Hello, This is wonderful. You are all brilliant. The very idea of this website makes my heart double.
I may be out of luck because my relatives emmigrated so early on, but I am also searching Hoy/Hoey roots in Co. Sligo. I found a family unit that matches the description of my ancestors in the Drumcliff baptismal records, and it is my strong suspicion that they are the Hoy-Warren family that ended up on Nantucket ~1846.
I wanted to reach out to you, Bob, since more research may return a common ancestor. And I want to say thank you to all the commenters/contributors for the valuable information that is posted here. I too would like to make my way to the ruins of the Hoey home someday, as soon as I am able to come to Ireland.
Here is what I know:
In Drumcliff in 1844 Brigida is born to Guilermus Warren and Maria Hoey. Looks like Bridget, William and Mary, right? I supposed there could be a contemporaneous family of Hoy-Warrens by the same names somewhere else in Ireland, but I hope not, because I've already adopted Co. Sligo as mine own.
On Nantucket Island, my ancestors had one child in Ireland before immigrating to Massachusetts (c. 1845/6) and having many more. My 2x great grandmother is their eldest, Bridget Warren of William and Mary Hoy Warren, born ~1844, although she gets younger and younger every US Census. Her siblings are named Mary J., Catherine, Margaret, William F., Thomas, George H., Lizzie. The only John varient is a Joanna Buckley, a possible child of Bridget, born after my great grandmother Josephine Francis. So far, no Buckley surnames are in the family line. The names of William and Mary's American born children are mostly from the next generation up. William Sr.'s parents are George and Catherine Gordon Warren on his death certificate. They would be born roughly ~1790. Mary's parents are Thomas and Margaret Dogan Hoy on her death certificate, presumably born ~1800 - 1805, because William is older than Mary by about 10 years, and born ~1810. Thomas the younger (1855) and his son James become blacksmiths on Nantucket, if that implies some family knowledge of smithing, although William Sr., the migrating ancestor, was only ever listed as a laborer.
There is some family confusion farther down the line to do with being Scots-Irish. That's what Bridget's descendents are later told, which is the information that was passed down to me, but everyone was always Catholic, so it's perplexing. But this may be attributable to her husband (Michael McCarthy, possibly of Cork) or, more likely, the man her daughter would marry, Albert Tucker whose family has been in the US since the dawn of time. He worked for the railraod and did not live long enough to know his grandchildren, so perhaps the religion of choice was my great grandmother's. This confusion is what initially led me to research my genealogy. I wanted to parce apart the immigrant stories.
Is there any population in the area today identifying as Scots as they might in Ulster? Being American, I don't understand how the historical plantation effected (or did not effect) the larger surrounding area outside of Ulster. I do know that Ireland's population isn't going to be homogeneous. So the difference between Irish sounding names like Hoey versus names like Warren, where there may be more to the name than straightforward Irish ancestry, won't go very far to explain how my family came to not know if they were Irish or Scots-Irish. I hope my thinking outloud on this topic isn't in poor form.
There is another family myth about about a great many extended family members dying from picking/eating/canning (not sure which) mushrooms in Roger Williams State Park in RI and contracting botulism. But so far, I can't find any substantative documentation. Supposedly it robbed my great grandmother of many immediate relatives, and left her to care for her blind father. So Bob, if you have heard any crazy stories like that, please let me know. I hope that fate didn't befall anyone in your New England family, but that is just the type of story that gets passed up, down and sideways.
I guess my next steps would be to try to prove my assumption wrong by seeing if the Co. Sligo Hoey-Warrens left when I think they did to become the Hoy-Warrens, and eventually McCarthy-Tuckers in Providence, RI. There are more than one William Warren in tax records. I can't find marriage records, though I haven't thoroughly tried neighboring parishes. And I don't know if it would be expected to show parent names. I see someone said there is a Mary Hoey in burials. I hope it's not the one I was hoping was mine, but I'll have to check. I've checked other sites for the burials of the elders, but no luck yet.
Does anyone know how to check cancelation records? Maybe if one of those Williams turns up missing after 1845?
Again, Bob please feel free to reach out if any of these names pop out in your research. And the others, Roger, John and any other kind person who contributed here, thanks a million, emphatically. I just know I will keep referring back to this page.
~J e n (one word) M e r c e d e (at gmail)
And apologies for misspellings, I had to turn off spell check because of some very embarassing predictive typing errors. My device seems to know its late at night here and wants to signal someone in code.
