A Wee Bit of Irish in me!

[Anderpaw]

I always knew I had a wee bit of Irish in me. Just in time for St Patrick's Day! Thomas Hagan, born 1642, Tyrone, County Munster, Ireland. Immigrated to the United States in 1670. It seems all my ancestors left "the old country"  some three centuries ago!

[Maggie]

I always knew I had a wee bit of Irish in me. Just in time for St Patrick's Day! Thomas Hagan, born 1642, Tyrone, County Munster, Ireland. Immigrated to the United States in 1670. It seems all my ancestors left "the old country"  some three centuries ago!

Paul...."County Munster" does not exist!  

County Tyrone is in Northern Ireland, so you might find his records here:
http://www.proni.gov.uk/
http://www.nireland.com/genealogy/

Munster is one of the 4 Provinces, comprised of the following Counties in the South-West of of the Republic:

Clare
Cork
Kerry
Limerick
Tipperary
Waterford

[Anderpaw]

I always knew I had a wee bit of Irish in me. Just in time for St Patrick's Day! Thomas Hagan, born 1642, Tyrone, County Munster, Ireland. Immigrated to the United States in 1670. It seems all my ancestors left "the old country"  some three centuries ago!

Paul...."County Munster" does not exist! 

County Tyrone is in Northern Ireland, so his records will be in the UK.

      I know, Maggie! I just thought it was funny how ancestry.com had that!

[Maggie]

Paul...."County Munster" does not exist!  
County Tyrone is in Northern Ireland, so his records will be in the UK.

    I know, Maggie! I just thought it was funny how ancestry.com had that!

Now that my busy Saint Patrick's events are over, I can relax a bit.
Paul, I read your post again and something dawned on me....
...maybe that information about Thomas Hagan was gathered from the "Tyrone County Muster".
Muster, not Munster.
Here is an example - "Tyrone Muster Rolls, Donagheady & Leckpatrick Parishes 1631"
http://cotyroneireland.com/muster/tyronemus1631.html

Noblemen and Landowners made lists of able-bodied men for their own militia, and some of these lists survive as "Musters".
Many Catholics gave false information because they resented being conscripted by Scottish, English
and Dutch Protestants who had taken their lands, so records of that time were not reliable.

Ever since the Normans invaded Britain in 1066, there were two main reasons for
compiling lists of names, or conducting a Census:
to tax the people, and to enlist them in a Militia or the National Military.
These sites will give you an idea of records which have survived

http://www.proni.gov.uk/14_-_your_family_tree_series_-_seventeenth_century_census_substitutes.pdf

http://www.northernirelandancestry.com/Census%20substitutes.htm

This is a record of what happened to Tyrone residents at the Siege of Derry, if you scroll down,
the section "REBELLION of 1641-42" is somewhat graphic. You have been warned!
http://www.cotyroneireland.com/muster/Siege-of-Londonderry.html

When the Earl of Essex was Elizabeth the first's favourite, she granted him a large chunk of Ulster.
He took 400 of his men over with him and they colonized it, killing many of the indigenous Catholic Irish,
including Earls and noblemen. He lost Elizabeth's favour and his lands, but fighting continued in Ulster.
The Scots invaded in large numbers, seized the land and either killed or enslaved the people.
What many people don't realize is that "slaves" of a noble household were property, and were registered in the landlord's name,
losing their own identity, just as happened to the slaves brought from Africa to America.
Slavery has existed since Biblical times and (sadly) still exists in some parts of the world.

Public Records for all of Ireland were kept in Dublin Castle and the Four Courts in Dublin,
and many of them were destroyed during the Civil War in 1922.
Consequently many people will not be able to trace their ancestors.  
The most reliable records in Ireland are Church records of Baptism, Marriage and Death.
In my family, we have conflicting records even in the 19th and early 20th Century.
We know that the Church records are the true ones.  
I think on such sites as Ancestry.com, there is a lot of false information and guesswork.
If a person knows the real name and place of one ancestor, records can still be found.

Paul, in your case I can find no record of a Thomas Hagan coming to America in 1670.
There are a couple of possibilities.....
As a young man in County Tyrone, he almost certainly took part in the many battles, he could have
been on either side of the conflict. He might have been originally from Scotland, as the Lion of Scotland
is on an early Hagan coat-of-arms, along with the red hand of Ulster.

QUOTE: "Between 1650 and 1775, many thousands of Scots were banished to the American colonies
for political, religious, or criminal offenses."
 The King of England was billed for the transportation of prisoners.
Here is a warrant for payment:
http://immigrantships.net/jacobite/graphics/warrant_03.jpg

[Maggie]

In those archives, I like the old English terminology they used, it was very expressive!
I love this bit in a letter to King James II from his loyal subjects in Tyrone:

"WHEREAS a most horrid invasion was made by your Majesty's unnatural enemy the Prince of Orange,
invited thereunto and assisted by many of your Majesty's rebellious and traitorous subjects;
and having likewise raised, and levied open rebellion and war in several places in this kingdom,
and entered into associations, and met in conventions, in order to call in and set up the said Prince of Orange,
and the said rebels and traitors, having the impudence to declare for the Prince and Princess of Orange
against your sacred Majesty, BE IT ENACTED, that the Persons hereafter named......"

....and that "most horrid invasion" was the start of centuries of conflict
between green and orange, Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland.

[lcainsa]

Reminds me of how we used to write in the military, and thankfully over time we went more to the Keep It Simple, Stupid approach, with far more concise and direct wording for correspondence, regulations, and manuals.  I'm a wordy type myself - I often say "Why use 5 words when I can use 50?", tongue-in-cheek, of course, but with not a little bit of truth! 

[hayleynibhaoleafh<3'scelticwoman!]

[Lugiahua]

I wish I too have Irish lines...but quite unlikely. 

[Anderpaw]

I think on such sites as Ancestry.com, there is a lot of false information and guesswork.
If a person knows the real name and place of one ancestor, records can still be found.

Paul, in your case I can find no record of a Thomas Hagan coming to America in 1670.
There are a couple of possibilities.....
As a young man in County Tyrone, he almost certainly took part in the many battles, he could have
been on either side of the conflict. He might have been originally from Scotland, as the Lion of Scotland
is on an early Hagan coat-of-arms, along with the red hand of Ulster.

QUOTE: "Between 1650 and 1775, many thousands of Scots were banished to the American colonies
for political, religious, or criminal offenses."
 The King of England was billed for the transportation of prisoners.
Here is a warrant for payment:
http://immigrantships.net/jacobite/graphics/warrant_03.jpg

As with a lot of things on the internet, I take a lot of what I find with a grain of salt. In my Anderson family tree on ancestry.com, there is a William Anderson who was born in 1650 and died in 1690. His son, John Anderson (just one of five John Andersons in the pedigree!) was born in 1700 and died in 1789. There is a 10 year gap between the father's death and the son's birth. That definitely warrants a bit more research! While ancestry.com is fun and can shed some light on one's family history, I think family stories and oral family history is a better route to pursue. I wish I had asked my dad more questions about his family history before he died 24 years ago of colon cancer. I was much younger then (half a lifetime ago in  my case!) and just didn't care. I should have been whacked upside the head a long time ago!

[Maggie]

.....While ancestry.com is fun and can shed some light on one's family history, I think family stories and oral family history is a better route to pursue. I wish I had asked my dad more questions about his family history before he died 24 years ago of colon cancer. I was much younger then (half a lifetime ago in  my case!) and just didn't care. I should have been whacked upside the head a long time ago!

Yes, definitely the only reliable family history is passed down from the family.
When you think about it, that is the concept Ancestry.com relies on.....it's the people who log in who do the work.
If you only have a vague idea of your ancestors, you log in and find someone else of the same name etc...you are paying the Company to catalogue the input, but the information is often inaccurate.
It is much easier if you have an unusual last name.....even then, the spelling may have changed many times.
Many immigrants were illiterate in English, so the Immigration Officer wrote the name as he heard it.
That was your name of record in the USA so you were stuck with it. It may be very different from your ancestors in the old country.
I don't know if you've ever seen 19th Century baptism / birth / marriage records from Ireland, but the writing was usually very fancy, with many flourishes. My grandmother's baptism certificate was written by an old-school Priest with beautiful writing, but it's hard to read.
As you say, most young people are not interested in their ancestry....it's only as they get older they wonder about their origins. It's usually too late to ask their grandparents.
There are so many fractured and "blended" families in the USA, living thousands of miles apart.
It makes it difficult to trace ancestors.
We Irish take it too much for granted, we learn the family structure from the start.

My first job in the USA was with the House of Ireland, owned by the Maher Brothers who were sons of Irish Immigrants.
They started another Company called Historic Families, to capitalize on the American search for ancestors.
I managed one of the branches, we made scrolls and coats of arms, the "history of your family name".
It was very vague information, and didn't really mean much, but it looked nice on their wall, or as a souvenir gift.
(BTW, the Mahers sold both companies long ago)

For anyone starting their family tree, start with your parents and work backwards.
You can send for copies of certificates and find the baby's parents' names, where they lived etc.
On a marriage cert, get the bride's maiden name, and who the witnesses were.
On a death cert, look for the next of kin who gave the information.

If you're looking for info from the Irish Republic, Catholic Church Records are reliable, but you have to know
what Parish or town...or at the very least, the County.
If your ancestors were from the Republic, there is a 90% chance they were Catholic.

There are very good Family History Research Centres in most cities and towns, they will help as much as they can.

Here is an excellent site, but again you must have names and approximate dates to begin with:

http://www.rootsireland.ie/

[Sorgi]

Yes, definitely the only reliable family history is passed down from the family.

Except when someone does a bit of embellishing.   Had an interesting time wading through the family history trying to see past the inflation.

One difficulty my dad encountered was the fact that names of places can change.   He couldn't figure out where 'Queen's County' was  (took me all of 20 seconds on the internet to figure out that it's known as County Laois these days).

[Lugiahua]

a modern method is genographic test (not sure if correct spelling)
which will compare your DNA to other people around the world.

I remember a few years ago they used it to find out 20% Scandinavian are Irish decedents, also 10% Lebanese are related to Western Europeans.(Due to Crusades)

[Maggie]

Except when someone does a bit of embellishing.  
Had an interesting time wading through the family history trying to see past the inflation.
One difficulty my dad encountered was the fact that names of places can change.  
He couldn't figure out where 'Queen's County' was  (took me all of 20 seconds on the internet to figure out that it's known as County Laois these days).

The name of County Laois (Contae Laoise) was changed to Queen's County in 1556 by Queen Mary I
(Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII).
She also changed the name of the town of Port Laoise to Maryborough.
The Irish place names were restored all over Ireland in the 1920s.
Under British rule, use of the Irish language had previously been banned.

http://www.laoisgenealogy.com/
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irllao/

As you said, some family histories may have been "embellished" to eradicate scandalous or embarrassing incidents.
Also, some people are so desperate to have a famous ancestor that they will invent one.
When I worked for Historic Families, I can't tell you how many people told me
"we have a castle somewhere in Scotland, I'm descended from Mary Queen of Scots".....
yeah, sure you are!  

Most families have a "black sheep" of course....personally I think it makes their history more interesting.

If your ancestors came to the USA from Ireland, their port of departure was probably "Queenstown",
which is now called Cobh (pronounced Cove) in County Cork.
People travelled from all over Ireland to the port. It was the last port of call for the ill-fated Titanic.

Likewise, the departure port of Kingstown is now called Dún Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leery) just south of Dublin.
It was, and still is, the main port of departure from Ireland to England.

[lcainsa]

I did a bit of research quite a few years ago to see what information I could find on my maternal grandfather's history.  He was the only member of his family who emigrated to the US from Co. Tyrone, in 1905 at the age of 22.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to do much before getting to the point of having to make a trip to Ireland to do some of my own research or paying what at the time seemed to be a hefty sum to see if we could find out more info.  From what I was able to learn about my Irish roots, my ancestors were dirt-poor Irish farmers, Protestants (Church of Ireland), and I don't think there's much to distinguish the family line.  Common graves were often used, so that more than one family member is buried in the same spot.  We did visit a church cemetery where some of my ancestors were buried when my mom, sister and I visited Ireland in 1993, but as I'd pretty much hit a stone wall, I lost interest in trying to find out more.   It would be nice to find out something special or dramatic, but I suspect that there's nothing of the sort to be found....

[Maggie]

I did a bit of research quite a few years ago to see what information I could find on my maternal grandfather's history.  He was the only member of his family who emigrated to the US from Co. Tyrone, in 1905 at the age of 22.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to do much before getting to the point of having to make a trip to Ireland to do some of my own research or paying what at the time seemed to be a hefty sum to see if we could find out more info.  From what I was able to learn about my Irish roots, my ancestors were dirt-poor Irish farmers, Protestants (Church of Ireland), and I don't think there's much to distinguish the family line.  Common graves were often used, so that more than one family member is buried in the same spot.  We did visit a church cemetery where some of my ancestors were buried when my mom, sister and I visited Ireland in 1993, but as I'd pretty much hit a stone wall, I lost interest in trying to find out more.   It would be nice to find out something special or dramatic, but I suspect that there's nothing of the sort to be found....

You never know....there could be a good chance of tracing your grandfather's history and relatives.
You know his name....
you also know where some ancestors were buried.....
that is a huge advantage!
You don't need to spend a "hefty sum" to find out.
I hope you kept the name of that Church of Ireland -
they will have records, it doesn't matter that there may not be "much to distinguish the family line".

You can get started with these two sites:
http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/family_history/family_history_getting_started.htm
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cotyroneireland/