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Searching for the parents of Edward McDowell, b. 1766 Augher, Tyrone

Clogher (Tyrone)

In 1793-4, my great-great-great-grandmother Susan (surname unknown) eloped, while still under full age, with Edward McDowell, her family's coachman. With some help from Admiralty and other records, I have tracked the early years of their married life, but cannot uncover details of their backgrounds. Edward became a shoemaker to keep Susan and their first child John (b. 1794 in St James, Dublin, and baptised at St Mary's Dublin in April 1795). He, Edward, joined the Royal Navy as a private marine in September 1796 but reverted to shoemaking in 1801. I am descended from their only known daughter, Sarah McDowell, who emigrated to Van Diemen's Land in early 1833 and married Charles Frazer/Frize (from Donegal) in Hobart the same year. Any details about Edward McDowell's family in the town of Augher, parish of Clogher would be very much appreciated. 

Jo K

4 replies

Jo K,

You haven’t said what denomination the McDowell family were. If Church of Ireland, then Clogher’s baptism records start in 1763, marriages in 1777 & burials 1783. They don’t appear to be on-line anywhere but there is a copy in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast, where they can be viewed free.

Looking at Griffiths Valuation for the parish of Clogher in 1860 there was a Thomas McDowell in Main St, Fivemiltown and another farming in the townland of Kilruddan which is a couple of miles south of Augher. It was a large farm (by Irish standards) with 76 acres in Kilruddan and another 40 in neighbouring Springtown. They would have been fairly wealthy. I did not see any other McDowell households in the parish.

That Kilruddan family were Presbyterian (so probably of Scottish origins):

https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Tyrone/Cullamore/Kilruddan/1726289/

There are several Presbyterian churches in the area but none has records for the 1700s.

Researching in Ireland in the 1700s is pretty challenging, especially for someone like a shoemaker. You may struggle to find anything about this family in the Clogher area.

Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘IrelandXO Volunteer

Thank you, Elwyn, for your informative reply! I've assumed, and still do, that Edward McDowell's family were Scots-Irish Presbyterians, which, as you've confirmed, means that I'm unlikely to find BMD records for them from the 1700s. Edward and Susan's first son John was baptised at St Mary's in Dublin, a C of I church (now a bar); I thought that this may've been because Susan may've been reared C of I but I'll still make sure to check Clogher C of I records for McDowells via PRONI on your advice, just in case. The name Thomas Henry was used for a grandson of Edward and Susan (father Edward jnr) and, given your interesting finds in the Griffith valuations it looks as though the Thomas part, at least, may have been a McDowell name.

There's a place called McGuiresbridge not far from Augher. The name McGuire has cropped up in a few of my DNA matches of appropriate strength for shared 4xgreats-grandpatents, so it may be that Susan's family name was McGuire. The matches suggest that she may have come from Antrim, but I think that some McGuires owned land in several Ulster counties. Other names of interest are McClintock and Houston. Not many Ancestry trees go as far back as the 18thC and, in any case, Susan, whatever her surname, may have been erased from family folklore after her elopement with Edward. A challenge!

Thanks again for your help with McDowells!

Jo K

Jo K,

McGuire/Maguire (after which Maguiresbridge is named) is the most common name in Co Fermanagh. They were the ancestral Irish landowners in that part of Ulster. The majority would have been Catholic though.

Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church after which she’d attend her husband’s. So if she was Church of Ireland and he Presbyterian you would expect a marriage in the Church of Ireland but afterwards the children would be baptised in a Presbyterian church. Not every family followed that rule though.

In a mixed marriage ie Catholic - Protestant, each family came to their own arrangements. Sometimes one of them changed lanes and adopted the other’s denomination. In others you see the sons brought up in the father’s denomination and the daughters in the mother’s.

I would definitely check the Clogher Church of Ireland records. Many Scots settlers did end up Church of Ireland especially in Fermanagh and parts of Tyrone. This is because many of them came from the Scottish Borders where Presbyterianism hadn’t arrived at the time they left. It was pretty lawless in the Scottish Borders until the 1630s and essentially they had no religion then, marrying by handfasting for example. So they came to Ireland with no religion and settled into the Church of Ireland rather than Presbyterianism. (They were known as Border Reivers. See link below). The Presbyterians who did make it to Fermanagh and Tyrone tended to come from further north in Scotland.

According to MacLysaght’s “The Surnames of Ireland” McClintock is: “A Scottish name numerous in Antrim and Derry. Black says this, like MacClinton, refers to St. Fintan.” (Black is the acknowledged expert on Scottish surnames). Of Houston, MacLysaght says: “A well known Scottish name very numerous in Ulster. It is sometimes a synonym of MacQuiston, and in Donegal of MacTaghlin.” Of Maguire he says: “The leading sept of Fermanagh. Many members of this sept have been distinguished in the history of Ireland.” Of MacDowell he says: “This is the Irish form of the Scottish family of MacDugall which came from the Hebrides as galloglasses, and settled in Co Roscommon where Lismacdowell locates them. It is now mainly found in north Ulster, largely due to more recent immigration.”

Galloglass/gallowglass were mercenary Scots who were brought to Ireland in the 1300s and 1400s to fight for various Irish tribes (who were always squabbling with each other). In return for their fighting skills they were given land by the local Chiefs. Some eventually went home to the Hebrides but many settled in Ireland. Their descendants would tend to be Catholic because they arrived pre-Reformation. MacDowells who were Presbyterian or Church of Ireland tend to be folk who arrived from around 1610 onwards when the Plantation started.

Incidentally, in Ulster, McDowell is often pronounced Madole or Medole, and you do see those spellings too. Mostly in Antrim and Oriel, according to MacLysaght. Oriel is the area around modern Co. Louth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_reivers

Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘IrelandXO Volunteer

Thanks again, Elwyn - for the meaty information about names and border reivers. I understand now that it will be no easy task finding Susan in what amounts to a huge population of McGuires in Ulster. Still, I'll keep trying with the aid of DNA and, perhaps, wills. Susan was born 1774, judging by an 1839 death record I have good reasons to believe is hers. I wonder whether she might have been given a passing mention in her father's will - perhaps just a denunciatory one as a means of fending off any claims from her and her descendants. Edward McDowell's and her first child - born in Ireland in 1794 - was named John. An LDS consultant once told me that eloped couples sometimes named their first son after the bride's father, in an effort to appease him. If this is the case with Edward and Susan, it didn't work.

Regards, Jo

Jo K

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