to make his son executor if he was in America. I would have said no to that, unless the father was under the impression that his son might be intending to return. I have been surprised at the degree to which people did look after their business interests on the other side of the Atlantic during the late 1700s and 1800s but usually there was a power of attorney or a reliable 3^rd party in place to carry out the absent person?s instructions. But to be an effective executor you do need to be in the place where the deceased held their assets. The Probate files in PRONI do have lots of files where executors have declined to act due to being overseas or otherwise unable to carry out their duties effectively. That?s why people often name 2 executors in their wills. If neither is available then the next of kin applies to the Probate court for a replacement to be appointed.

Do you have John Ferguson?s occupation from documents in the US? You were enquiring about another Ferguson who was a farmer. He?s not going to be an inn-keeper as well. They are going to be different Fergusons. Perhaps his occupation from marriage or death certs (if there are any) might help narrow your search.

The usual advice I give is to exhaust all US sources for clues as to a person denomination and townland, but you have obviously done all that already. Not sure I can add much more. Good luck anyway.

 

 

Elwyn