McIlhagga Clan

McHaggart revisited

2012-02-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

In May 2010 I wrote about a McHaggart family whose records are scattered from Ireland to the Scottish Highlands, to Canada and the USA, producing some dozen people on a Family Tree with a few other 'strays' who at the moment I'm not sure where to put. Now, finding an extra person (or two) on the 1871 Census for Greenock in 'findmypast' has set me thinking again.

The people central to this mini-tree are Donald McHaggart and his wife Christina McCorquindale. In the 1860s Donald was a Shepherd near Lochgilphead in Argyllshire where, according to the IGI on 21st January 1864 Bella was born. In all probability a year or so apart Edward was born, though we only know of an approximate birth year for him from a later death record of his daughter. And now I have discovered on the 1871 Census for 3 Cowgate Street, Middle Parish, Greenock, a Margaret McHaggart aged 2, so born 1869, also in Lochgilphead. This must be a second daughter for Donald and Christina, though we have no idea why she was to be found in Greenock in the care of Isabella Innis, Widow, aged 50, born apparently in Greenock in 1821.

We may assume that Isabella was a near relation, and she presumably gave her name to the first born, Bella. Donald and Christina, according to Bella's birth record in Aldhui, Glassary, Lochgilphead, were married on 31st March 1859 in Kilchoman District, Argyll. Although I can find no paper trail, this probably gives us a birth year for Donald of about 1838. Was Isabella Innis Donald's mother, and grandmother of Bella and Margaret whom she was looking after on Census night? It would fit the Scottish 'naming pattern'! But if so so must have been 17 when Donald was born. I can find no documentary proof of this, or indeed that she was the mother of Margaret McHaggart born in the previous year, in the July Quarter of 1837 in Preston, Lancashire, north west England. It is possible that this Margaret had given her name to Donald and Christina's second daughter.

If Isabella was Donald's mother, her 1871 Surname Innis was either her maiden name to which she had reverted as a widow or it was the name of a second husband. The third possibility of course is that her maiden name was McHaggart which she had given to Donald as a single mother, after which she had married an Innis. Although I can find no paper trail for any of these possibilities, the third seems most likely if in fact she had had two children as a teenager.

The other two people living at 3 Cowgate Street in 1871 were another Widow aged 46, born in Greenock in 1825, Margaret Mitchel, who was employed as a Washerwoman, and Mary Mitchel aged 9, born in 1862 in Greenock. Although it is tempting to think that these two widows might have been sisters, this need not have been so. Although I have not found a birth record for two year old Margaret, I think I may have found one for Mary born on 15th June 1862 in Greenock, the illegitimate daughter of a Mary Mitchell, fruiterer. Were Mary the fruiterer and Margaret the Washerwoman sisters? Who knows! But I think the balance of evidence is that Margaret Mitchel was not a relation of Donald and Christina McHaggart. In conclusion, we may note that Briget McHaggart whom I mentioned in my earlier blog on this family, born in 1827, could easily have been a sibling of Isabella, born in 1821.

Two Comments and Hearth Money

2012-02-07T01:47:00.000-08:00

I have recently added a comment to the blog 'A Belfast Family' on 26th September 2011, from the Military Attestation papers of one member of the family.

I have recently also checked the births, marriage and deaths published by the Irish Family History Federation on their 'rootsireland' Internet site. For the record, of the 96 clan births I can place 62 in families, which leaves more research needed on 34. I can also place 72 marriages in my Clan Family Trees, with 44 needing more research. There are many fewer deaths recorded, of which I can place 17 but at present not a further two.

This morning I have come across a Chart of the 1669 Irish Hearth Money Rolls which confirms and slightly amplifies my knowledge. The three (annotated) entries are as follows:

1. Record No. 4984

Surname (standardised): McIlhagga;

Surname (HMR spelling): McIlhaga;

Forename (in HMR): James;

Barony: Antrim Upper;

Parish: Doagh Grange;

Townland (modern spelling): Coggrey;

Townland (in HMR): Cogry.

2. 5001. McIlhagga - McIlhago - Allexander;

Upper Antrim - Doagh Grange - Doagh - [decayed parchment].

3. 5014. McIlhagga - McIlhago - Allexander;

Upper Antrim - Doagh Grange - Doagh - [decayed parchment].

Previous references I have found to the Hearth Money Rolls haven't included Record Numbers or the modern spellings, which have got our clan name 'right', or the fact that in cases two and three the parchment has decayed. Also the second reference to Allexander has been abbreviated to Allex. As all three references are to properties in the same parish I still think all three men must have been related though it is possible that there were only two, the two Allexanders being the same person but owning two properties. The likelihood is that the two decayed bits of parchment refer to the Townland of Cogry. Also it could be that the 'o' and 'a' name endings differ due to a 'slip of the pen' rather than anything else. The probability is that as early as 1669 the name would have been spelled McIlhago, equating with what we find in Ayrshire on the South West of Scotland.

MAC

2012-01-30T02:35:00.000-08:00

There are very few instances in the history of our clan whee the first syllable of our surname is 'Mac'. I have recently referred to the historically important Michael Macylhaggow. There are a couple of MacAlhagga names in the minutes of Bathgate, Scotland Masonic Lodge, which I'm sure are mistranscriptions. There is a Vicente Adam MacElhaga and his father Samuel and mother Joanna Whete who fascinatingly appear in a baptism record in Rosario, Copiapo, Chile. This event remains totally mysterious to me.

A John MacHaggart appears in the 1881 English Census boarding in West Ham, Essex, and Two MacIlhaggers, John and Archie, appear in the 1906 Canada Census in a place called Assiniboia, Saskachewan. There are two other baptisms, of John MacHaggart and Margaret MacIlhagga both in 19th Century Ireland. Margaret, daughter of Archibald, married Joseph Adams in Belfast in 1915. Another Margaret MacIlhaggart (a widow) married Joseph Hills in Ballymena in 1903. However, I know this to be a mistranscription.

And now, in the 'findmypast' website I have found June MacIlhaggie who in the April-June Quarter of 1963 married David W. Howes in Chelmsford, Essex, and I have to confess that I have no idea how June fits into a clan family. There is only one 'June' in my Birth Index, namely June McIlhagga, daughter of Samuel who died in 2009 and whose burial in Ballee Cemetery, County Antrim, was reported in the Belfast Telegraph. At the time of her death she was June Miller (nee McIlhagga) and must I think have been born in the 1930s.

If anyone knows of any other instances, I would be interested to know about them. There is of course no difference between 'Mc' and 'Mac', and neither is more 'correct' than the other, and both get abbreviated in documents, especially in old handwriting, to M'.

A Summer in Canada

2012-01-29T01:29:00.000-08:00

On the 'findmypast' website there are three McIlhago references to visits to Canada, first by Sarah aged 54 of 119 Brassey Street, Glasgow, to Halifax, NS, departing 30 June 1950 on the ship Georgia. The other two are on the ship Saxonia departing 11 April 1956 to Montreal, of both Harry and Sarah, from the same Glasgow address. From the 'ancestry.co.uk' Incoming Passenger lists, 1878-1960, I know that Harry and Sarah returned home, leaving Montreal on 6 September 1956. Harry gave his occupation as Clerk, and we may imagine they had been saving up for quite some time in order to be away from home for six months. Who were they and why did they go?

I believe this couple to be Henry McIlhago and Sarah nee Lyon who married in Kelvin, Glasgow in 1916. On the 1911 Census Henry is entered as Harry and was employed as a Railway Bookings Clerk. In the 1920s they had two daughters, Elizabeth Isabella McIntyre in 1924 and Sarah Alexander Lyon in 1927. I have GRO records of both these daughters marrying in Possilpark, Glasgow. Sarah married William John Lyons on 28 February 1945. He was 26 and she was 18. Elizabeth married Knut Allan Lundmark on 26 November 1945. He was 29 and she was 21. Perhaps they both waited until they could see that the war was ending before marrying. Although at present I have no evidence from migration records, perhaps one or both daughters emigrated to Canada. Their mother's first visit was only five years later, perhaps for the birth of a child. Then six years after that both Harry and Sarah paid their long visit. I wonder whether a 'return' visit was able to be made when Harry died in 1969 aged seventy five?

Henry (1893-1969) was the second child and eldest son of George Gardner McIlhago (b. 1862/3 in Ireland) and Isabella Scott Boak (b. 1869 in Chryston, Lanark, Scotland). George was the second child and eldest son of Henry McIlhaggo (1821-1889) and Agnes Gardiner (1836-1889). Both had been born in Ireland but died in New Monkland, Scotland. Henry had started as a 'small farmer' in Maxwell's Walls, Connor, County Antrim, which is where his father Henry was also a farmer. There is a Family Tree for Maxwell's Walls going back to William McIllhago born about 1750. He was reported in the Belfast Newsletter in November 1781 as having a stray beef cow in Connor on 8th November that year!

Three Marriage Queries

2012-01-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

I have spent some time recently searching the resources offered by and have found a few references that were new to me and I would be interested to know if anyone can throw any more light on them.

1. In the GRO Consular Marriages (1849-1965), number 110 is for Isabella E.M. McIlhaggo, at Antwerp, Belgium, 1906-10. Isabella usually spelled her surname McIlhaga and her middle names were Emily Marrs. I believe she married Samuel Bowden and last year I was pleased to hear from one of the Bowden family, with the above photograph which it is believed is of Isabella. The new information is that her marriage was registered with the British Consul.

2. Jane McIlhagge was married in Fylde, Lancashire in 1889 to George Taylor Birkett. I am wondering was she possibly the Jane McIlhaggie/McIlhaggo born in Connor in 1863 to Henry McIlhaggo/McIlhaggie and Agnes McMeekin? Does anyone know if this marriage had any offspring?

3. Alan McIlhaggen was married in Fulham, London in 1971 to Heather A. Henderson. I am wondering whether this was Alan McIlhagger son of William Boyd McIlhagger and Martha? Also, by the way, I have no record of Martha's maiden surname. Also Alan had a brother, William Boyd McIlhagger. Does anyone know whether he ever married or had a family?

Blog Correspondents

2012-01-23T02:29:00.000-08:00

I have recently had two interesting messages, which I have published following the blogs for 'Belgium-twice in two days' on 3 May 2011 and 'Christchurch and Great-gran' on 26 Feb 2011. This blog asked for a positive identification of someone in a photograph and my new correspondent has identified the lady as his or her great grandmother. Brilliant! I will be able to pass on the information. The other comment did not give a contact address but he (David) did join as a blog follower, so I wrote to him via that route. However he has not got back to me as yet. If he does I might be able to put him in touch with the correspondent mentioned on 3 May last. Such a 'stop' in corresponding has happened once before and I am wondering if there is some fault in the blog system of communication, though it seems to me to be working. Perhaps one of our other blog followers could try it out and write to me as a 'test'?

Family Occupations

2012-01-22T03:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I said I'd make a comment on the occupations of my own line. This is the other half of what I said at our Family History meeting yesterday morning. I think the last five or six generations illustrate what is an interesting sociological phenomenon, a not uncommon progression through the 19th and 20th Centuries, creeping up the social scale.

My GG grandfather was variously described as a Weaver, a Labourer and a Farmer, I suppose the old category of Ag(ricultural) Lab(ourer). I visited Ireland last October and found evidence, on a map, of the cottage he lived in, in about 1840, by searching the land records for the townland of Ballycloghan. I imagine he had a loom in one room, something I've seen in the Scottish Highlands, and he was a tenant of a modest 22 acres from the local landlord, Lord Masereene.

My Great grandfather, his son, emigrated first to Greenock in Scotland then down to Liverpool, Lancashire, where in both places he was a Sugar Baker, the job that was done in such heat that often men worked naked and produced the largest percentage of alcoholics in any industry of the day. Beer was a safer drink than water. Basically labouring , though if family tradition is right, he was said to have won a prize for being part of a team which discovered how to crystalize sugar.

My grandfather started as an Office Boy in the same Sugar Refinary, I think of Tate and Lyle, but moved into Fish and Poultry. He became a traveller on what was known as the Oyster Track. I take it this means he was a Wholesaler in this trade, at times quite (fish) smelly if I remember the comments made by my mother. I guess you might call him Lower Middle Class, 'in trade'.

My father started as a Clerk in a Jute firm which had moved down to Liverpool from Dundee. Soon after he joined up and served in the First World War as a Sergeant Signaller with the Liverpool Scottish Regiment. He wore a kilt right through the war, though I never saw him in one later in life, perhaps part of the fact that he never talked about the experience. He went back into the Jute firm and by the time of the Second World War was its Managing Director. I guess you might call him 'aspiring Upper Middle Class'.

I was the first generation to go to University and ended up in what is called a 'profession'. So you have a family which is quite an interesting example of 'pulling yourselves up by your boot laces', gradually rising from labouring, through trading to 'professing'. I suppose the really interesting question is 'what is the next generation doing?' Answer: I have three sons who are all self-employed, running their own businesses, and all of whom I would put in the category of 'entrepreneur'! And I'm watching my grandsons with interest!

Clan Occupations

2012-01-21T07:38:00.000-08:00

This morning we had the monthly meeting of our local Family History Group with the theme of 'the occupations of our ancestors'. I spoke first about our clan in a way I thought would interest the group and then I spoke about my own McIlhagga line. Here's part one:

One of the things members of the Guild of One Names Studies is encouraged to do is to publish a Name Profile. Anyone can read the profile of any of the 2000 registered names on the Guild website. One of the sections of the Profile is called 'Historical Occurences', and it's your opportunity to come up with any notable people with your surname, or one of its registered variants. I prefaced my list of seven people with the sentence, 'Very few of the "clan" have any claim to fame'. This is very true of my own McIlhagga line (I'll comment next time). In fact none of my seven are (to the best of my knowledge) in my own ancestral line, but you might like to know who I included. I'll list them, then add a word about each of their occupations.

1. [I have to say that some doubt has been cast on my first one since I published the profile, which is a pity, as] Gillescop McI(l)hagain was Steward to the Earl of Carrick in 1196;

2. Michael Macylhaggow was a witness to the Laing Charters in 1527;

3. James McElhago was an Incorporator of The Bridgetown Library in New Jersey in 1765;

4. John McElhagga won the Military Medal in the First World War;

5. Lt. Cdr. Liston Burns McIlhagga was mentioned in despatches in World War II;

6. James Spence McIlhagga was one of the first Aldermen elected for the town of Ballymena;

7. Robert McIlhagger has been Professor of Engineering in the University of Ulster since 1991.

Only numbers one and seven tell you what their job was or is.

1. The Steward of Carrick, as he was called, I imagine looked after all the household and land owned by the Earl of Carrick, whose name in 1196 was Duncan son of Gilbert. Incidentally a century later Robert the Bruce was the Earl of Carrick.

2. Interestingly it was in Carrick, in the same part of Ayrshire, that Michael Macylhaggow appears 300 years later. I have no idea what his occupation was, but his surname has three points of interest for me - see my last blog!

3. Jame McElhago in New Jersey. I haven't known for certain until very recently what his occupation was. I have recently discovered he was a Sea Captain by finding his name in a 1787 Belfast Newspaper as Captain of a Cargo Boat plying between Scottish and Irish ports. He lived in Scotland. His boat was called 'Mary' which is the only clue I have to the possible name of his nearest female relative, whether that was his wife or his mother. His trip to New Jersey must have been a young man's adventure before he returned and settled down to carrying a variety of goods on his boat, including salt, cork wood, fruit, salmon and linen cloth.

4. John McElhagga wan a Military Medal while he was in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. I've looked for a citation to tell me why, but haven't found one.

5. Lt. Cdr. Liston Burns McIlhagga was mentioned in Despatches when he was a humble First Lieutenant. In 1942 he was in command of a Gun Boat in an engagement with 6 German R-boats. Three were sunk and 36 Germans taken prisoner. Liston was wounded and returned home to Canada where he had an illustrious career as a radio and TV announcer and producer. Apparently he got to produce Royal Visits from 1971 to 1983. It is said he had an amazing memory and was a fantastic story-teller, and was also an extremely good cook.

6. James Spence McIlhagga, one of the first Aldermen of Ballymena was a Manager for the National Savings Bank, and was a Councillor for many years in the toughest area of the town, called Harryville.

7. Finally Prof. Robert McIlhagger. The 'er' branch of the clan claims a lot of academics, all scientists. This branch is particularly interesting because it goes back not to a male progenitor, but to a female progenitor born in 1795. In addition to engineer Robert, it includes a Nuclear Scientist and two present day textile scientists.

Next time I'll comment on my own line.

Michael Macylhaggow

2012-01-07T06:45:00.000-08:00

I have referred before to Michael Macylhaggow (11 Feb 09, 14 Mar 09, 4 Jul 11, 15 Nov 11 and 3 Dec 11). Michael is important for us as he is the first clan member with an anglicised form to our name who is referred to in an extant document. His surname is of special interest for three reasons. He is the only historical person known to me where 'Mac' is used rather than 'Mc'. He is the only example of 'y' being used instead of 'I', a common enough practice in the 16th Century. And the ending of his name, 'ow', is nearer to the Gaelic original than our present day 'a' or 'er'. He appears in 1527 as a witness to one of the 'Laing' Charters, number 359 in a publication known as the Calendar of the Laing Charters, AD 854 - 1837, published by J. Thin of Edinburgh. The authors were David Laing, 1793-1878 and John Anderson, 1845-1911. The Charters are held by Edinburgh University Library.

I have not before shown the full entry, the form of which some will find strange, but for completeness, here it is. It tells us nothing about Michael Macylhaggow, except that he existed in 1527. We may try to deduce something about him. We may wonder how old he was and so when he might have been born, and where he was resident.

359. 17th August 1527.] Charter by John Kennedy of Bardrochet and laird of Clachrydow and Clachrybayne, granting to his beloved Elizabeth GiiAHAJtE, sister to Robert (Jrahame of Knokdoliane, the 40s. lands of Clachrydow and Clachrybaj'ne lying in the earldom of Cai lyk and sherittUom of Ayr: To be held to her in liferent and to the heirs to lie born betwixt her and the granter in fee. Reddenchj, one penny Scots as blench. At Colmanell, 17tli August 1527. Signed, 'Jon Kenedy of Bai'drocht w' my hand.' Witnesses, John Cathkert of Glendowis, Michael Macylhaggow, William Hardy, and Sir Patrick Bard, curate of Colmanell and notary public. [497, Box 15.

We may judge that the transcriber had some difficulty in reading some words, which we can make guesses at, including perhaps Graham, Carrick, Sherriffdom, &c. The only thing that we may perhaps add is that as Michael signed second, he might have been considered second senior after John Cathkert. John signed as 'of Glendowis'. As no place name appears after Michael I think we may assume he was from Colmanell.

Bootle M.I. revisited

2012-01-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

As I intimated before Christmas, last week I visited Bootle Cemetery in Liverpool to see the result of the work my sister and I had commissioned on the Memorial Stone which I inherited from my father, on which were the names of my paternal grandparents and their daughter, my aunt. There have now been added the names of my parents who are not buried there but who were both cremated at a place called Landican on the Wirral Peninsula, just south of the River Mersey. This extra wording is obvious from the photograph above which looks as if just the new wording has been gilded. In fact the whole stone is gilded but to my surprise the gilding on the upper part has deteriorated rapidly over recent months. If you are interested you can compare with the photograph I published on 15th April 2010.

The complete inscription now reads:

Loving Memory of

MARGARET

beloved wife of

WILLIAM McILHAGGA

who died 19th May 1927

aged 59 years.

Also WILLIAM

beloved husband of the above

who died 18th January 1938

aged 71 years.

also MARGARET

dearly loved daughter of above

who died 31st December 1940

aged 43 years.

Also LINDSAY

son of the above

who died 16th February 1954

aged 60 years

and his wife OLIVE MILDRED

who died 13th March 1989

aged 91 years

both cremated at Landican.

Another ScotlandsPeople update

2012-01-03T06:33:00.000-08:00

First, a Happy New Year to all who follow this blog! On 1st January each year ScotlandsPeople updates the births, marriages and deaths available on line. This year they are the births for 1911, marriage for 1936 and deaths for 1961. There are no new McIlhagga births or marriages, but there are three 1961 deaths. The first was a male who died aged '0' in Springburn, Glasgow City (GRO 644/04/1006). The second was Margaret McC McIlhagga, also known as Haggarty, aged 80 of Bridgeton, Glasgow City (GRO 644/02/0105). The third was Marion McIlhagga aged 84 of Greenock, Renfrew (GRO 564/00/0885). Finally there was the birth of Jane Young McIlhaggie in Govan (GRO 646/01/0774).

The infant male death was of a three day old premature baby, who died on August sixth at 4.45am. He was the son of Roy and Jane Darg (nee Smith) McIlhagga of 2334 Dumbarton Road, Glasgow. This was Roy and Jean's third son. Roy was the fourth child and third son of James McIlhagga and Jean Walker Wallace of Ballymena, and grandson of Daniel Maitland McIlhagga and Ann Eliza Wright of Castlequarter, Co. Antrim. This line goes back to the birth in 1758 of Nathan(iel) McIlhaggar of Carnmoney, and on the female side (Nathan's wife) to Patrick McBurney there who was flourishing in 1686.

Margaret McCulloch Haggarty, formerly McIlhagga was a single nurse of 8 Balvicar Drive, Glasgow, who died at 9pm on February fifth at Belvidere Hospital. She had Bronchia Pneumonia. Her younger sister Elizabeth McIlhagga of 13 Boclair Road, Bearsden, gave notice of her death. Although for a reason which is not known Margaret had changed her surname, clearly Elizabeth did not. Margaret's death record says she was 'about 80 years' old. In fact she was seventy nine. She would have been 80 five weeks later, on 17th March. She was the third child and second daughter of James McIlhagga, a Riveter, and Joanna, nee McCulloch. James was my first cousin twice removed, being the son of William and Elizabeth (nee Carson) McIlhagga. Margaret was born in Greenock but at some time had moved to Glasgow, no doubt taken there by her profession as nurse.

Our third death, of Marion McIlhagga was in fact that of Margaret and Elizabeth's eldest sister, also single, though with no stated occupation. She, who was also born in Greenock, also died there on 3rd November 1961 at 11.40 pm, at 14 Wellington Street. She was 84 years old. I had already recorded this date from the Greenock Cemetery records, though not the time or the address. Notice of Marion's death was given by her sister Catherine McIlhagga.

Finally, the birth of Jane Young McIlhaggie took place at 8.30am on fifteenth November 1911 at 22 Blackburn Street, Govan, Glasgow, to James McIlhaggie, a Seaman in the Merchant Service, and Mary McIlhaggie, nee Young, who had been married on 30th October 1908 in Govan. Mary gave notice of the birth in Govan on 1st December. I am delighted to say that Jane is an addition to my own family tree (but where did the variant McIlhaggie come from?) and gives me a new third cousin. This James was the fourth son of William Carson McIlhagga, the son of William McIlhagga and Elizabeth Carson of Ballycloghan, County Antrim.

Two middle names - and Christmas

2011-12-24T00:10:00.000-08:00

When I was searching the Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes, 1845 - 1958 I came across two clan members from the 20th Century, one male and one female, who had distinctive middle names. They were both births in Ballymena. All I have are the dates of the births. Agnes McClurkin McIlhagga was born in the January to March quarter of 1909 and Robert Carroll McIlhagga was born in the July to September quarter of 1916. I have searched the 1901 and 1911 Irish Censuses for any clues to which families they come from and have drawn blanks. I have also posted queries on Carroll and McClurkin websites and blogs, again without success. I assume these middle names come from surnames of females who married into McIlhagga families, or they could be the surnames of either the mothers or grandmothers of Agnes and Robert. If anyone has any clues they can offer, please put a note on this blog or get in touch by sending me a message.

Over the Christmas period I'm off to see a Memorial Stone on which I've had my parents' names added to those of my grandparents. I'll publish a photograph when I return. Thank you to all who have sent Christmas greetings to the blog and all its readers. I wish you a happy and blessed time, especially if you are with your family. May 2012 bring more good genealogical discoveries!

An 18th Century birth/baptism

2011-12-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

I'm turning to the birth records from the Ulster Historical Foundation, the earliest of which is for Margaret, daughter of Nathan and Sarah McIlhaggy in Belfast. She was baptised, perhaps on the day of her birth, on 4th March 1790 at St. Anne's Church of Ireland, Shankill, by the Revd Richard Meade. I have more than once referred to this event in other contexts in this blog, but have not looked at it for its own sake. There is incidentally another probable 1790 birth, of a Martha McIlhagga. We know this from the fact that she died in 1875 aged 85, though I do not know if McIlhagga was her birth name or her married name.

Births in 1790 mean that the parents were probably born between 1760 and 1770. There are certainly Nathans of this period born in Maxwells Walls and in Carnmoney. In Shankill at the same time as Nathan McIlhaggy there was also a James McIlhaggey (spelled slightly differently). He and his wife Sarah had a son William in 1792. Two other Jameses were born in Islandmagee in 1755 and 1788. Finally in the 18th Century a John McIlhago was born in 1788 to a James McIlhago. This is known because he emigrated to the USA and his death is recorded there.

The above facts raise a number of possibilities. We have both a Nathan McIlhaggy - Sarah marriage and a James McIlhaggey - Sarah marriage, Nathan having a daughter in 1790 and James having a son in 1792, both in Shankill, Belfast. Were there two brothers, Nathan and James, who both married a Sarah? Or did Nathan die after Margaret was born and did Sarah then marry his brother James? Incidentally the Nathan in Carnmoney was born about 1758 so is of the right age to be the Shankill Nathan, but we know that he married Betty Burney and had a number of children, none of whom as far as we know was a Margaret.

There is also an 'unattached' Nathaniel who ceased to farm in Islandmagee in 1770, so may have been born as early as 1720. He, based on his probable age, also is somewhat unlikely to be identified with Shankill. The Maxwell Walls' Nathaniels are all too late to be considered as being the Shankill Nathan, though of course Nathan of Shankill may be their ancestor, a link we are at present unable to make for lack of evidence. So, despite a fair number of Nathans and Nathaniels in the 18th Century - clearly it was a popular name - we are no nearer to identifying the Shankill family.

Without a surname, I cannot speculate about Sarah. And what of Margaret? There is a Margaret (of unknown birth year) who married James McHag(g)o and had a son James in 1828. A 1790 birth for this Margaret would fit. There is also a Margaret McElhaga who died in 1845 in Ballymena. Again the date fits, but I have to say that both these Margarets seem to offer only very remote chances of finding a real identification. O dear! Let's hope for some new information which will throw more light.

Wilson McIlhagga

2011-12-20T12:02:00.000-08:00

The next marriage record from the Ulster Historical Foundation that I want to look at is dated 3 Jan 1867 from Buckna Presbyterian Church, Ballymena, Racavan. It is for the marriage of William McIlhagga, a farmer from Racavan to Jennifer Stewart of Craigamoy. Both were of 'full age' so would have been born, say, about 1845. In all probability this gives their parents birth years of around 1820. For a reason unknown there are no parents' names for Jennifer, though the 'husband's witness' was William Stewart, perhaps her brother. My special interest is the name of William McIlhagga's father, which was Wilson McIlhagga, also a farmer

I have one other marriage of an offspring of a Wilson, namely Maria, born 1843, daughter of Wilson McIlhaggo married to Samuel Winning on 12 May 1868 at Antrim Civil Registrar's Office. Maria was from Newpark Antrim, though this may be where she lived as a Servant and her father may well have been the same Wilson, a farmer from Racavan. Her witness, Mary Carnaughan does not I'm afraid add any further clue to this family's identity. We may know who William and Maria's father was, but not her mother as I have no marriage of any Wilson around 1820.

I do have one late birth of a Wilson, son of James McIlhagga of Eglington on 30 December 1880. It looks as if Wilson was the surname of a mother or a grandmother and it is just possible that if we were to go back a couple of generations in the Eglington family we might find a Wilson from Racavan. James of Eglington married a Johnston whose mother was a Greer, so no Wilson there. James was son of Nathaniel and Ellen McIlhaga. It is possible that Ellen's surname was Wilson and that in addition to James she may have had a son Wilson, though at present this is entirely in the realms of speculation. There was indeed a Nathan McIlhaggar, born about 1804 in Carnmoney, who did marry an Ellen Wilson, born about 1809. They married in Carnmoney on 21 May 1830 and they did have a son James. However, to the best of my knowledge neither he nor his parents had a son who was named Wilson, so the temptation to identify the Eglington family with the Racavan family seems to have run into the sand.

There is one other Wilson McIlhagga, born in 1875 to John McIlhagga and Eliza McCullough of Connor. Was he named after his paternal grandmother? Sadly we don't know her name! So we have come to the only other Wilson references I have which are second names. John W. McElhago was born in 1865 and died in 1867. James W. McIlhagga, born 1871 was son of Henrietta Wilson, so must have been named for her and another James W. McIlhagga, born 1894 was a nephew of the 1875 Wilson, so clearly was named after him.

We do have a 'late' female, Jane Wilson born in 1904 to William Hugh and Maggie McIlhagga, who was possibly named after her great uncle, one John Wilson McIlhagga. a farmer who died in 1896. Now he had son William who according to the IGI married a Jenny Stewart on 2 Jan 1868. Time-wise we are in the right ball-park, and I think we have come full circle! I think Jenny Stewart and Jennifer Stewart were one and the same person, and that the IGI's date of 2 Jan 1868 should be corrected by the Ulster Historical Foundation's date of 3rd Jan 1867. Conclusion - William's father was simply using his second name only when he was being 'father' at both William's and Maria's weddings. John Wilson McIlhagga's father was one William McIlhagga, born about 1810 in Maxwell's Walls, in the parish of Connor. John Wilson, known as 'Wilson', was the youngest of nine siblings.

Kirkmichael in 1861

2011-12-19T06:05:00.000-08:00

On 8 August last I referred to a Frances A. McHagg who lived from 1857 to 1925, found in Virginia USA, and who may have been related to three McHaggs found in the 1881 English Census, Mary (born 1843), John (1851) and Peter (1856). Frances' father was Thomas (according to the IGI) who married a Letisha Bishop. Frances married a Thomas Bishop in 1874 in Scott County, Virginia. The 1881 English Census tells us that Mary, John and Peter were living at 21 Victoria Terrace, Dudley, Worcestershire, John and Peter being travelling drapers and Mary keeping house for them. Significantly they were siblings who had all been born in Scotland and in August last I was making the assumption that McHagg was a deviant version of our clan name.

I haven't yet found any McHaggs in the 1871 Censuses, but I may have done in 1861. Thomas McHagg is in the English Census living in York, East Riding of Yorkshire. He was 58, so born in 1803. He in all likelihood was the father of Frances whom we find in Virginia, USA. More interestingly, according to the 'findmypast' website, there is a family of McHaggs to which the siblings Mary, John and Peter might have belonged, and they lived in Kirkmichael in Ayrshire, and I had been assuming that all clan members had disappeared from Kirkmichael! The family were John (65), Isabella (61), Isabella (20) and David R. (2). It is unlikely that a 59 year old Isabella would have given birth to a baby, so we may assume that David R. was the illegitimate son of young Isabella when she was 18. The 'R' is probably the clue to the surname 0of the father.

Now I have recorded the above, which I have noted from the 'findmypast' website, in part to show how careful we must be to check our sources. I went to the 'ScotlandsPeople' website to view the original census page for Kirkmichael.. The family's address was 91, New Village, and the surname is clearly not McHagg, but is either McHaig or McHarg. ScotlandsPeople thinks it is McHaig. It could well be of course that the siblings in Dudley are also McHaig or McHarg.

Before I found this original I was going to make a suggestion - which I'll make anyway - that John and Isabella, born respectively in nearby Straiton and Ayr, might possibly have been the only John and Isabella marriage I have on record for that period, namely John McIlhague who married Isabella McCallum who had a daughter Jean on 8 March 1824. Their certain link to our clan is that Isabella's brother Alexander married Elizabeth the daughter of James McElhago and Jane Harvey of Irvine. There is also a possible further link that I have pointed out in a previous blog, that John McIlhague may be the same John who later married a Jean Glen in Greenock. If this were so, then we might assume that Isabella had died, perhaps in chiuldbirth. Had the McHaigs really been McHaggs, I was going to point out this possible second marriage to show that John and Isabella McIlhague couldn't be the same as John and Isabella 'McHagg' in 1861, but of course I don't have to do so now, as the 'McHaggs' were in fact 'McHaigs'!

Rutherglen in 1861

2011-12-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

The Internet site called 'findmypast.co.uk' has just published the 1861 Scottish Census. There are four places of special interest for us, Tradeston, Irvine, Rutherglen and Renfrew. I will return to the first two on another occasion. The five people in Rutherglen, Lanarkshire, are husband and wife, William (45) and Mary (49) McIlhago and their offspring Mary (20), Margreat (sic) (18) and Samuel (16). There is also a Willm McIlhago aged 22 in Renfrew (Burgh), who could be their eldest child.

I believe this couple to be William Gage McIlhago/McIlhagga/McIlhaggie and Mary Houston who would have married about 1835 after the demise of Mary's first husband, William's older brother John. As I have suggested in earlier blogs, John probably fathered three known children, Henry, Eliza and William, Henry being named after his paternal grandfather. It is possible that William is the 'Willm' in Renfrew on the 1861 Census. However, to the best of our knowledge at present William was born in 1834 and 'Willm' in 1839, so they could well be two people. There is no reason why Mary could not have had two sons called William by different fathers, however 'inconvenient' it was to have step-brothers with the same name. And it appears that she also had two Henrys, for there are two half-siblings older than the four listed in Rutherglen in 1861, namely Rebecca (born 1836) and Henry (born probably in 1838).

The 1861 Rutherglen list has added the names of two children to my indexes, namely William and Mary. The fact of a Mary McIlhago living in Rutherglen in 1861 has opened up a further possibility. By 1863 she would have been twenty-two, and I have the record of a marriage on 6th June that year of a Mary McIlhage (an 'easy' variation) to a William Gibb. They had a daughter Mary on 22nd March 1867 in Belfast, indicating that between '63 and '67 they returned from Scotland to Ireland. However not all the family returned. By 1871 Mary senior (now McIllhago) aged 58 was living, apparently alone, in New Monkland and 'Willm', now 36, married to Catherine, 28, with four McIlhago children, were living in the centre of Glasgow.

Harryville family

2011-12-16T14:53:00.000-08:00

I have acquired more birth and marriage details from the Ulster Historical Foundation and the first one I want to explore is the marriage of John McIlhagga, a Labourer of 87 Queen Street, Harryville, Ballymena, to Mary Sloan of 103 Queen Street. They were married on 5 January 1894 in Ballychug Church of Ireland. No parents are given for Mary, and as is the case with most marriage records, just the father of the groom is named, who was also John McIlhagga, also a Labourer. Mary's witness was a Mary Matthews. John's witness was William McIlhagga who we may presume was his brother. Both John and Mary were recorded as of 'Full age', so in all probability were born about 1873.

If we now turn to the 1901 Census for Ballymena we do have a husband and wife, John and Mary McIlhagga living at 102 Queen Street, the house either next door to, or opposite 103, the address Mary gave at their marriage. John's age in 1901 was 26 and Mary's 25, giving them possible birth years of 1875 and 1876. If these are correct, when they were married they were in fact 19 and 18 respectively, two and three years under 'full age', not an unusual situation to find, including giving false ages. In 1901 no occupation is given for either John or Mary, and they appear to have no family. If we now turn to the 1911 Census again we find a married couple, John and Mary McIlhagga, living in Ballymena, this time at 115 Queen Street. John gives his occupation as Railway Carter. However their ages are recorded as 30 and 30. If they are the same couple, and there is no reason to think they are not, they have knocked five years off their ages. Once again there are no children recorded, though we do know from the census that they had had three children all of whom sadly had died in infancy.

In the tree for this family I cannot at present go back further than John the father of John. In addition to the possibility that William, John's marriage witness, was a brother, I think it is probable that he had a younger brother Andrew who in 1906 was also married in a Church of Ireland (Ahoghill), to Elizabeth Todd. In 1906 John senior was also described as a Labourer, as indeed was Samuel the father of Elizabeth Todd. In 1906 Andrew was also married from Queen Street, Ballymena, though no house number is given. Andrew and Elizabeth subsequently had a large family of five boys and five girls.

If we ask whether there were any other McIlhaggas living in Queen Street, or nearby in Ballymena and who therefore might well be related, we find in 1901 Robert and Margaret and family at 67 Queen Street. In 1911 Robert and Margaret have moved away to Azamor Street, Belfast. Robert who was probably 42 in 1901, though he said he was 47, could well have been a brother of John senior. If that were the case, then we can take the family with whom we started back a further two generations because we know that Robert's father was James who was son of William a Weaver, who was born at the end of the eighteenth century.

Medieval Lesmahagow

2011-12-05T01:57:00.000-08:00

Under George F. Black's entry in The Surnames of Scotland for 'McIlhagga' he says 'See Gilmagu', and there quotes three examples from the 12th and 13th Centuries. They come from the annals of Kelso Abbey in the Scottish Borders, but concern the Priory of Lesmahagow in Lanarkshire, which as 'Lesmahagu' in a King David's charter of 1144 was given by him to Kelso Abbey. In another charter of the same year the Bishop of Glasgow confirms this grant.

The personal name 'Gille Mohagu' appears several times in early charters pertaining to the district around Lesmahagow, spelled 'Lesmagu' in the Kelso annals. This personal name appears in the forms 'Gilmagu' and 'Gilmalagon/Gilmahagou' and in the place name 'Gilmahagistoun', these forms, as W.J. Watson points out in The Celtic Place Names of Scotland establishing the vernacular of the twelfth century, when Gaelic was doubtless spoken in the parish. The earliest reference to the name of a Celtic Saint associated with Lesmahagow is in King David's charter of 1144, but this is in Latin, a fact to which I will return.

The earliest Gaelic name reference in the medieval period was to Gilmalagon, who witnessed a charter concerning land granted by Arnold who was Abbot of Kelso 1147-1160. It was concerning land belonging to the Priory of Lesmahagow and was being given to Theobald (the) Fleming and his heirs. The extent of the land and its rent are detailed in the charter. W.J. Watson thought that the name Gilmalagon had been copied in error for Gilmahagou, the main part of the old topographical name Gilmahagistoun which lies within the parish of Lesmahagow and is mentioned in a charter dated between 1208-18. Watson also suggests that Gilmagu is a shortened version of Gilmahagu. Gilmalagon or Gilmahagou is there given the 'surname' Mac Kelli.

The next earliest Gaelic name reference is during the period 1160-1180 when John was Abbot of Kelso. Gilmagu had a portion of the lands near Lesmahagow, in Glenane, now Kerse, granted to him and his heirs, "bounded by the march which is between him and his brother Saludes, and by the loch which is between him and us (? the Priory of Lesmahagow) and so across from the march of Saludes, thence to the burn at Wenhath, and so by the burn of Gregeref, by the Naithan into the Clyde".

There are two fascinating questions from this charter for our clan. Were Gilmagu and Saludes blood brothers, or were they religious brothers from the Priory? The fact that Gilmagu either had or might have heirs surely implies that he was married or might marry, and so was most likely a 'secular', not a 'religious' brother. If this were so, were the names Gilmagu and Saludes 'given' Christian names rather than 'family' names? The second question is entirely in the realm of speculation. The burn or stream called Naithan which ran into the River Clyde reminds us of one of the earliest anglicised names given in our clan, Nathan. Is the burn Naithan where it came from?

The first question may be answered either by referring back to Gilmalagon/Gilmalagou mac Kelli, or to another charter which refers to Gilmagu Mac Aldic owning a croft in Glenane at some time between 1180 and 1203, when Osbert, the Abbot of Kelso after John, granted some land to Radolphus, a servant of the Priory of Lesmahagow. This land was bounded in part by the burn running between Gilmagu Mac Aldic's croft and the croft of Fretheton. There was certainly a time in Ireland when the name of Saint Mochuda was incorporated into the Christian names of his followers or devotees, and may be this was happening also in Scotland, examples being Mac Kelli and Mac Aldic (see also my blog of 8 Feb 2009).

An important question is whether there is a direct link between the person-names Gilmagu, Gilmahagou, and the place names Gilmahagistoun and Lesmahagow? If the person-names are derived from Mochuda, are the place-names also so derived? It is tempting to think so, but if it is in fact so, the charter of 1144 of King David granting the lands to Kelso Abbey is in error in naming the saint (in Latin) Sanctus Machutus, a Welsh or Bretton saint, despite that charter calling the Priory Lesmahagu. Maybe at some earlier stage there was a confusion between the Welsh Machute and the Irish Mochuda - which to our modern ears, would be easy, would it not? -the Priory dedicated to Machute though the followers of Machuda faithfully following as Gille-Mochudas, Gilmahagous, Gilmagus, and eventually McIlhaggas!

A Gaelic Scholar's help

2011-12-04T06:10:00.000-08:00

Scottish and Irish authors of books on family names differ on the Gaelic origins of McIlhagga. The Irish have linked the name with McIlhargy and therefore found the derivation from Mac Gille Chairge, 'Son of the Lad of the Rock', or perhaps Mac Con Chairge, 'Son of the Hound of the Rock'. The Scottish have seen its origins in Gille Mo Chuda, literally 'Son of My Heart' from the name Mochuda, otherwise Carthage, the 6th Century Celtic Abbot of Lismore in County Waterford.

I have always favoured the Scottish theory, mainly because the clan 'paper trail' does not come up with the variant McIlhargy, a fact supported by differing DNA results for McIlhagga and McHarg, McHargue, a shortened form of McIlhargy. Following my recent visit to Northern Ireland I have been in correspondence with the historian and Gaelic scholar in Belfast I mentioned in my last blog, who has kindly said she thinks that even from language that the Scottish view is entirely correct on the derivation of McIlhagga and that confusion with McIlharg(y) would be just that, confusion. Her view is that the most quoted Irish author, MacLysacht was terrific on documentary evidence, but less so on etymology. She quotes the more Gaelic-based Irish surname scholar, the Rev. Patrick Woulfe ('Irish Names and Surnames', 1923) who, though he does not deal with Scotland, gives the Irish surname formation Mac Giolla [Mo] Chuda, anglicised as McGillyCuddy (as in McGillycuddy's Reeks) but also in the shortened form as McElcuddy and McElhuddy. She adds 'If you accept that -d- could be changed to -g- (a slight surprise)', but we may suppose the effect of migrating across the North Channel, 'McElhuddy is a good Irish comparison with the Scottish McIlhagga'.

My friend from Belfast also adds that she doesn't know why the personal name Giolla [Mo] Chuda became Gilmagu in Scotland, which is part of the theory propounded by the main 'Scottish' author, G.F. Black, though she admits that 'as a set these Gille / Giolla compound names do get abbreviated in surprising ways'. I will write further about Gilmagu in my next blog.

Family Name UK Project

2011-12-03T05:17:00.000-08:00

On my visit to Northern Ireland in October I met a history/gaelic scholar who told me about an academic project based at the University of Western England which is revising the standard works on family names, and she kindly offered to submit the result of my work on our clan name. My attempt to summerise it for her consideration was the following:

The family name McILHAGGA

The surname McIlhagga appears in Surname Dictionaries published in both Ireland and Scotland, though interestingly all known to me refer to it as a Scottish surname. There is however a distinct difference in the way the etymology of the name is discussed on the two sides of the North Channel. This will be obvious if I quote George F. Black, 'The Surnames of Scotland' and Edward MacLysaght, 'The Surnames of Ireland'.

Black has “MACILHAGGA. Most probably for 'son of the gille of Mochuda'. See GILMAGU.” There follows five examples from 1527 to 1715, four in Ayrshire and one in Galloway. He then names three place-names in which the saint is commemorated in Scotland. His entry for GILMAGU has “Ir. Giolla Mo-Chuda, 'servant of (S.) Mochuda (=my Cuda), another name for S. Carthage of Lismore'”. He then quotes two Medieval charters referring to Abbeys in the Scottish Borders which are witnessed by Gilmagu in the 12^th Century. He adds 'See also MACILHAGGA'. Black is followed by Diane D. McNicholl in 'The Surnames of East Lothian'.

MacLysaght has “Mac Ilhagga. Mac Giolla Chairge. This Gaelic form is given by MacGiolla Domhnaigh. A Scottish name found in Cos. Antrim and Derry. MacElhargy, MacIlhargy and Maharg are variants of it.” In MacLysacht's Supplement, 'More Irish Families', he has “MacIlhagga, Maharg. At first sight these two names would not appear to be variants, but when we remember that MacIlhagga is also found as MacIlharga, MacElhargy and McIlharg and that in Ulster Mac is frequently abbreviated to Ma the transition becomes intelligible. According to MacGiolla Domnaigh the Gaelic form is MacGiollaChairge which is common to Galloway in Scotland and to Cos. Antrim and Derry. Maharg is also written Meharg”. Further, Maclysacht has an entry under MacHarg, which says “Tyrone name is an earlier form of Maharg. See MacIlhagga”.

In Ireland it appears that MacLysacht has been followed uncritically, e.g. by Robert Bell in 'The Book of Ulster surnames' where he says 'Maharg is a variant of the Scottish MacIlhagga' (p.82), and by the Irish Times Internet site.

It also appears that MacLysaght has 'expanded' MacGiollaDomnaigh, where, in 'Some Anglicised Surnames in Ireland' (1923, p.45) there is no reference to MacIlhagga. He has “Meharg, Maharg – These two names are the shortened anglicised forms of McIlhargy. Other forms are McIlharg and McElhargy; in Gaelic the name is written MacGiolla-chairge, and is mostly found in Galloway and in Ulster, particularly in S.E. Derry”.

I have for the past twelve years done a 'One Name Study' (with the Guild of One Name Studies) of the name McIlhagga and its variants and have compiled Indexes of the name referring to thousands of births, marriages and deaths, and have come across no examples of the so-called variants quoted in MacLysacht, namely MacElhargy, MacIlhargy, Maharg, Meharg, McIlharg, McIlharga or MacHarg. The 'paper trail' appears to demonstrate that these names have a different origin to McIlhagga.

The result of the 'paper trail' appears to be confirmed by recent DNA analysis. A 'MacHargue / McHarg' DNA project has produced one set of results, up to 37 markers, and a McIlhagga DNA project has produced a totally different set of results, up to 37 markers. The McIlhagga results are part of group M269, sub-group R1b1a2* which is very rare.

I am no Gaelic scholar but my best thinking about the origins of the name McIlhagga is that if we go back to the 6^th Century we may find our eponymous ancestor as a follower of (Saint) Mochuda Carthach. In Ireland it may be that followers have spawned a number of variants including McGillycuddy and McElhuddy. Parallel to such evolution we have what appears to be a migration to the South-West of Scotland, possibly a very early migration initiated by St. Colmon of Ella, where the name Gille Mochuda, via the Latin form Gilmagu evolved into McIlhago and McIlhagga. It was in Colmonell (named for St. Colmon Ella) in Ayrshire where the clan name appeared in 1527 in its Anglicised form, namely Macylhaggow.

Interestingly an internet site associated with an academic project at University College, London, which maps the whereabouts of Western Names, at www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames, confirms that the name McIlhagga is 'Group: Celtic; Subgroup: Scottish; Language: English'. For the variant McIlhagger it correctly changes the subgroup to 'Irish'.

Timeline for William

2011-12-02T05:11:00.000-08:00

I'm sure that the William McElhagan recorded in the Rent Revision Books for Ballycloghan, to which I referred in my last blog, was my great-great-grandfather, otherwise recorded as William McIlhagga at family events such as Baptisms, and Marriages. It is useful to get an overall view of an ancestor's life by making a timeline for him or her. It will inevitably have some unresolved issues in it, and these can encourage further research on that person. A Timeline for William of Ballycloghan looks like this:

1798 Earliest date for birth, if son of James and Sarah of Shankill;

1807-9 Latest date for birth based on probable marriage date;

1828 Ballycloghan Townland Valuation - Applotment Books. Two plots;

1828-30 Probable date of marriage, maybe in Clogh Presbyterian Church;

1831 Son William born, based on 1851 Census, aged 20;

1832-3 Son John born, Co. Antrim;

1834 Daughter Jane born, Ballycloghan;

1835 Daughter Mary born (?Baptised 26.2.1837);

1837 Son Crawford born, Ballycloghan. Baptised 26 Feb 1837;

1838-9 Daughter Ann born Ballycloghan. Baptised 16 Jan 1839;

1841 Daughter Nancy born Ballycloghan. Baptised 17 Oct 1841;

1844 Daughter Margaret born Ballycloghan. Baptised 16 Jun 1844;

1844 Wife Agnes (nee McCosh) died (?in childbirth);

1851 Weaver (William's and John's marriages);

1854 Farmer (Jane's marriage, Broughshane);

1863 Farmer (Nancy's marriage, Broughshane);

1865 Farmer (Crawford's marriage, Port Glasgow);

1866 Margaret's marriage (Port Glasgow);

1879 William still in Ballycloghan (Rent Revision Book);

1889 Death recorded on son William's death record.

It may never be possible to find exact dates for William's birth and death, or indeed his marriage, unless further information is found. From the above evidence he must have died between 1879 and 1889, between the ages of 70 (if born in 1809) and 91 (if born in 1798).

Plot 21

2011-12-01T01:34:00.001-08:00

Plot 21, Ballycloghan

On 25 October in this blog I 'revisited' Griffith's Valuation for the townland of Ballycloghan in the parish of Skerry. I showed a map of Plot 21 in its townland setting and referred to Estate Revision Rent Books. I thought it would be of interest to show a larger scale of the Plot, hence the map above, and to show the detail of what I found in the Revision Books. The list of occupants on Plot 21 were as follows for April 1877-79:

21a Occupier: John Glynn; Immed. Lessor: E(lizabeth) McI.H.Fulton;

House off land. area of land: 59 acres, 3 roods, 35 perches;

Land rent: £35.10.0; Buildings £4.0.0; Total: £39.10.0.;

The other five names listed had no land, simply buildings (house) rent:

21b. Saml. Aungish. Lessor: John Glynn. Rent 15.0 (shillings);

21c. John McElhagan, Lessor: John Glynn. Rent 10.0

21d. Wm. McElhagan, Lessor: E.McI.H.Fulton. Rent 15.0

21e. Jas. McErland. Lessor: John Glynn. Rent 10.0

21f. Edward Mooney. Lessor: John Glynn. Rent 15.0

When I first saw this list I imagined a row of six cottages or perhaps a farmhouse plus a row of five, but when later I found the map on the internet it became clear that the houses are grouped in a 'random' way, no doubt determined by the lie of the land. John Glynn who lived in the main house (at least the house with the land) was also the Lessor for four of the cottages. Cottages one three and five are clearly larger than two and four. William McElhagan (=McIlhagga) lived in number three, paying 15/- rent. John McElhagan (=McIlhagga) was living 'next door' in number two, paying 10/-. In my earlier blog I raised the question whether they were father and son, or brothers. If they were brothers, and both sons of William McIlhagga and Agnes McCosh, they would have been 48 and 47 respectively. If they were father and son, as I believe, then in 1879 they would have been respectively 72 and 47.

Incidentally there were two nearby plots in the name of William Crawford, after whom William and Agnes's third son Crawford may have been named. I know no other possibility for this unusual first name. There was also a Joseph McCosh, possibly a nephew of Agnes. The other surnames of people occupying houses in this Plot 21 'hamlet' do not relate to the McIlhagga clan as far as I know. About ten minutes walk from these cottages there was a National School called Braiduile or Braidujle, exempt from paying rent, which not only means that the landlord, Lord Masserene, was 'community minded', but that all Ballycloghan children of that time had a basic education. Sadly no Braiduile School Records seem to have survived.

The Revision Books tell us what happened to these cottages. In 1897-8 the main house was still occupied by John Glynn. However, by 1905 David McCosh was in residence. The name of William McElhagan had disappeared by 1897. John McElhagan appears to have moved into one of the larger cottages as he is paying the higher rent in 1897, though in the subsequent three years he is replaced by John Glynn (1898), John Gavit (1899) and then David McCosh (1900). The final revision books of 1916 contain no clan names. By 1913 the two cottages originally occupied by William and John were in ruins. The main house was still occupied up to 1923. The National School site was 'vacant' and all the cottages had gone. So it looks as if William McElhagan died between 1879 and 1897, and John in 1897. In fact we know that John died in 1895 and that on his death record is says his father William was also deceased.

Children of two Second Marriages

2011-11-23T00:36:00.000-08:00

Mary Jane McIlhagga was born on 13th September 1882 to Samuel McIlhagga, Cardriver, and Sarah Jane, of 20 Browns Square, Belfast. As the record says that the Officiating Minister at the Church of Ireland was the Rev. Richard Irvine, we can assume that the second date given, 20th September, just a week later, was a baptism. The parish is called St. Stephen's. As I have explained in an earlier blog (1st April last) the probability is that Mary Jane was the only child of a second marriage, Samuel's first wife having died.

Ruth McIlhagga was born on 18th January 1881 and registered or baptised on 16th February. Her parents were George McIlhagga, a Salesman, and Elizabeth Patterson, of 97 Portingale Street, Belfast. George was also named as the 'witness'. Up to now I have had a record of Ruth born 1881, the fifth child of George McIlhagga and Elizabeth Robinson, Ruth dying the following year on 21 September 1882 at 59 Old Lodge Road, Belfast. I have wondered for some time whether there is a mistaken transcription confusing Robinson and Patterson? However, I have found a marriage date for George and Elizabeth Patterson on 1st February 1879. Was this George's second marriage? Yes, it must have been for I have also found the death of Elizabeth Robinson in 1877 aged 37. George would have needed someone to help bring up his four children, the last of whom, Eliza Ann had been born in 1875. So Ruth was a child of the second marriage.

Finally, to confirm what I have just written (!) I have also received the birth record of George McIlhagga on 29th November 1879, with baptism/registration on 11th February, to George McIlhagga, Salesman, and Elizabeth Patterson of 97 Portingale Street, Belfast. Again, George also signs as 'witness'.

Four more Birth Records

2011-11-22T00:45:00.000-08:00

William Robert McIlhagga was born 26th March 1904 and Baptised/Registered on 13th April. The records of the Ulster Historical Foundation tell us he was the son of Robert McIlhagga, a Baker, and Eliza Jane Neeson, of 48 Lawther Street, Belfast. Clearly this William Robert was the older brother of Daniel born in 1906 and whom I recorded in my last blog. The fact that their mother's maiden name differs between the two records, Erskine and Neeson, must I think mean that at least one of them is a mistranscription, unless of course there were two marriages. The witness's name on this occasion was Robert McIlhagga, presumably William Robert's father. This probably means he went to the Register Office to report the birth.

On 1st February 1903 we have another clan son born to another baker. John was born to Daniel McIlhagga and Harriett Jane McCaughtrey of 2 Singleton Street, Belfast. He was registered/baptised on 12th March. The name of the witness was Mary McCaughtrey, maybe Harriett Jane's sister or mother. My own Marriage Index spells Harriett's maiden name Harriet McAughtrey, when she and Daniel married on 12 April 1902 at Frederick Street Methodist Church. As far as I know John was the only child that Daniel and Harriet(t) had. Daniel was one of the eight children of John McIlhagga and Margaret Douglass. Daniel died two years after John was born, in Belfast Fever Hospital. Harriet(t) Jane remarried, to William Robert Girvin, four years later in 1909.

Samuel McIlhagga was born on 7th June 1891 and baptised/registered on 27th. His parents were James McIlhagga, a Flaxdresser, and Rebecca Johnston of 36 Disraeli Street, Belfast. James McIlhagga is also recorded as the 'witness'. Also Wilson McIlhagga was born on 30th December 1880 and baptised/registered on 3rd April 1881. His parents were also James McIlhagga and Rebecca Johnston, Presbyterians, of 59 Preston Street, Eglington, Belfast. As the name of Rev. J. Martin is on this record, I take it that this was a baptism, confirmed surely by the three month's gap after the birth. I wrote extensively about this family in my Blog of 21st September last, 'A Belfast Family'.

Two Comments and three Births

2011-11-21T05:35:00.000-08:00

This month I have had two comments submitted to this blog. One I have published after 'More Transatlantic Travel' on 4th October. The second was a request to trace a clan member who I assume is alive today. In accord with my policy of privacy for people alive, unless they give their permission for their name to be published, I have not (for the time being) made this comment public. Fortunately the sender, in Australia, included her name and address, so I have been able to send her what I hope is a helpful reply.

Also this month I have purchased a number of birth details, and I include the first three here. Henry, born 1 October 1906, baptised/registered (the record doesn't say which) 16 October, was son of William McIlhagga, Labourer and Mary Ann Boyd, of 7 Colchester Street, Belfast. There is a witness name of Mary Jane Morgan, unknown to me I'm afraid. William was the son of Henry McIlhagga and Agnes Gardiner. Mary Ann was the daughter of James Boyd and Jane McIlhagga. William therefore married his second cousin, once removed.

The common factor between Henry's baptism (or registration) and Elizabeth Ann's is that the same witness was present, Mary Jane Morgan. Elizabeth Ann was born on 11 June 1906 and registered/baptised on 3rd July. Her parents were William Hugh McIlhagga, also a Labourer, and Maggie Boyd. They lived at 35 Donegall Avenue, Belfast. William Hugh's parents were George McIlhagga and Elizabeth Anne Robinson. Margaret's were James Boyd and Jane McIlhagga. In this case William Hugh and Margaret were first cousins. Elizabeth Ann had an older sister Jane, and would have two younger brothers, James and William.

A third birth in 1906 was that of Daniel, born to Robert McIlhagga, a Baker, and Eliza Jane Erskine, on 26 August, registered/baptised on 15 September. They lived at 30 Lawther Street, Belfast. The witness's name was Eliza Jane McIlhagga. This of course may have been Daniel's mother signing her married name. Daniel had an older brother, William Robert born 1904, and was to have a younger brother Samuel, born 1910. According to the 1911 Census they had moved to nearby 25.1 Lawther Place, Belfast. At present I do not know to which wider family this group belongs.

The Killing Times

2011-11-15T04:54:00.000-08:00

Setting aside 'Celtic' and 'Medieval' times, our clan records in Scotland date from 1527 in Carrick, in the south west of Ayrshire. Michael Macylhaggow was probably born at the end of the 15th Century. The earliest recorded date in Ulster was 1669 when three men, inhabiting properties in the parish of Doagh Grange in County Antrim, find themselves paying the tax known as Hearth Money. The two with the same name, Alex and Allexander McIlhago were probably father and son, and the third, James McIlhaga, despite the o/a spelling variation, was probably another son or a cousin.

It is a reasonable assumption that these three crossed the North Channel some time in the 1660s, giving themselves time enough to own property with hearths. Presumably the younger two had been born in the 1640s and the father about 1620. Certainly the spelling McIlhago was around in Ayrshire at that time. Robert Mc'Ilhago appears there in 1597. Another Robert McIlhago witnessed his grandson's baptism at Ayr in 1685. He could be a contemporary of either of the younger Ulster men, or indeed the father. One has to add that, though it is a good Scots name, there are no other Alexanders of whom I know in the Ayrshire family, and the next James to appear does so in about 1740.

It is of interest to speculate why three clan members, possibly with their families (or else why were they living in three separate properties in 1669?) may have chosen to migrate to Ulster in that decade. The clue could well be in the nature of the times which have come to be known as the 'Killing Times'. It is a reasonable assumption that the three men in the Hearth Money Rolls were Presbyterians, for the great majority of later clan members in Ulster were. 1660 saw the Restoration of the Monarchy when Charles II came to the throne. After the previous twenty years when Covenanting Presbyterianism was in the ascendancy, there was a violent return to earlier persecution.

It began in 1660 with many arrests and executions, then in 1661-2 came the ejection of hundreds of Presbyterian ministers from their parishes, who then had to preach, on both sides of the Channel, in remote fields and hillsides. In 1665-6 the battles between the royalist troops and the Covenanting bands were fought fiercely, not least in the south west of Scotland before spreading to the east and to Edinburgh. Throughout December 1666 a spate of bloody public executions of Covenanters took place across Scotland, though at Irvine and Ayr the official hangman refused to carry out his task. Although in the early '60s the ejected Ulster ministers and many followers had crossed to Scotland to join the Covenanters there, in late 1666 and early 1667 Ulster again became the refuge for many, especially from the west of Scotland.

This in brief was the background to what was to become known as the 'Killing Times' and perhaps was the main reason why first James McElhago, a sea captain of Irvine, chose to spend the mid to late '60s in America, and also why Alex and Allexander McIlhago and James McIlhaga migrated just across the North Channel to Ulster and to reestablish themselves in the parish of Doagh Grange.

Three more 'Newsletter' Reports

2011-11-07T01:00:00.000-08:00

When I put 'M'Ilh...' in to the Index Search of The Belfast Newsletter, in addition to the six references to the ship 'Mary' and her master James McIlhago, it came up with three other references. The first, to Nathaniel McIlhago in 1770 of Island Magee, I have already written about on 1 September last. Its significance is that it takes us back a generation on that peninsula.

The second reference appears to be also in Island Magee. It is in the newspaper of 5 October 1798 (page 3) and simply reads, "notice wife = McIllhagoo, Jennet = Wilson, Jennet goods caution credit + Island Magee 3 = Wilson, Patrick". At present I don't understand whether everything after the first Jennet is relevant and I think I will have to look up the original paper when I next go to Belfast. Hopefully it will help us decide whose wife Jennet was. It may well be that she was the wife of Nathaniel.

The third reference was in the paper 6-9 November 1781 (page 3) and I believe it takes us back a generation in the townland of Maxwell's Walls in the parish of Connor. It is the intriguingly brief notice reading "Stray beef cow = McIllhago, William + Connor 8". It looks as if William, who must have been born before 1760 could have been the father or grandfather of the group of men farming in Maxwell's Walls early in the 19th Century, including Henry, John and William. Father or grandfather William must have had a problem with one of his cows! Again, we may have more information when we see the full report in the paper.

Captain James McIlhago

2011-11-06T01:22:00.000-07:00

On 1 September last I wrote about Robert McElhago, who with his whole crew was drowned when his ship capsised in Drogheda harbour. Robert was based in Irvine, on the west coast of Scotland, and was part of our Ayrshire clan family in the 18th Century. He drowned in December 1797 in the ship named 'Industry', and this tragedy was reported in the newspaper called the Belfast Newsletter, on 8th December.

I recently went back to the Newsletter Index and searched for references to 'M'Ilh...'. It brought up six more items of Port News ten years earlier than the shipwreck, between August 1786 and July 1787, all concerning a ship called Mary whose master was McIlhago. Was this Robert, with his surname spelled slightly differently? Fortunately one report, that for 25-29 May 1787 (p.2) included the ship's master's Christian name, James. The ship Mary was a cargo boat carrying a variety of goods, including salt, cork wood, fruit, salmon and linen cloth.

I have for some time believed that James McIlhago who in 1765 was involved in founding a library in the USA (see my blog of 7 Feb 2009) must have been a sea captain, and surely now we have found that indeed he was. He must have returned from the USA to Irvine, Ayrshire and taken over the 'Mary'. The name of the ship might well indicate that either his mother or his wife's name was Mary, though I have to say that we have no proof that he ever married. My belief is that he was an uncle of the Robert who drowned in 1797.

What happened to the children?

2011-11-05T05:15:00.000-07:00

I had an 'out of the blue' piece of information yesterday, for which I am very grateful. It was from someone searching The Belfast Newsletter for 1840 and came across the announcement of a marriage between John Fullerton and Miss McIlhaga, both of Islandmagee. An advanced search produced no more information. The only 'Miss McIlhaga' of the right age in Island Magee was probably the Mary of whom I wrote in my blog yesterday, the Mary who was a school pupil 1826-31. She could have been born about 1820, so by 1840 would have been twenty-ish. The odd thing about this information is that I do have a record of a marriage which took place in Connor Church of Ireland on 8th Jan 1872 of a Miss McIlhagga (either Margaret or Mary), daughter of James and Mary Anne Gardner, to a John Fullerton, son of John Fullerton. Now of course it could be that the John Fullerton who married in 1840 was the father and the John Fullerton who married in 1872 was the son. I wonder.

If this information has made me ask what happened to Mary McIlhaggo who was in the Island Magee school in about 1830, I must also ask what happened to her 'brother', William McIlhago. On the assumption that he was a year or two older than Mary (simply because his name is listed first), we can say he might have been born around 1815. In fact we do know what happened to him. His name is on a gravestone in Ballypriormore churchyard. He was actually born in 1816 and he died aged 23 in 1839, son of Samuel and Ellen McIlhaggo. Here I think is confirmation that William and Mary were brother and sister.

Island Magee Pre-National School

2011-11-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

I have been blogging about some things I have found in Dixon Donaldson's History of Island Magee, and I come to the last point of interest. It is a Roll of Pupils enrolled in the Island School during the years 1826 and 1831. This includes two children who are said to live in the townland of Lower Kilcoan, namely Wm. McIlhago and Mary McIlhaggo. Despite the difference in surname spelling there is no reason to think they are not siblings. I must presume that William and Mary were the children of Samuel McIlhaggo and Ellon McWhinney.

In addition to the McIlhag(g)o siblings, of particular interest to us also are three pupils in Carnspindle, two in Gransha, one in Ballymuildre, two in Balle, one in Ballymoney and one in Ballycronan, any of which could relate through future marriage, though this has yet to be demonstrated. The surnames are simply ones which appear to have clan links. They are, Carnspindle: And., Thos. and Saml. Mawhinney; Gransha: Jenny Napier and Hy Brennan; Ballymuildre: Abby Brennan; Balle: John and David Aiken; Ballymoney: James Forsythe; and in Ballycronan: Robert Hay.

The school teacher was John Montgomery. I quote Dixon Donaldson: 'John Montgomery was one of the earliest of the.. pre-national teachers... Born in 1783.. (he was brought up on a) farm at Brownsbay... In those days it was the custom for rural schoolmasters to move about the country from house to house giving a little instruction to individual pupils on their rounds; sometimes, when a suitable room could be found, he resided at that house for several days together, the scholars in the vicinity coming in the day time, and grown-ups attending in the fore-suppers to take advantage of his presence in their neighbourhood to improve their own scant education..... It is also known that at a later period he occupied premises as a schoolhouse on the farmstead of Betty Huggan in the townland of Drumgurland..'.

John Montgomery was also a Justice of the Peace and in the Journal he kept there is a declaration as follows: 'M - M - of Islandmagee cometh before me, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace in and for the said County [of Antrim] and maketh oath on the Holy Evangelists and saith that she is pregnant with child, and that the father of the said child is R - T - of Islandmagee, and none else'. Dated April 5th 1831. Might this be Mary McIlhaggo? Could the date have been right? By my reckoning she might have been as young as twelve at the time. Or could it have referred to the Mary who had a son John, named in the Will of Samuel McIlhagga who died in 1818? Or might this oath refer to Margaret Montgomery, John Montgomery's own daughter, who married a Robert Templeton? Certainly the initials are right.

Executor Murphy

2011-11-03T02:18:00.000-07:00

On 19 November 2009 I wrote about the 1818 Will of Samuel McIlhagga of Island Magee. There is no original in existence and the transcript I received from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) several years ago not only had many gaps in it but was in parts a faded copy. On my recent visit to PRONI I was able to examine the transcript and at least confirm what some of the faded words were. Sadly there are no additions which add anything of substance to my knowledge. However it is of interest to note that one of the named executors was the Revd. John Murphy and I have learned from reading Dixon Donaldson's History of Island Magee that John Murphy was the Presbyterian Minister of Island Magee, ordained there on 15th August 1789. At least this confirms what I have been assuming, though for which I have had no 'proof', that the McIlhaggas of Island Magee were Scots Presbyterians.

Donaldson has a column about John Murphy which includes the information that he was born in Newtown-Limervady. It appears that he did not attend the meetings of the Church Synod too frequently, and in 1821 the Synod ordered the Presbytery of Templepatrick to enquire into his conduct, the result of which was that they found no grounds of accusation. However three years later the Presbytery did suspend Mr. Murphy for being intoxicated at the installation of the minister of Carrickfergus! He was I'm pleased to say reinstated and in 1828 when over 70 years of age he retired. He died in 1842 when 78 years old, as the Belfast Newsletter recorded, 'a worthy and esteemed minister'.

United Irishmen

2011-11-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

Formed in Belfast in 1791 The United Irishmen was formed to get equal Parliamentary representation for all people in Ireland. However, it soon became a 'Republican' Movement, demanding Home Rule for Ireland, and was opposed by the Government. By 1798 the Government had effectively quashed any possibility of insurrection, including winning the 'Battle of Antrim', an attack on the town on 7th June of that year. Fifty to sixty men from middle and lower Island Magee took part. They had assembled at the foot of Knowhead brae, and had set off in marching order. However, we have the following vignette recorded by Dixon Donaldson in his History of Island Magee:

As the company had just disappeared from view, a man, named Andrew McIlhagga was seen hurrying forward from the opposite direction, carrying over his shoulder a long thorn stick to which he had tied one of the blades of a pair of sheep shears, while the other blade, stuck in his belt, "might come in handy", as he said, "at close quarters". While pausing to get his breath, an old "lady of the road", who had been an onlooker, took off her garters and tied the man's trousers below the knee, which, she remarked, would enable him to run easier. She then dismissed him with - "Noo, stretcht yer shanks tae the road and see and fecht for ye're wife and waens the day ma man".

This colourful story may tell us something about the men who determined to 'take' the important town of Antrim, one of whom was for some reason late in joining them, but our main interest is in asking what it might tell us about our clan? Here is a man of whom I have not heard before, who appears to be from middle or lower Island Magee, one Andrew McIlhagga - and note with interest our present-day spelling of his surname. If the woman who lost her garters actually knew him then it appears that he had a wife and children. In any case he was old enough to fight and was possibly in his mid-twenties. If so, he would have been born about 1760-65. He could well have been a son of Nathaniel McIllhago who seems to have relinquished his land lease in Ballytober in 1770, so providing us with a name for a generation between him and siblings James and Samuel, though alternatively he could have been a son of Samuel. Perhaps he was from a separate, though related family on Island Magee or on the nearby 'mainland'.

18th Century Tenancy

2011-11-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

About a year ago (25 Sep 2010) I wrote about an advertisement that was in the Belfast Newsletter on 13 February 1770 which had taken me back a generation on Island Magee. It referred, among other people, to 'McIlhago, Nathaniel' whose lease on land owned by Viscount Dungannon was coming to an end. Nathaniel was releasing a tenancy in the townland of Ballytober. I had not come across a Nathaniel in Island Magee so wondered whether he might be the Nathan McIlhaggar born about 1750-58 in Carnmoney. However, the Island Magee tenants about whom I do know rather indicate that Nathaniel was the father of siblings Samuel and James who had later tenancies, giving Nathaniel a probable birth date as early as 1720-30.

For the past twelve months I have had it in mind to find a book called History of IslandMagee by Dixon Donaldson and one of my aims on my recent visit to Northern Ireland was to find it in the Linen Hall Library. Unfortunately I couldn't fit that into my schedule so I have cut my losses and purchased a paperback facsimile of the book published in 1927. Interestingly in an early chapter Donaldson mentions the Belfast Newsletter advertisement of 1770 without any detail. However, in Article XVI (Chapter 16, page 50) he has a full reference to the newspaper's 'Notice relating to the Islandmagee Tenantry...':

"Out of Lease and to be let for Terms of Years, a large Tract of Land now in the Occupation of the under-named Tenants in Island Magee and County of Antrim. The Lands lie in the rich Corn Country and the Soil is remarkable for producing all Kinds of Grain, such as Wheat, Barley, Beans, Pease, and most excellent Oats. There is a great Plenty of Limestone in or contiguous to every Holding and the whole being nearly surrounded by the Sea, Coals are to be had at a moderate expence; moreover, there are constant Opportunities, in all Seasons, of Water Carriage from the fine Harbour of Larne which adjoins the said Island of carrying Commodities to Belfast and other Markets abroad. Proposals for any of the said Lands may be immediately made to the Lord Viscount Dungannon in Dublin, or to Edward Brice Esq.; in Belfast, who can give all necessary Information, and will direct an understanding Person on the Spot, to show the Grounds. The Proposals shall be kept secret, and shall be answered before the 25th of March. Dated this 5th February, 1770"

The list following includes, in the townland of Ballytober, Nathaniel McIllhago with 7 acres 1 rood 20 perches. If a lease was coming to an end in 1770, when was it taken up? The only earler list of names relating to Island Magee is that of people paying Hearth Money in 1669 which does not include any of our clan, so at some time between 1670 and 1770 Nathaniel McIllhago would have taken over a tenancy, at a guess, perhaps in about 1740-50. The list of people after that of the Tenants is a list of inhabitants of people founding a Christian Congregation (a 'Meeting House', so I take it Presbyterian) in 1772. Sadly there is no clan name there which makes me think that Nathaniel McIllhago did not renew his tenancy in 1770.

Northern Ireland Will Index

2011-10-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

One of the things I did on my recent visit to PRONI, Belfast, was to check the Northern Ireland Will Calendar and found the following were the last five recorded:

2002 Feb 22 (Probate) Elizabeth McIlhagga, widow, died 14 Dec 2001;

2002 Sep 16 (Probate) Jeanie McIlhagga, widow, died 25 Jun 2002;

1996 (Probate) George Edward McIlhagger, died 15 Apr 1996;

1995 Mar 28 (Probate) Jessie Elizabeth McIlhagga, died 21 Jan 1995;

1993 Aug 02 (Probate) David Sherwood McIlhagger, died 13 May 1993.

The Will Calendar foes give more detail, including address, occupation (sometimes), place of death registration and amount of effects.

Land Tenure

2011-10-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

The earliest record I have of our clan having become tenants of land or of property in the Province of Ulster is in the mid-17th Century listing of the Hearth Money Rolls. These are followed in the mid-18th Century with some indentures on the Island of Magee, renting from Lord Dungannon. The next records are those listed in the Tithe Applotment Books of the 1820s and 1830s, particularly in the townlands of Ballycloghan and Eglish in the parish of Skerry. These are then followed by the records of the major land valuation in the 1860s by Griffith and as far as we are concerned are wider spread though still only in the part of the County of Antrim approximately between Larne and Ballymena.

We find the clan in four parishes in 'Griffith', two rural with 10 references in Connor and 7 in Skerry, and two each in the towns of Larne and Ballymena. The two Larne references may go back to earlier records of people in Islandmagee which is nearby. They refer to William McHaggar in 1861 in the parish of Ballynure, townland of Clementshill who rented a house and garden of 15 perches from Robert Parkhill, paying 2/- for the land and 13/- for the house. The second 1861 Larne reference is to George McIlhaigh renting a house, office, yard and garden in Newton Street, Townparks, of 23 perches to one Daniel McGonnell, who paid him 10/- for the land and £11.0.0 for the buildings. The first Ballymena reference is to the parish of Ahoghill, townland Tullaghgarley where in 1862 William McIlhagel rented a house for £1.5.0 from Samuel Curry. The second Ballymena reference is to Crawford McIltaggart renting a house and small garden for £1.10.0 at 6 Railway Street, Harryville in the townland of Ballykeel, in the parish of Ballyclug, from his landlord, Thomas Casement. Each of these four has its interest which I will pursue at another time. Do the Larne ones hark back to Islandmagee? Is the property in Townparks a business? Both Tullaghgarley and Harryville crop up in the 20th Century records, so is there perhaps a century of continuous occupation in Ballymena?

When we come to the rural parishes of Connor and Skerry, the basic distinction has to be made between those who rented land and property and those who just rented a house. We have six men who clearly were tenants farming, four in Connor all in the townland of Maxwell's Walls and two in Skerry, one in Kinbally and one in Rathkenny. We have seven people, 6 men and one woman, who are renting a house only, three in the parish of Connor, one each in the townlands of Slaght, Castlegore and Ballymuckvea; and four in the parish of Skerry, two each in the townlands of Killygore and Ballycloghan.

Of the two renting land and property in Skerry I have written about in my last blog, namely James McElhagan in Kinbally and Robert McElhag in Rathkenny. The four in Maxwell's Walls, Connor, were John, William and Henry McElhagga and John McElhaggan, senior, presumably the father of the other John, and may be of William and Henry also. The four 'house only' in Skerry I have written about in my last blog, John and William McElhagan in Ballycloghan and John and Mary McElhagan in Killygore. The three in Connor were James McHaggar in Slaght townland and Francis McIlhagga in both Castlegore and Ballymuckvea. Did Francis have two houses or were there two Francises?

The above is only a summary of Griffith Valuation, and from our clan's perspective it needs further analysis, which I will attempt as time permits, as do any references in subsequent Griffith Revision Volumes.

Griffiths Revisited

2011-10-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

Ballycloghan Plot 21

My personal genealogical brick wall surrounds my great-great-grandfather William McIlhagga. On my recent visit to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI, in its wonderful new building in Belfast's Titanic Quarter) and having had the chance to do a bit more work on Griffith's land and property valuation, I will attempt yet another summary of the situation. First, all the references to William indicate that he lived all his married, working and retirement life in the townland of Ballycloghan, in the parish of Skerry, ,just north of the town of Broughshane in central County Antrim. I think he married about 1830 possibly in Clogh where unfortunately the marriage records for the period have been destroyed. His wife Agnes McCosh died in 1844 the year their eighth child was born. The birth and baptism records of his children call him either a Weaver or a Farmer or a Labourer. This probably means that he worked on his own smallholding or worked for another tenant farmer and also had a Weaving loom in his own house. The three records relevant to this are first an entry in the Tithe Applotment Books of 1828-37, second the Griffiths Valuation of 1862 and third any references in subsequent Revision Books kept by the land owner.

In 1828 there were twenty-four small-holding plots in Ballycloghan of which William McIlhaggo had one of modest size, 2 acres, 3 roods and 16 perches. He paid a rent of £2.12.8 in addition to which he paid a tithe of 3/2d. He also had a larger plot of 7 acres and 2 roods in the adjacent townland of Eglish. To the best of my knowledge there is just one other clan member living and working locally at that time, namely James in nearby 'Kenbilly'. It is an open question how James and William relate to one another. By the time we come to the Griffiths Valuation William had not only married and had a family, but three of the six children had been married, William and John in 1851, William on the 14th July and John on the 15th and Jane in 1854.

There were no fewer than six clan names in Griffiths Valuation for the parish of Skerry. It may be a reasonable assumption that all six were members of the same family. Two were in Ballycloughan, two in Killygore, one in Rathkenny and one in Kinbally. The family name is recorded in five cases as McElhagan and in two in the shortened form of McElhag. The one in Kinbally which I'm sure is the same as the 1828 Kenbilly one is still renting in the name of James, though recorded with the prefix 'Rep.', presumably meaning that James paid his rent through a representative, maybe because age had overtaken him. He still had a house, offices and land totalling 3 acres, 2 roods and 15 perches for which he paid £2.15.0 for the land and 10/- for the house. House rents ranged from 5/- (one) to 10/- (three) to 15/- (one) to £1.0.0. (one), so James's was on the small side. His landlord was John W. Fulton.

If we now move to Ballycloghan we find two men named, William whom we may assume was the same William as 1828, who by 1862 would have been at least 55. He was in a 15/- house but no longer had any land. Maybe the potato famine had defeated him and he was relying on whatever weaving he could do. He certainly described himself as a Weaver in 1851 at his sons William's and John's marriages, though three years later at Jane's he is a Farmer. William's landlord was Elizabeth Glynn. She was also landlord to the second clan member in Ballycloghan, John who is living in a smaller 10/- house, which from the map references appears to be next door to William. In fact, as an enlargement of the above map shows, there were six houses grouped together in the Quarrytown area of Ballycloghan, none of the other tenants having any apparent relationship to William or John.

Now, who was this additional John living in the smaller house? William and Agnes' second son was John, born in 1832. He would have been 30 and married to Mary Stewart for eleven years. They and their first four children in fact migrated to Greenock, Scotland, where they had their fifth child on 27 November 1862. They must have left earlier that year if they were the family living next door to William. But no they weren't! When I was in PRONI I was able to examine the Griffiths Revision books for Ballycloghan, and both William and John were in the same group of houses, paying the same rents in 1877, fifteen years later! In fact John was still there in 1897, having moved to one of the larger houses, though his name has been deleted by 1900. By 1897 the name of William had disappeared and by 1913 both houses are recorded as being in ruins. Just one of the six was left occupied by 1923, the latest date I could examine. If John was not William's son, was he perhaps his brother? It is a possibility. By 1877 William would have been 70+ and must have died before 1897. Presumably John was younger.

If however we now move south west from Ballycloghan approximately a mile to the townlands of Killygore and Rathkenny, just north of Ballymena, we meet further dilemmas to complicate our story. In Killygore we find both a male and a female renting separate houses, though neither renting any land. Mary McElhagan was renting a small house for 10/- in 1862. The man is a second John! He too rents a house only but for the much larger sum of £1.0.0. Are both Mary and John 'retired'? And if so are either or both of them the parents of William and/or John of Ballycloghan? Surely both were not their parents or they would have been living together? If we look at the naming pattern of the children of William and Agnes (McCosh) we find that the second daughter is Mary, the one usually named after the paternal grandmother. So perhaps Mary in Killygore was the mother of William and John in Ballycloghan. But, one may ask, where does that leave James of Kinbally? Presumably not as the father of William and John! Sadly the 1862 maps of Killygore and of Rathkenny, unlike those of Ballycloghan and Kinbally do not have the plot numbers and the houses drawn, so we cannot deduce anything from them.

Finally we come to the man who is renting a large plot of land in Rathkenny, namely 16 acres, 2 roods and 28 perches. It is costing him the large sum of £8/5/0. He was Robert McElhag. and his landlord was the Revd. William C. O'Neill. The map references indicate that there is a house on the plot but that Robert did not live in it. He was in fact its landlord and was recouping a (low) rent of 5/- from a John Aull. But Robert must have been living somewhere. Rathkenny is immediately adjacent to Killygore, so is Robert living with Mary, whose husband he is - in which case is Robert the father of William and John? I think this somewhat unlikely. Why is Mary's house not in Robert's name, and why is a man of an earlier generation still farming such a large acreage? It is more likely that Robert was a son of John of Killygore, and was sharing the very large house that was in John's name, and no doubt contributing towards its rent.

Do the above considerations give us a possible extension to what I have heretofore referred to as the Ballycloghan family? William, my g-g-grandfather would have had a brother John (of Ballycloghan). Their mother would have been Mary (of Killygore). She would have been married to a McIlhagga not named above, but whose name was probably William for whom the eldest son of William and Agnes was named. He would have had a brother John (of Killygore) who had a son Robert (of Rathkenny). Robert would therefore have been a cousin of William and John. I have to admit that such a scenario is very tentative, but it is a possibility. Perhaps I have loosened a few bricks in my brick wall, but that is all. I think I'll have to go back and spend a lot more time in PRONI.

Colman Ella of Glenelly

2011-10-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

Ten days ago I was on a week's course on Genealogy and Migration organised by the Ulster Historical Foundation. We were based in Omagh in County Tyrone. One day we went into the Sperrin Mountains and at one point passed a bend in the river in the Valley of Glenelly where there was a rectangular mound. A local historian claimed it was the burial place of their 'own' Celtic saint. I pricked up my ears when the siant turned out to be Colman Ella about whom I had written briefly in my blog of 11 February 2009.

In a new Dictionary of Irish Saints which I was shown by a visiting scholar there are entries for both Colman Ella and Mochuda which refer to the link the one had with the other. It isn't clear whether this link was made in the Monastic Community at Rachan in the Irish Midlands particularly associated with Colman, or in Lismore, County Waterford, where Mochuda eventually settled. However, this dictionary confirmation of the link does support the theory I propounded in that earlier blog, that the etymological link between the names Mochuda and McIlhagga may have been taken by Colman Ella in 'Celtic' times from Ireland to Scotland where Colman Ella's name is found in the place names of both Colmonell in Ayrshire and Kilcolmonell in Kintyre. It was in Colmonell in Ayrshire that our clan name appeared in the 16th Century in its Anglicised form.

It is as background to this association that it is of interest to note the tradition I found in County Tyrone. The place of Colman Ella's supposed burial, and indeed birth, is called Goles. The local history makes something of the fact that when in a disastrous cloudburst and flood that devastated Goles in July 1690, when as many as 300 people perished, it would appear that no damage was done to that mound over the saint's grave. A manuscript in Trinity College, Dublin, on the life of Colman Ella states that a grant of land was given to him in about 580 through the influence of St. Columcille (St. Columba) where the church of Lynally in County Offally was founded, and hence the title by which Colman Ella of Lynally is known. It is said that Colman was descended on his paternal side from the chieftain Ui Niall and on his maternal side from the lineage of cinel canal, his mother being a sister of Columcille. Both these lines were of noble Irish families. Like all 'big' missionaries Colman travelled a great deal in both Ireland and Scotland, hence his links with Ayrshire and Kintyre, both made when he was journeying to or from Iona where St. Columba founded his monastic community.

U.S. 1910 Census 'stray'?

2011-10-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

I have written before about the Antrim family who emigrated to Jamestown, Pennsylvania possibly in the 1850s. This was not to the original Jamestown colony in Virginia which now is an archeological and heritage site, but to the Jamestown in north-west Pennsylvania on the border of Ohio State. I have now come across an entry in the 1910 US Census which may well add a couple of generations to the family tree which began in Newtoncromelin and Lisnacrogher and Limavallaghan, County Antrim, Ireland.

The entry is for a woman with the odd variation of our surname, Hanna Mcelhaegg, a widow. She was born in Ohio in 1870 and in 1910 was living with her daughter and son-in-law and grandson in New Castle Ward 2, Lawrence, Pennsylvania. She was widowed and the daughter of a father born in Ohio and a mother in Pennsylvania. The family with whom she was living was Hugh and Mavis E. McCain and 11 month old Eugene R. McCain. Hugh was 28 and Mavis 18. McElhaegg had to have been Hanna's married name, and hence Mavis's surname. Who was Hanna's husband, who we assume had died before 1910? There is only one male of the clan who was of her generation, namely William B. McElhager, son of James an Eliza (?nee Rogers). James and Eliza had three daughters, one of whom. Sarah, married a James Eugene Wertman. The repetition of the unusual name Eugene for the McCain's baby surely indicates a family connection. He would have been named after his great-uncle by marriage. It is also possible that his second name 'R' was Rogers, for his great-grandmother. This Census record is the only evidence I have that William B. might have been married. It is also possible that Mavis's second name 'E' might have been Ella, one of the sisters of her father.

More Transatlantic Travel

2011-10-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

I am continuing to look at the Immigration and Travel results on 'Ancestry' under 'UK Incoming Passenger Lists' and comparing with other lists I have.

Harry, born 1879 arrived from New York to Liverpool on 12 August 1916. There is a Harry born 1879 who arrived at Ellis Island in 1919. Both could be Harry son of William James and Ruth (nee Woods) McIlhagga who married Sara Browne in February 1920. Maybe he came back from New York to get married. There is another Harry, or rather Henry, born 1879 who was son of John and Eliza (nee McCullough) McIlhagga. However, I favour identifying with the first Harry on the slender evidence of him being recorded as Harry rather than Henry and his return date being six months before his marriage, though I have to say I have no firm evidence of either Harry or Henry having emigrated.

My next person to record from the Migration and Travel lists is Annie McIlhagga, born 1880/1 from Ballymena who in 1947 when she was about 66 did the return journey from New York to Southampton, arriving in England on 4th July. It would appear that she was unmarried and travelled alone.

Third, the name Catherine appears seven times and Katherine once. I suspect all these references are to the same person. So who was this well-travelled woman who seven times crossed the Atlantic to and from the USA and once to Canada? Despite a discrepancy of one month between the two full records of her birth date, my guess is that she was Catherine McCulloch McIlhagga (once spelled McIllhagga), the sixth child and third daughter of James McIlhagga and Johanna McCulloch, who was born in the mid 1880s.

It looks as if her first double trip may have been in 1916 when she was 30, and it is very likely that this was a visit 'home' to Scotland and that she therefore emigrated earlier. In the 1901 Census she was a 15 year old Mill Worker and the probability is that she went to the USA in her mid-20s, probably after her father died in 1913. We know that she settled in New York because when her younger brother James emigrated in 1922 he gave his sister's address of 730 Main Street, Buffalo, New York, as his destination. Catherine made the trip to Scotland in 1927, 1933, 1934 and finally in 1957 when she was 71 years old. This was the journey she made via Canada when she returned. By 1948 her sister Ina was also living in New York. Ina had married James Strathearn, though it looks as if Catherine remained unmarried. At some point, perhaps when she considered she had 'retired', Catherine migrated south to the warmer climes of Florida where in 1976 at the great age of 89 she died at Plant City, Hillsborough, where she is buried.

Three 'floating' nuclear families

2011-10-03T00:21:00.000-07:00

In the indexes I have compiled I have two or three men with the name Francis but until now none recorded as Frank. An Individual Record on the IGI, of the birth somewhere in Ireland, of Agnes on 4th Dec 1874, records the names of her parents as Frank McIlhaggar and Mary Jane Brown. I have no idea where this nuclear family fits in to any family tree and would be delighted to hear from anyone who does.

A second person for whom the IGI uses the surname spelling McIlhaggar is Eliza Ann who in the 1870s had several children as a single mother, including James (1872), Andrew (1875), William John (1879) and Mary Jane (1879). At present I cannot find a family into which any of these individuals fit. I assume that William John and Mary Jane were twins.

A third 'no family' person is Margaret McIlhago, father Henry a farmer, who married George McClean on 24 May 1849. She was from Kirkinriola, County Antrim, which is just north of Ballymena. George's father was James, a Labourer. Margaret was probably born in the mid 1820s. Again at present I have no positive clue which would enable me to fit Margaret into a wider family. They married at First Presbyterian Church, Ballymena, Margaret's surname is also recorded as McIlhaga. Both she and George gave their occupation as 'Servant'. Their witnesses were John McBride and William Cairns.

What was it like Grandad?

2011-10-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

I believe that at the recent National Family History Fair in Newcastle, England, one of the speakers urged the members of his audience to record something of their own lives for future generations. This is something I have always meant to do but have kept procrastinating. How many times have I started to keep a diary and given up after a short time! However, better late than never! One of my grandsons recently asked me to contribute to his school history project by telling him what it was like during the second World War. The following four paragraphs is what I sent him. It occurs to me that it would be a great contribution to this blog if some of its readers would put pen to paper and send me a paragraph or two or three about some aspect of their early (or just earlier) lives - please!

I was only 6 when the Second World War broke out, so it's difficult to remember things in order. I lived in Wallasey on the River Mersey opposite Liverpool, which was one of the Industrial places that the Germans wanted to destroy, so there was a lot of bombing, which always took place at night. The biggest 'blitz' was in 1941. We could hear the planes approaching from the south and hoped they would miss us. There would be an air-raid siren, a very loud wailing noise which would mean that everyone ran for shelter. People built brick shelters (called Anderson Shelters) in their gardens where we would wait for the 'All-clear' siren, a long single note. The shelters were dark and smelt damp. If there was no shelter available we would hide under the stairs or even under a table for some protection. The next day we would go outside to see if we could see any bomb damage. Sometimes whole houses or whole streets were destroyed. We were very lucky. Our house was never hit. It was on a ridge and after the 'all-clear' you could go outside and look towards Liverpool where the sky was all red with the burning buildings.

Among the things I remember were the Barrage Balloons, like huge Elephants in the sky. I imagined they were somehow there to catch low-flying aircraft or to get them to avoid the area where they were moored by long steel ropes. We were all issued with gas-masks in case we were attacked by gas bombs, We had to carry them with us in a cardboard box slung over our shoulders and we had to practice putting them on. Your chin went in first, then you pulled the mask over your face. You could look through an oval window, until it steamed up. I hated their smell of rubber, and thought they made breathing difficult. We all had Ration Books with tear-out tokens to get all the basic foods. There was a shortage of a lot of things and I was very surprised one day when my father came home from work. He'd visited a farmer who had given him half a pig, which we hung in the pantry. I think it was probably illegal to have it, and we couldn't tell anyone we had it.

My father was a Jute Merchant and his office and factory were in the centre of Liverpool. He often went on the ferry boat across the Mersey until the two boats, the Daffodil and the Iris, disappeared to help the War in the North Sea. After the war they came back and were allowed to be called the Royal Daffodil and the Royal Iris for the good work they had done. At night we had to put blackout material on all the windows so that planes couldn't see us and make us a target. Often my father would then go out as a 'fire-watcher' with the ARP (Air Raid Precautions). He might be stationed on the top of a building and when they saw a fire starting (where a bomb had fallen) they could tell the police and fire service quickly, and go and help to rescue people. The ARP was trained to help with casualties. In the worst blitz there were 300 casualties in Wallasey in one night, and the next day there was no water. Rubble was everywhere and people had to be careful to avoid unexploded bombs.

A lot of children were evacuated to places of safety. I think a lot from Wallasey went to the country villages in the Wirral and North Wales. We were not evacuated until one night my father's office was bombed and he and his partner had nowhere to work. They decided that our family (the four of us) would go and share his partner's house near Southport, which was a safe place on the Lancashire coast. So for a time we went to live in this lovely old farmhouse which had its own swimming pool and lots of grounds to play in. You could walk from the house through some woods on to a golf course then down to the sea. After a few months we were able to go home to Wallasey. Except for that time I don't remember school being interupted. By the end of the war I had started Secondary School (Wallasey Grammar School) and had to cycle nearly three miles each way twice a day, morning and afternoon. In 1945 when the war was over there were great celebrations, with parades in the streets, and at last we could get things which no one had seen during the war, like sweets and bananas!

A Belfast Family

2011-09-21T04:27:00.000-07:00

A descendant of a Belfast family has written to me for help and to offer her information. I have a number of family trees which have only a very few people on them and I try very hard to find wider links in order to expand them and to link them with other trees. This is what has happened with this Belfast family to a limited degree, though there must be further avenues to explore which may be known to readers of this blog. Please get in touch.

Interestingly my correspondent's information about no fewer than six siblings included three variations of our surname, McIlhaga, McIlhaggo and McIlhagga, and I have another to add myself. The key family which for my correspondent provides the progenitors, James McIlhaga and Rebecca Johnston, had these six children. When I compared the clan indexes I have compiled on births and marriages, and also the documents I have collected, I found that with a high level of probability I could take this family back a generation, albeit only to a man who was born about 1830.

I reckon that James' father was Nathaniel McIlhage who in about 1854 married Ellen. At this stage I do not know where Nathaniel was born, nor do I know Ellen's maiden surname. Below I will reveal how I know her first name. I was not surprised to find the name Nathaniel, partly because it appears in several other trees, and particularly because one of James' children was given the name. And I was not surprised to find a Nathaniel-Ellen marriage for one of the 'founding' marriages in another tree, that from Carnmoney, is of Nathan McIlhaggar to Ellen Wilson in 1830. Now another of James' children was named Wilson, which presumably comes from an ancestor's surname, so it may be that Ellen's Maiden Surname was also Wilson. I realise this would be a coincidence, though the fact that the two marriages are a generation apart makes me ask whether there might be a link that as yet I haven't found.

In 1872 Nathaniel senior was employed as a Gate-keeper, though I don't know where. He and Ellen had (at least) three children, James, Jane and Ellen. James must have married Rebecca Johnston in about 1877 and they had six children, Robert James McIlhaggo born in the Oct-Dec quarter of 1878, Wilson McIlhagga in 1880, Nathaniel McIlhaggo born 2 Feb 1883, baptised 24 February, Eleanor McIlhagga of 20 Liffey Street, Belfast, born 23 December 1885, Jane McIlhaga born 10 Jan 1889, baptised 9th February and Samuel McIlhagga born 7 June 1891 and baptised 27 June. Now Rebecca, daughter of Robert Johnston, a ship's carpenter, had a brother John who married James' sister Jane. So we have a brother and sister marrying a sister and brother, a McIlhagga-Johnston double linking. Rebecca was a witness at John and Jane's marriage while she was still Rebecca Johnston. John and Jane in fact married on 21st July 1873 at Eglinton Presbyterian Church, Jane being still a minor, giving her a birth year of about 1857. John was probably four or five years older. James McIlhage (the fourth spelling!) was John's witness. In 1873 John called himself a Spinning Master. I haven't yet researched whether John and Jane had any children, though one suspects that a reason for a minor getting married might well have been a pregnancy.

James McIlhaga is variously described as a Flax Dresser, A Hackler and a Rougher. Taking his children in order, Robert James at present I know nothing more about. Wilson appears in the 1901 Census, surname McIlhaggo, aged 20, boarding with David Jamison and family in Hillview Street, Belfast. As yet I haven't discovered a family relatiuonship. Wilson was a Sawyer in a factory. Next we come to Nathaniel, whose baptism at 41 Silvio Street, Belfast, gives us an occupation for his father. When Nathaniel was nineteen he joined the Army and from 2 June 1902 to 1 Jun 1908 he was serving with the Royal Irish Rifles, being discharged from what was clearly a six-year engagement, from the 3rd Batallion. In the 1901 Census Nathaniel was boarding with a Hinton family at 13 Fingall Street, Shankill, listed as 'nephew'. If we go back a generation we discover this is no euphamism. Nathaniel senior's other child was Ellen born about 1851. She was in fact the eldest, with James in the middle and Jane the youngest. Ellen married William John Hinton on 5 January 1872 also at Eglinton Presbyterian Church, hence making Nathaniel junior their nephew.

After discharge from 'The Rifles', in the 1911 Census we find Nathaniel junior having returned to live with the Hintons, now at 16 Linwood Street. Belfast. In 1911 he claimed to be Church of Ireland, unlike his siblings who were all Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Perhaps this was the influence of his time in the army. His 1901 Mill working had become 1911 Labouring. One of the documents I have in my possession is a Pension Application by Ellen in 1917 when she lived at 30 Rathlin Street, Crumlin Road, Belfast. Interestingly the application is made in her maiden name of McIlhaga, and on it she declares the name of her mother to be also Ellen, which is how I know that Nathaniel senior married an Ellen. In 1917 she was living in Mountpottinger Street, Ballymacarrett, Belfast. (The Pension Application also gives her married name of Hinton). Her husband, William John was, like James, a Flax Dresser. They had six children, Sarah, Ellen, Archiebald, William, Lizzie and Rebecca.

I have noted that Wilson lodged with the Jamisons. Interestingly in 1912, as revealed by the Ulster Covenant, David Jamison and his wife Sarah were living at 33 Linwood Street, Belfast, and next door at 31 there was Jane Robinson (nee McIlhaga), though there is no mention of Thomas Robinson in the Covenant. They must have been living almost opposite the Hintons and Nathaniel who were at number 16. Jane McIlhaga and Thomas Robinson married on 8 April 1908 at Clifton Park Congregational Church, and in the 1911 Census called themselves Congregationalists. In 1908 Thomas was, like his father James, a Coal Merchant at 6 Waterproof Street, Belfast, moving by 1911 to 20 Ballymena Street. Jane in 1908 gave the same address that her nephew Samuel had been born at 17 years before, 50 Rose Mount Street, Belfast. To the best of my knowledge Thomas and Jane had three children, Jane, Thomas and Nathaniel. My correspondent from this family is descended from Thomas. Most interestingly she has a brother who has been given the middle name of McIlhagga, thus perpetuating the clan link.

The last of James and Rebecca's children was Samuel born in 1891. At this stage I have no other information about him. A brief addendum to this story is the fact that in the 1901 Census there is a Rebecca McIlhagga boarding at Ambleside, Shankill. However this Rebecca is only 20, so was much too young to be the former Rebecca Johnston.

Back a generation in Ayrshire?

2011-09-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

In a blog on 4 July last I attempted a 'tree reconstruction' of the family or families that existed in Ayrshire in the 17th and 18th Centuries. This includes Robert McIlhago(w) who married Bessie Johnstone. They had four children, first Agnes who probably married a James Gemill and had a daughter Margaret; second Robert who may or may not have married, third Mary and fourth John. I have just been looking closely at the entry for the baptism of Robert which is in a rather difficult 17th Century script and which I now believe reveals to us a fact that we haven't known until now. It reads:

Robert Mcilhague sone lawfull to Robert Mcilhague fisher in Newton of Ayr and Bessie Johnstone his spouse was born on monday May 30.. 1687 and baptised on......day [ ] after wittness Robert gfather and James Gibson.

In my blog on the Ayrshire reconstruction I said that I was uncertain of the name of the father of Robert who married Bessie. Based on naming patterns I suggested it might be John or Robert. I think we can now say with some certainty that it was Robert. Grandson Robert was born in 1687. I estimate that father Robert would have been born about 1660 and that grandfather Robert would have been born about 1635. It was probably his father who was the Robert M'Ilhago who witnessed a charter in Tradidnel in Ayrshire in 1597.

Clan Documents

2011-09-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

This past week I have been attempting to catalogue all the original documents and copies of documents and copies of entries of vital events that I have on file relating to clan members. I have 106 birth documents (plus 88 birth years referred to in other documents), 42 baptism certificates, 183 marriages, 104 deaths (including 15 Wills, 11 gravestones and 5 obituaries), 6 burials or cremations and 137 other documents.

The 'other' documents include an Identity Certificate, Passenger Declarations, Probate Documents, a family letter, a Patent, Census Documents, a Naval Record, a Corrected Entry, Relief Applications, Army Attestations, a Lloyds Register entry, Rent Records, Indentures, Banns of Marriage, an Adoption, Pension Applications, a Kirk Session Minute, an Affidavit, Marriage and Funeral Services, Exam Results, a National Service Record and a Name Change Certificate. All these add vital information about the individuals referred to in the respective documents.

If those who follow this blog think they have documents or copies that I might not have, do get in touch, and I would be very happy to add them to my list.

Death in Drogheda and Birth in Irvine

2011-09-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

My Scottish friend who is a descendant of ship's captain Robert McElhago who was drowned in a shipwreck in 1797 has prompted me to try to find someone who will visit the church-yard of St. Peter's Church of Ireland in Drogheda to see whether by chance there is a surviving Memorial Inscription commemorating the shipwreck of the sloop Jenny and in particular of Master Mariner Robert McElhago. Frankly, without much expectation I have written, asking for help, to the Millmount Museum in Drogheda, Co. Louth, and I await a response with interest.

I have recently acquired the birth and baptism details of the last child born to Robert and Elizabeth McElhago of Irvine. I found the Old Parish Record of John, though he is indexed on the Internet as McIlhagor. Having examined the original, I'm sure the name is entered as McLihagor! He was born on 11th and baptised on 19th August 1789. The entry reads, John son to Robt. McLihagor, ship Mr. and Eliz Jameson. This means that John was born 8 months and 5 days after his father was drowned in the tragic shipwreck. John must have been conceived just before Robert set sail on that fateful voyage, and Elizabeth can't have known she was pregnant when she heard about Robert's death.

World War 2

2011-09-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday one of my grandsons e-mailed me to ask be about my memories of living through the Second World War. He had a homework project to complete! He was also interested to know if any McIlhaggas had served in that war. I realised that although I have referred to some eleven people in this blog I have never brought together the names of the clan members who so served, and perhaps it would be useful to do so - at least for when the next grandson asks the same question. I will list them in alphabetical order of first names and add the date(s) of the blogs in which they may be found:

1. April McIlhagga (nee Smith), Officer, Women's Auxiliary Air Force: 16 Mar 2010;

2. Florence Jane McIlhagger, Aircraftswoman, Royal Australian Air Force: 29 Oct 2009;

3. Frederick William McIlhagger, Victory Defence Corps, Australia: 3 Oct 2009;

4. James McIlhagga, American Army: 12 Dec 2009;

5. James J. McIlhagga, Gunner, Royal Artillery, Maritime Regt.: 23 Jan 2010;

6. Norah Georgina McIlhagger, Corporal, Royal Australian Air Force: 29 Oct 2009;

7. Liston Burns McIlhagga, Comdr, Royal Navy & Lt. Comdr, Royal Canadian Navy: 17 Mar 2010;

8. Robert (Ross) McIlhagga, Canadian Army: 23 Jan 2010;

9. William McIlhagga [POW], Ft.Lt, Royal Air Force & Col. Royal Canadian Air Force: 28 Apr 2010; 18 Dec 2010, 25 May 2011;

10. William John McIlhagga [POW], Australian Army, Infantry: 19 Sep 2009, 1 Dec 2010;

11. William Neil Duncan McIlhagga, Royal Canadian Air Force Ferry Command: 20 Dec 2009.

Scandal in Irvine

2011-09-10T01:20:00.000-07:00

A 19th Century Mariner

I have cooperated with a descendant of the 18th Century McElhago family from Irvine which I have mentioned several times recently in relation to the 1797 shipwreck at Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland, in which Sea Captain Robert McElhago died. I have also mentioned his grandson Richard turning up in Australian waters. It has been uncertain how many siblings Richard had. Was it three or four, for there are references to both an Elizabeth and an Eliza. My correspondent in Scotland who is in fact a descendant of Elizabeth recently wrote her 'frustration' about the lack of information about her ancestor to the national magazine called WDYTYA (Who do you think you are?). Did Elizabeth marry? Was she married once or twice? We have the names of two men, but no marriage documentation has been found. She had a response in the magazine published September 2010, pages 46/47 in a short piece by researcher Rosemary Bigwood, entitled 'Scandal'. The magazine illustrated the comment with the fine oil painting The Mariner by the 19th Century Scottish artist Erskine Nicol.

The Kirk Session records of Irvine Parish Church produced two references to her, summarised as follows: 'On 2 May 1848, it was reported that Eliza, a member of the Church, unmarried, had borne a child and her church membership was suspended but, after a favourable report on her, she was readmitted in July. However, on 26 March 1851, Elizabeth was again accused of fornication'. It would be interesting to know who produced a 'favourable report' on her. Probably a Church Elder or the Minister had visited her and her parents with whom she lived, James and Jane (nee Harvey) McElhago. James was a local Master Mariner and maybe their good standing in the community had stood Eliza in good stead. Eliza called her daughter Jane, who was known as Jane Martin. In 1851 she was staying with her grandparents in Dundonald, listed in the Census as Jane Martin, aged two. It looks as if one Philip Martin, also a Master Mariner, had taken responsibility as the father of the child, and hopefully had supported her as she grew up.

By 1851 Eliza, now called Elizabeth, had apparently 'taken up' with another Master Mariner, one Alexander McCallum, with whom it appears she had another daughter who was known as Elizabeth (familiarly 'Bessie'). It is uncertain whether Bessie became known with the surname McElhago or McCallum, though perhaps she used both. There is an Elizabeth McElhago aged 20 in the 1871 Tradeston Census, and in 1877 an Elizabeth McCallum married a William Wylie.

Irrespective of what happened to Eliza(beth)'s two children, it seems that she remained a single mother, supporting herself as a Muslin Sewer. She died at the comparatively young age of 40 on 13 May 1866 at Dundonald. Doubtless her parents undertook the task of bringing up her children. The upshot of what we have learned to this point of Eliza(beth) leads us to the conclusion that 'Eliza', daughter of James and Jane, and 'Elizabeth', daughter of James and Jane, were one and the same person. It also leads us to the conclusion that the date references in the Kirk Session Minutes accord with the times of birth of the two children Jane and Elizabeth (Bessie) providing strong evidence that Eliza(beth) did not marry either Philip Martin or Alexander McCallum. I say 'to this point' for I have to add that there is a high probability that Eliza had a third daughter who we find in the 1861 Census. She is aged 2 and listed as the granddaughter of James and Jane McElhago. Eliza is also living with them so we may presume that 'Jameson' is also Eliza's child.

There is an interesting little addendum we can make to the Eliza(beth) story. In Dundonald there was an Isabella McCallum who married a John McIlhague, and who had a daughter Jean born 8 March 1824, baptised 13 October 1824. I think John McIlhague must fit in to our clan somewhere. The likelihood is that Isabella and Alexander McCallum were siblings. A speculation is prompted by the fact that only a few months later a John McIlhague married a Jean Glen in Greenock. Did Isabella die in childbirth and if so was her daughter Jean brought up by her father and his new wife?

Merchant Navy Seamen

2011-09-05T07:14:00.000-07:00

The internet site's list of Merchant Navy Seamen 1918-1941 has just two clan names on it. Andrew McIlhagga, born 1896 in Ballymena, Co. Antrim, appears in this blog for 6th June last, with a photograph. James McIlhaggie, born 1881, Greenock, Renfrewshire, is probably the son of William McIlhagga and Rachel McLelland. In 1901 he was on board a Royal Navy Battleship, so it must have been some time after that he transferred to the Merchant Navy. I referred to him in my blog of 12th April last. This 'list of two' only goes back to 1918. The 'Merchant Navy family' about which I have written at length is of course the 18th/19th Century Ayrshire family of McElhago. My Australian correspondent last week reminded me of one of them by kindly sending me the crew list of the ship Quebec which was in Australian waters on 21st February 1855, including Richard McElhaga. He was the son of the Master Mariner James McElhago of Irvine, and grandson of Robert McElhago who drowned in the shipwreck about which I wrote earlier this month. Richard landed up in America where he worked for eight years before returning to live with his sister in Scotland. Sadly a wound which partly paralysed him necessitated him applying for Poor Relief in Govan in 1886. He died back home in Irvine in 1891. I detailed what we know of his life on 22nd april 2009.

Immigration follow-up

2011-09-04T06:58:00.000-07:00

Once again the value of the Internet and this blog in particular is to be applauded. A valued correspondent from Australia has been able to shed light on my last entry entitled 'Immigration', and indeed has been able to add to it. First, an addition: she observes that a J. McIlhagga, born 1870 in Belfast worked his passage from London to Melbourne and Sydney as a carpenter on the crew of the ship Warrigal arriving 30th December 1904. I have a James who was a Carpenter, but he was born in 1865 and emigrated to Canada. As crew 'J' may not have stayed in Australia, but returned to Britain as crew. I have added him to a new Index of Migration references that I have started.

Next she comments on 'Mr. McIlhagga' in my second paragraph who arrived at London in 1898. He was in fact a 'J. McIlhagga' on the ship Peninsula which may have departed from Sydney, but he boarded the ship at Bombay, India. He was single and English. The only J. McIlhagga of whom I know who could claim to be English was John, born 1879 in Liverpool. He was in fact a great-uncle of mine and I have to say that I know nothing about him, except that he was indeed, and remained, single. He could well have found his way to India! The only other possible clan reference to India that I have found is a much earlier one, to Ellen McHago married to Charles Johnson, also in Bombay. Ellen's father was a James, but he clearly cannot be the single Englishman travelling in 1898. Incidentally three other people boarded the Peninsula at Bombay, but I do not think they give us a clue to the identity of 'J. McIlhagga'. They were a Mr. Long and two nurses in the employ of a Mrs. Waddell.

Finally my correspondent comments on James McIlhagga and his wife arriving Liverpool 1898. Apparently James was listed as a farmer on the ship Parisian which docked first at Liverpool and then a week later at Londonderry, Ireland. James was 37 and his wife 35, giving him a birth year of 1861. However my friend observes that they may have returned to Canada (St. John's) five months later, departing Londonderry on 7th April 1899 on the ship Mongolian where they are again James McIlhagga, farmer and Mrs. McIlhagga, wife. This time their ages are given as 34 and 30, making James' birth year 1865. If these rather than their 1898 travel dates are correct, it gives us the strong possibility that James was the son of James McIlhagga and Jane Maitland of Ballyportery, County Antrim. Father James was a farmer so it was possible that when his son emigrated he continued life as a farmer, though I have to record that the 1901 Census of Canada lists him as a Carpenter. He later became a Building Contractor and then Inspector of School Buildings in Sarnia, Lambton, Ontario. James was born in 1865 and in 1889 he married Alwilda Breault from Seymour, Northumberland, Ontario. After they returned to Canada they had two children, Wilda and William James.

'Immigration' - Travel home

2011-09-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

A good number of the members of our clan emigrated to distant places, in particular Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Some never returned to their native soil, even for a brief visit, though some did. The internet site has just allowed free access for a limited period to its 'Immigration and Travel' records, which include thirty seven journeys, by ship, between 1878 and 1960 by clan members. Seven were from Australia, seven from the USA, one from South Africa and twenty-two from Canada. Twenty -three journeys landed at English ports and fourteen at Scottish ports.

1898 saw the earliest recorded journeys, and it was a 'bumper' year with one man from Sydney, Australia and four people from Montreal, Canada. I really do not know who the man was who arrived from Sydney on 26th August 1898, in London. The passenger list simply says Mr. McIlhagga. The only male know to me who went to Australia who was born earlier than 1898 was John McIlhagger (born 1883), though to the best of my knowledge he didn't emigrate until 1909. The four people who boarded a ship in Montreal are also a mystery. They appear to be two couples arriving in Liverpool a week apart, on 12th November and the 19th november 1898. However both couples are Jas. McIlhagga (born about 1861) and Mrs. McIlhagga (born about 1863). Surely there is a mistake in these records and there is but one couple who arrived on either the 12th or the 19th. Who they were, again I do not know, as I have no record of births or a marriage which fits with their dates.

In December 1903 J. McIlhagger returned to Southampton, England, from South Africa. His estimated birth year was 1878, so he was about 25. I hope this is a mis-spelling of the surname. I have written twice about a 'John' returning from the Boar War. On 20th Feb 2010 I noted that he was John McIlhagga. On 4th Jan this year I thought he might be John G. McIlhagger from Belfast. Six weeks later (25th Feb.) I changed my mind when I realised that John Hutchison McIlhagga who died in the First World War had served previously in the Imperial Yeomanry in the Second Boar War which ended in 1902. I think he must be the 'J. McIlhagger' who arrived in Southampton in 1903. Admittedly 'JH' was born in 1880, but a two year discrepancy on Army documents is not unusual.

In 1907 'S. McIlhagga' travelled from Montreal, Canada, to Liverpool, England arriving on the 8th July. There is a passenger record of 'Saml. McIlhagga' leaving Londonderry, Ireland, in 1899 for Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was then 30, so was born about 1869. The only Samuel I have in my Birth Index born in 1869 died as an infant. The next 'nearest' was born on 25th April 1871 to Samuel and Elizabeth (nee Glass) McIlhagga of Belfast. He was baptised at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church. I have to admit that I do not know what happened to him, and it could well be that it was he who emigrated to Canada.

We now come to two women who may have been travelling alone (I haven't paid to see the full passenger lists), namely Lucy McIlhagga, from New York, USA, arriving Glasgow, Scotland on 3rd July 1910 and Lizzie McIlhaggs, from Montreal, arriving Glasgow on 27th August 1911. Lucy may have been the daughter of William Gage McIlhagga and Jane Todd, born 7th August 1895, who therefore in 1910 would have been only 15. There is no record of this family emigrating so it is possible that Lucy went to the USA on a short visit, possibly to see relatives. Certainly she is at home in Belfast a year later when she is listed on the 1911 Census as an Office Girl, and living with her parents. Who Lizzie McIlhaggs was, I'm afraid I do not know. On an Emigration passenger list there is a Saml. McIlhaggs, aged 22, born Ireland, who disembarked from the ship Victoria on 14th July 1906. He is on a list published by the Nanaimo, Canada, Family History Society. Lizzie could have been a sibling, and she might just be the Lizzie McIlhaggo, aged 25 who went out to Quebec, arriving on the 22nd May 1909 on the ship Manitoba.

I will continue the list of 'returnees' in a future blog.

A Shipwreck

2011-09-01T02:15:00.000-07:00

I don't think the earliest northern Irish newspaper, The Belfast Newsletter, is on-line, though as part of an academic project Dr. John C. Greene of Louisiana has supervised the compilation of an Index, the result of which is that some 'abstracts' are on-line. I'm not quite sure what all the symbols they used signify, but two extracts exist relevant to our clan. The first has the code ID 185206 from the Newsletter of 4-8 August 1786, page 3, viz.: 'port news arrived 2... $ Mary = McIlhago + Malaga'. I think this means that at an unnamed Irish port the ship called Mary had arrived on the 2nd of August, captained by her Master whose surname was McIlhago. A first thought about Malaga is that she may have come from the Costa del Sol on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, but I think this unlikely. Maybe a second ship called 'Malaga' was accompanying 'Mary'.

Was the McIlhago, Robert born about 1770 in Irvine, Ayrshire, who we know was a Sea Captain? Surely a teenager of 16, who may indeed have 'gone to sea' would not have been a ship's master in 1786! I wonder whether it could have been Robert's father? I have postulated, in an attempted reconstruction of the Ayrshire clan family in the 18th Century that Robert (born about 1770) might indeed have had a father named Robert who might have been born about 1745, who therefore in 1786 would have been 41 and may well have been a ship's master. I based my conjecture on the simple possibility that the first son is often called after his paternal grandfather and Robert (born about 1770) certainly had a first son Robert in 1789. Other than this possible reference in the Belfast Newsletter, at present we know nothing else about 'grandfather Robert'.

The second reference is most interesting, with new information for us. It is news from the paper published on 8th December 1797. It has the code DOC ID 278650 and is found on page 2. The abstract reads as follows: 'Drogheda 6 $ Industry + Irvine = McElhago master vessel wrecked + Drogheda! Bar + Clogher! Head sloop $ Jenny. crew drowned interred St. Peter's Church-yard + Brabazon, Wallop + Rath praise humane exertions'. I take it that on 6th December 1797 Captain McElhago was sailing his sloop Jenny in to the River Boyne at Drogheda when his vessel was wrecked with all hands lost. They all, including the master, were buried in the church-yard of St. Peter's Church of Ireland, Drogheda. It is extremely unlikely, given the circumstances, that the grave(s) would have been marked in any permanent way, and unfortunately there are no paper records, as St. Peter's registers are missing from the end of 1782 to the beginning of 1803.

Once again, we must ask the question, is this master Robert McElhago born about 1770? I think we must answer that in all probability it is, despite the fact that he would only have been about 27, quite young to have had a Master's ticket. Until now we have not had a death date for Robert. All we have known is that he died before 1820, the year his wife is listed in a town census as a widow. We do know that between 1789 and 1796 Robert and his wife Elizabeth (nee Jamieson) had four children, Robert, James, Samuel and a second Robert. In my attempted reconstruction of this family's 'tree' I have been assuming (hoping!) that I could add two other children, John (born about 1800) and Margaret (born 1803), but I now think this is not possible! The identification of Master McElhago as Robert is surely confirmed by the reference in the newspaper to Irvine, which is where Robert and his family lived. The last paper reference to 'praise humane exertions' was I imagine lauding a rescue attempt to save the crew, which was, tragically, unsuccessful.

Polio in Winnipeg

2011-08-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

On 17th March last year I wrote a blog about 'Winnipeg's Navy' and followed it by one on its one time Commander, Liston Burns McIlhagga (Senior). On page 120 of the book entitled Winnipeg's Navy there is a significant quote from Liston when he was Commanding Officer of Chippawa. It concerns the 'Aid to Victims of the 1953 Polio Epidemic in Canada'. It concludes the following extract from that book and is one of many 'lights' that can be shed on the life and career of a remarkable man:

'In the early 1950s, a polio epidemic affected many Canadians. In fact, on a per capita basis, the polio epidemic in Manitoba was said to be among the world’s worst. In Manitoba, there were 2,345 cases and 86 deaths. Most of the survivors suffered from paralysis in some form. Some very slightly, and others to a degree that they spent many months attached to an “iron lung”.

The Manitoban response to this disease was magnificent. Doctors and nurses strove unceasingly to care for the victims. Citizens and organizations responded spontaneously with donations of money and supplies. Everybody banded together to fight polio.

One of the difficulties that arose was an acute shortage of nurses. Along with the other services, the Navy responded to the challenge by sending teams of medical nurses from both coasts. Over a period of four months navy nurses played a most important part, working long hours and often with the most difficult cases. CHIPPAWA felt pride in the Navy’s contribution to the fight against polio.

In the latter days of the epidemic, it was thought that water therapy was also necessary to treat recovering patients. A large-scale heated pool was needed for this treatment. Commander F. H. Pinfold generously offered the use of the CHIPPAWA pool.............

The value of the water therapy project was obvious. The improvement in both the patients’ physical and mental conditions was seen by all. Also, extremely important, was the good will that came from this effort. Press, radio, TV, and newsreels carried the story to all parts of the world. Nothing but good came from such a heart-warming presentation of a most worthy cause.

The effort on the part of CHIPPAWA personnel to carry through their part in this program was considerable. It was a tribute to the hard work of all concerned, that the aid to the polio victims was carried out without disruption to the training schedule, and a minimum of conflict with normal ship’s routine.

As the Commanding Officer, Commander Liston McIlhagga, made the comment, “This is a job for which this division is perhaps uniquely equipped. We accept challenge of this fact and, as long as the Navy in Winnipeg is required to play this special role in the life of the community, we will fulfil it to the utmost.”'

Kelly's Directory

2011-08-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

Recently I visited a friend on Merseyside and to my delight she had a Kelly's Directory for 1946 for Liverpool and its environs. There were two McIlhagga entries, the first for my father confirming the address we lived at in Wallasey, 41 Claremount Road. Although I would have been a young teenager at the time I'm sure I wasn't aware of the other clan name, a Mrs. Margaret McIlhagga living about ten miles away at 3 Kinross Road, Waterloo, Liverpool 22. According to my Family Tree there is only one person she could have been, my great aunt by marriage. Margaret Abiah Jones had married my great uncle Crawford in 1905 in St. Alban's Church, Bevington, Liverpool and they had two children, Mary in 1906 and William Crawford in 1909. Sadly William Crawford died when he was 6 weeks old. Mary lived to marry a C.W. Stubbs. I'm afraid I know nothing of their subsequent history. Margaret's husband Crawford died in 1926 at the age of 55. Margaret lived on to the great age of 81 and died in Crosby, Liverpool on 23rd March 1957 at the same address as shown in the 1946 Kelly's Directory.

Crawford was the third son of Crawford and Elizabeth McIlhagga. After he married Margaret they lived at 63 Summer Seat, Exchange, Liverpool, which was where they had the two children. Margaret was the daughter of a Cooper, Richard William Jones. The witnesses at their marriage were a couple called Quayle. About ten years ago I had a message from a descendant of the Jones family to say that the Dowling/Joneses recall visiting the McIlhaggas on a regular basis in Mould Street, which presumably was in the 1900s when they lived in Mould Street, which is where Crawford died. He was a Railway Clerk, a job he had had for over twenty years.

McIlhagga - Woods

2011-08-18T03:32:00.000-07:00

A correspondent in Australia has identified two of the people in my PRONI Wills Index (15 Jul 2010) as siblings. They are James Wood who died 1929 and Dorothea Crawford who died 1942. The probate of both Wills was granted to Harry McIlhagga. This was Harry who married Sara Laura Browne, and whose mother was Ruth Woods, another sister of James and Dorothea. Harry had two sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret, both of whom were given Woods as a second name. Harry's father was William James McIlhagga, son of William. The 'naming pattern' was followed for William James's first daughter (Elizabeth). We know this from the 1911 Census. So in all probability the 'naming pattern' was followed for his second daughter (Margaret). This would mean that Harry's grandfather, William, was possibly married to a Margaret. Unfortunately at this time this possibility doesn't give us a firm identification of this family. If it did, we could probably make a link to the wider clan family.

High Society!

2011-08-08T01:55:00.000-07:00

I think it has been a rare thing for a McIlhagga to move in 'high society', so it was with interest that I noted the entry in my last blog, that probate of a will had been granted to Robert McIlhagga, merchant, by one James Sloan, alias Crawford, 'gentleman'. It so happens that I have recently acquired a book with a few McIlhagga references which fits the theme. This blog entry is really an addendum to the one I wrote on 23rd January last year entitled Performance, Phantom and Poetry. The phantom reference was in an experimental piece of short-story fiction set in the west coast of Ireland and included a character called Phelim McIlhagga. The book I have just acquired, to add incidentally to the clan archive, is also set on the west coast of Ireland, in County Connaught, and also has a McIlhagga character. It is a substantial hard-back of some 430 pages describing itself as a 'Romantic Novel'. It is entitled Maeve , the huntress by James Reynolds who is/was apparently an artist as well as an author. It was published in 1952 by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc, 101 Fifth avenue, New York. It is the story of twins, Maeve and Mark, coming of age in Irish upper-class society, of which I myself saw a little in the 1950s when I was a student at Trinity College, Dublin.

The first reference comes in chapter 5 (page 62) devoted to the twins' 18th birthday dinner, preceding the evening ball, 'At dinner Maeve and Mark sat side by side at the middle of the long table... Mark had Fanny McIlhagga on his right. Kinky-haired Fanny chatted away on all manner of topics, from how she had at last learned to knit without dropping stitches "like scandal", to trying to pin Mark down to a date when he and Maeve would come on a yachting holiday. "Maeve will love to come, so you must", she pressed.

Fanny could accent every fifth word even with her mouth full of spring lamb, so Mark paid not too much attention to Fanny's strident voice. He was guaging the attractions of the women at the table, with the problem of his choice of partner for the first dance in mind.'

Fanny next appears, equally incidentally, 220 pages further on, when Maeve has been showing her American visitor some of the grand houses of Ireland: '"Dromore". answered Maeve () that's lovely in summer. The gardens along the Shannon are like some I saw in Italy. And then the view of the Ballyhoura Hills covered with red and pink rhododendron. I often visited there when my roommate from the Academy, Fanny McIlhagga, was home'.

The final reference comes as part of a guest list at an engagement party for Maeve and her American fiance from Virginia, 'Old schoolmate Fanny McIlhagga, beaued by Shaun Bellow drove over in a gig'.

It is intriguing to think where an author gets the names of his characters from. Fanny McIlhagga is only a minor one who appears fleetingly and incidentally, with a name quite incidental to the story's context. The story's setting is the Catholic Republic of Ireland. McIlhagga is found primarily in the Protestant North. Admittedly there are a couple of instances in the south, one of a police sergeant in Galway (McIlhagger) and one of a horse-breeder in Dublin (McIlhagga), both of which 'fit' the novel's 'scenary', so it is possible that an American author who had done his research well, might have come across 'McIlhagga' in the South. However there is no known 'Fanny', north or south, and no known daughter who went to a private academy in Dublin. Intriguingly the one 'Frances' we have is found in Virginia, USA, with the right dates for an author born in 1891 and publishing in 1950, though with a variant of the clan name unlikely to have been known to originate as McIlhagga. Frances A. McHagg lived from 1857 to 28th January 1925, and may have been related to three McHaggs to be found in the 1881 English Census, Mary (born 1843). John (1851) and Peter (1856). Frances is recorded in the International Genealogical Index. Her father was Thomas who married Letisha Bishop. Frances married a Thomas Bishop on 10th March 1874 in Scott County, Virginia.

PRONI Wills Index

2011-07-15T04:14:00.000-07:00

A correspondent who in his research also includes Samuel Robinson McIlhagga (1872-1941), son of George and Eliza Ann McIlhagga, has kindly sent me a list of references to the name McIlhagga as it occurs in the Wills Index of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. In addition to McIlhagga Wills it records when probate was granted to various clan members. If anyone can confirm further details about these entries I would be most grateful. They are as follows:

Mary Elizabeth McIlhagga of 9 Grand Parade, Belfast; died 1939; probate of will granted to John McIlhagga, retired baker, her husband.

Miss Mary Ross of Tullygarley, Antrim; spinster, d. 1922; probate of will granted to Mary McIlhagga, married woman.

James Sloan, alias James Crawford, of 5 Ailesbury Rd., Belfast, gentleman, d. 1938; probate of will granted to Robert McIlhagga, merchant.

Jonathan Vint of Mount Maon, Greencastle and 96 Patrick St., both in Belfast; wine and spirit merchant, d. 1927; probate granted to Hannah Vint, widow and James Wilson McIlhagga, oil merchant.

James Wood of 3 Maryville Park, retired linen merchant, d. 1929; probate granted to John Leslie Campbell, manufacturer's agent and Henry McIlhagga, linen merchant.

Hugh Craig of Dairyland, Straid, Ballynure and Ballyfore, Raloo, Larne; retired auctioneer; probate granted to William McKinty, tailor, Nathaniel McIlhagga, traveller and Thomas H. Craig, traveller.

Nathaniel McIlhagga, died 1937, of 62 Excise St., Belfast, damask tinter; probate of will to Charlotte, his widow.

Dorothea Crawford, widow, died 1942; lived at 3 Maryville Park, Belfast; probate granted to Harry McIlhagga, linen salesman.

George McIlhagga of 29 North Queen St., Belfast, d. 1914; retired police sgt.; probate to Mary J. McIlhagga, widow.

Samuel Robinson McIlhagga, d. 1941 of Glentaugh House, Annahilt, Hillsborough, Co. Down, dealer, probate given to George McIlhagga, wholesale merchant.

Mary McIlhagga of Newmarket Villas, Whiteabbey, Co. Antrim, d. 1940, spinster; probate to Robert McIlhagga, coal merchant and Rebecca Kennett, widow.

Lateral thinking?

2011-07-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

For a number of years my own McIlhagga line's 'brick wall' has been that, although I know the name of my gggrandfather, William (born about 1800), and that he was married to Agnes McCosh (probably at Clogh), I have not been able to find either their marriage record or William's birth/baptism record. At present I do not see any way to break down these barriers, so is there any lateral approach that I might take?

All William and Agnes' children were baptised and some were married at Broughshane First Presbyterian Church. My first thought is, 'were there any witnesses who might indicate that there was a wider family?' I'm afraid not. My next thought is that there were other clan 'vital events' which took place in the same Church. My family lived in the nearby townland of Ballycloghan. The others came from other but still nearby townlands, Rathkenny, Lisnacrogher and Limavallaghan. Surely other clan families, living within a few miles and having baptisms and marriages celebrated in the same Church, were very likely to have been related, most probably first cousins. This would imply that the 'parent generation' in the townlands near to Broughshane could well be siblings of William, my gggrandfather. And surely the high probability is that William was not an only child.

So who were these other nuclear families who may be part of my extended family? First, let me record the register entries from Broughshane of which I have copies (other than those I know for certain to be of my own family) and from nearby townlands. They are all marriages:

25 Aug 1847. John Auld, 21, Bachelor, Weaver of Rathkenny;

Father, Robert Auld, Weaver;

and Mary McIlhagor, 22, Spinster of Rathkenny;

Father, William McIlhagor, Farmer;

Witnesses: William McIlhagga & Elizabeth McIlhagga.

13 Jun 1856. Robert Dickey, full age, Bachelor, Weaver of Randalstown;

Father, James Dickey, Labourer;

and Mary McIlhago, full age, Spinster, Ballycloghan,

Father, Wm. McIlhago, Weaver

Witnesses: Samuel Watt & John McIlhago (made his mark).

31 Mar 1847. Robert McCarley, 19, Bachelor, Shoemaker of Kerbilly;

Father, Robert McCarley, Farmer;

and Eliza McIlhagar, 19, Spinster of Kerbilly;

Father, [Blank], Farmer;

Witnesses: James McGarry & Charles McMichael.

Mother listed as Eliza McIlhagar.

10 Apr 1854. James Graham, 46, Widower, Labourer of Ballygilpatrick;

Father: Robert Graham, Labourer;

and Elizabeth McIlhagga, 30, Widow of Racavan (nee Lowry);

Father, William Lowry, Farmer.

Witnesses: Alexander McAleese & Martha Lowry.

[Ballymena Register Office].

9 Aug 1851. Robert Whiteside, 21, Bachelor, Weaver of Lisnakrogher,

Father, Thomas Whiteside, Weaver;

and Esther McIlhaggar, 21, Spinster of Lisnakrogher;

Father, David McIlhaggar, Weaver.

Witnesses: Thomas Greer & Thomas Taylor.

[Ballymena Register Office].

First, I have written a blog on 14 June 09 which proposes that the Mary in the first two marriage entries is in fact the same person, marrying first John Auld and then as a widow Robert Dickey and that she belongs to my own family tree. Her father William, my gggrandfather was both a farmer and a weaver. She was therefore probably my gg-aunt.

Second, I have done extensive research on a family which emigrated to Jamestown, Pensylvania and have written about them on 22 June 09, 13 Aug 09, 23 May 10, 8 Jun 10, 17 Nov 10, 13 Feb 11 and 16 Feb 11. I have demonstrated that the other three marriages relate to this family. Its progenitor was David McIlhago/McIlhaggar and I now think it is a reasonable assumption that he was a sibling of my gggrandfather William. Clearly David had a brother John and he probably had a sister Elizabeth.

There is also a distinct possibility that the father of David and John was James. There are a couple of reasons why David's father would probably have been James. David's brother John called his first son James and if he was following the Irish/Scottish naming pattern then paternal grandfather would be James. For some reason this does not apply to David whose eldest son was John. However, John was the older of the two brothers, so I'll go along with 'James' for the time being.

I have elsewhere argued that William of Ballycloghan's father was James, possibly the James who rented nearby farming plots to him in both Ballycloghan and Eglish. Of 'both' James we may ask whether either or both were the James McIlhagar of Shankill who married Sarah, and equally whether he was none other than the James Junior of Islandmagee who had brothers Samuel and William. James Senior, father of these three was probably a Farmer and Publican of Larne. It is probable that James had a brother Samuel and that their father was Nathaniel McIlhag(o)/a who was born about 1730. All these persons may be found in my earlier blogs.

This may all be 'lateral thinking' but I'm afraid it is also at present speculation.

Ayrshire Reconstruction

2011-07-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to put together the three or four families and several known individuals, all clan members in Ayrshire from the 16th Century onwards, into one 'coherent' family tree. The tree's progenitor is of course Michael Macylhaggow who appears in Colmonell, Carrick, Ayrshire in 1527, so was probably born in the 15th Century. In 1553, probably the next generation, so perhaps a son of Michael, we have Patrick McIlhagon in Kyle, Ayrshire. Carrick and Kyle are today known as South Ayrshire. Next comes Robert M'Ilhago, also in Ayrshire in 1597, surely two generations from Patrick, maybe a grandson. 'Robert' proves to be the name that is handed down, possibly through the generation before the grandfather who witnessed the baptism of his granddaughter Agnes in 1685. We know from the baptism record that 'grandfather' was John, and given that the average generation is about 25 years, he was probably born about 1635, most likely in the town of Ayr itself where his son Robert was a Fisher. This Robert was born about 1660 and married about 1680 to Bessie Johnstone/Johnstoune. They had four known children, all born and baptised in Ayr, Agnes in 1685, Robert in 1687, Mary in 1689 and John in 1691. Given the Scottish naming pattern these names argue for Grandfather being Robert (rather than John) and his wife Mary, and Bessie's parents being John and Agnes. The 'pattern' is not inviolate and father's name seems to have taken precedence for the first son, or perhaps the two grandfathers got 'reversed'. Robert and Bessie's eldest daughter Agnes was to marry James Gemill and have a daughter Margaret in 1714. We do not know for certain whether any of the other three married but I am hazarding a guess that at least one, maybe Robert, did.

When Robert was born and baptised in 1687 for some reason the name variant of McIlhague was used. This variant may then have been carried down the generations because we find a John McIlhague born about 1800 in Dundonald, Ayrshire, who married Isabella McCallum. However, before we reach his generation we must postulate that there must have been at least three generations in the county about which at present we know very little. We can work on the assumption that a son of Robert (1687) or of course John (1691) may have been born about 1715 and that his son could have been born about 1745. Both may have been named Robert, and the second one almost certainly was for both his son and his grandson were Robert, born in Irvine, Ayrshire. We are now moving into the time when the main clan occupation of fishing had given way to seafaring 'up the coast', and though we may not know for certain that the 'Robert' of 1745 existed we do know that a James McElhago of the same generation did exist, who therefore could have been a sibling, or indeed could have been that generation's 'missing link'. He was the James about whom I have written as one of the inaugurators of the Bridgetown Library in New Jersey, USA. So we have reached the Robert McElhago/McIlhagow who was born in Irvine about 1770, a sea captain who married Elizabeth Jamieson/Jamison and had six children. He would have been the 9th or 10th generation from Michael of Colmonell.

I have been 'tracing' the possible path of one of three branches of the clan in Ayrshire and I have done so first because I know that this branch continues for another eight generations to the present day, partly in Scotland, partly in New Zealand, and certainly provides us with the clan line which goes back the furthest. I must however attempt to sketch in the other two Ayrshire lines to complete the 'reconstruction'.

I have said that after Patrick there would surely have been a two generation gap before the Robert who appeared in 1597. Similarly there must have been two or even three generations before the other two clan branches appeared, one with Thomas McIlhagow born about 1610 in Kirkmichael in Carrick, and one with an unnamed (though possibly John) father of another Thomas McElhagow born about 1645, also in Kirkmichael. I realise of course that these two branches, in the same place, are in all probability one. Thomas (1610) had three children, Thomas, David and Agnes. Thomas had a son James (1653). David and Agnes married two Bairds, almost certainly siblings. David (1638) married Katherin Baird in 1655 and had five children, John (1666), Thomas (1669), Jennet/Janet (1671), James (1674) and Annable (1677). John (1666) had a son David (1702) who appears to have married twice, first to Janet Murdock, with a daughter Janet (1732), second to Elizabeth Dunbar in 1740, with children William (1743) and Mary (1744). I have no evidence of Thomas (1669) marrying. Jennet/Jonet married Thomas Craig in 1700. In the Ayrshire Old Parish Records there are 7 children all born in Beith between 1702 and 1722 to a Thomas Craig. No mother's name is given. However from Jennet's sister Annable's Testament we may surmise that by 1733 Thomas and Jennet were childless. Did they have children and did they all die? Was there an epidemic? Or is the Thomas Craig, father of the children, a different person? James (1674) died as an infant. Annable (1677) married James Gibson of Sheoch and had a son James. The second 'two family' marriage was of Agnes McElhagow to William Baird, who had two children, Katherin (1662) and William (1667). Incidentally, the OPRs show that two other Baird siblings married and continued that line, John Baird who had sons David and John; and Gilbert Baird who had a daughter Agnes. Sadly we have no further information on the continuation of the McIlhagow/McElhagow family along this clan line.

We are lastly left with the third possible line a couple of generations down from Patrick. This brings us to the father of Thomas McElhagow (1645) and Jennet McElhagow (1650). Thomas married Janet Murchie in 1669 and had four children, John (1670), Helen (1672), David (1675) and Thomas (1677). I do not know if John married. Helen (1672) married David Mitchell and had three children, John (1699), Margaret (1702) and Isobell (1707). We know from an early gravestone that David had two other siblings, James who married Janet McGren and John who married Agnes McIluray, who had a son John (1701). We do not know if either John or Isobell Mitchell married and had offspring, nor indeed whether David (1675) or Thomas (1677) McIlhagow did.

Finally, to revert to the first Ayrshire line, I have mentioned that on at least two occasions the spelling McIlhague appears and it is of interest to refer to one of the other occasions. A John McIlhague and an Isabella McCallum were the parents of Jean, born in 1824 in Dundonald. Isabella had in all probability a sibling, Alexander, a Master Mariner, who also married into our clan, to Elizabeth McElhago/McIlhaggert from nearby Irvine. They had a daughter Elizabeth in 1851 who in 1877 married William Wylie, a Master Flesher. The mother Elizabeth had been born in 1823 to James McElhago/McIlhaggert and Jane Harvey. James was the first of five siblings, the children of Robert McElhago/McIlhagow and Elizabeth Jamieson/Jamison with whom I concluded my first paragraph above. It is possible that their fifth child John was the John McIlhague above who married Isabella McCallum. The 'two' Johns were certainly born in the same year (1800) and the identification would give us parents for Isabella's husband. However, if the indication is to be made, Isabella must have died soon after their daughter Jean was born (March 1824), for John, son of Robert and Elizabeth married Jean Glen in December 1824 in Greenock.

Ballyeaston

2011-07-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a bit more about some entries in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) which I haven't been able to fit into wider families. One such is the marriage of Janet McIlhaggan to William James McDowell in about 1843. According to the IGI William James came from Ballyeaston, so I googled Ballyeaston Presbyterian Church. I was delighted to find that the First Presbyterian Church, Ballyeaston offers a 'Record Search' so I emailed them asking for a search to be made for the marriage. Not only did they do this but they went the second mile and sent me by return a list of possible children from records which have already been computerised. It took a couple of days before someone could go to the Record Office (PRONI) to look up their marriages. Sadly their marriage search didn't produce anything, though clearly the couple related to 'First Ballyeaston' as the following list of births shows:

1. 1844 James (William John McDowell + Janet McIlhagan)

2. 1846 Ellen (William John + Janet McIlhaggan)

NB Ellen was the name of William John's mother. We know this from a baptism entry which appears to be for him: McDowell, M[ale], William John, father Gideon, mother Ellen Elliott, 22 May 1823, place of birth Glenwherry.

3. 1848 Robert (William + Janet McIlhinan)

4. 1850 Robert (William John McDowell + Janet McIlhaggan)

5. 1853 Eliza Jane (William John McDowell + Jane McIlhaney)

6. 1855 Janet (William John McDowell + Janet McIlhagan)

7. 1857 Wm John (Wm John McDowell + Janet McIlhaggan)

8. 1859 Samuel (William John McDowell + Janet McIlhagan)

First, I must say that the kind Elder of First Presbyterian Church, Ballyeaston, went back to the original records in PRONI and incidentally demonstrated that their own computerised records for these entries had no fewer than five mistakes, including the fact that the father was not William James (as in IGI) but William John.

These records raise a number of issues. The spacing of the children is what one would expect in a large family, so we can make the assumption that they are all siblings. Presumably the first Robert died in infancy. The first two boys are usually named after the two grandfathers, though clearly this isn't so if one was not called Gideon. The other, Janet's father, could therefore have been either James McIlhaggan or Robert McIlhaggan. The first two girls would normally be named for the two grandmothers, and given that William John's mother was Ellen, Jane(t)'s mother was probably Eliza Jane. This would give us a clan marriage of about 1820 of either James or Robert to Eliza Jane. Do I have such a marriage? Not in Ireland, though I do have a possible marriage in Scotland. The third son and third daughter would have been named after the parents, which is indeed the case, Janet and William John. This endorses the strong suggestion that the man who married Jane(t) was William John and not William James (as the 1823 baptism record also indicates) and that the marriage 'record' in the IGI is wrong.

Next, we have the variations in the mother's surname: McIlhagan (3 times) and McIlhaggan (3 times). These would all be written by a church official at or after the time of the baptism and maybe by two or more different officials. If the parents were known to be illiterate, or not given to correcting the minister, doubtless the spelling would not have been checked with them. What of the two 'deviant' spellings, McIlhinan and McIlhaney? These are both known Irish names, and again we may put them down to a church official who hasn't been too careful in checking what the mother's maiden name was. Incidentally my correspondent kindly gave me the full dates of all the children's (and the father's) dates of both births and baptisms.

I also sent through to the Ballyeaston record searcher what I thought was another clan marriage, from the IGI, that of Agnes McIlhaggo to John Blair on 30 July 1829 in the Second Presbyterian Church, Ballyeaston. This marriage he did find - but here's the value of checking the original - he says the surname is definitely not McIlhaggo, but is probably McCluggage. So here's one to strike out of my Marriage Index!

So - am I any nearer to fitting this McDowell family into a wider clan grouping? I wonder! I was hopeful that a Ballyeaston search would lead to something definite, perhaps the name of Janet's father. Now Ballyeaston is a village near the town of Ballyclare. I have written about Ballyclare before as it occurs in some of the earliest clan references in Ireland - three times in 1645 in Cogry, a townland near Ballyclare, once in 1713 when a man from Ballyclare Presbyterian Church married a clan member, and several times between about 1820 and 1912, in a family from Ballygallagh near Ballyclare, about which I have written (6 Nov 2010). This family were all born in the same decades as the McDowells. Interestingly one of the siblings of that family, like of the McDowells, was a Janet. One was William James and the father was William John McIlhagga/McIlhaggo/McIlhagar. Janet who married William John McDowell could easily have been a sibling of William John, the weaver from Ballygallough. To have had their father's name would at least have taken us back into the 18th Century! And a last point, there was often more than one marriage between two families, and I do have another McDowall / McIlhaggo link. marriage, Mary McDowel/McDowall married Henry McIlhaggo in about 1800. Their granddaughter Eliza also married a Mat(t)hew McDowell in Ballymena in 1856.

Early English

2011-07-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

I have been intrigued by one 'early' clan reference in English records picked up by the IGI (International Genealogical Index), namely the baptism of Elizabeth, the daughter of John and Jane McHagga at Saltwood near Hythe, Kent, on 11th December 1808. On the assumption that this was a first child the parents must have been born no later than 1790, and this is assuming a teenage marriage. The only possible couple this could apply to in my present records, though I do not have a record of their marriage is John McIlhago/McElhager/McIlhagar/McIlhagga (spelled four different ways!) and Jane/Jenny/Jenie McCarley, about whom I know from their part in a family emigration to Jamestown, Pensylvania.

I could find no Internet site with which I could check Saltwood records, so I phoned Canterbury Cathedral, to find that their own archives held both the original and the bishop's transcript. Unfortunately the original had deteriorated too much to be copied, but they kindly supplied me with a copy of the transcript, which reads "Elizabeth Dr of John & Jane Mc hagga / a soldier/ December 11th (1808)". First, this must be the earliest reference to a clan member in the Military. I am trying to find out which Regiment was stationed at Saltwood in 1808. I suspect that the name omits a syllable due to the unfamiliarity of a local scribe with an Irish or Scottish accent. I think that the likelihood is that John and Jane and their family emigrated to Jamestown, PA, at some later stage.

Celtic, Wounded and Warriston

2011-06-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

I have referred before to the value of a small journal on Scottish historical research called West Highland notes and queries. In its current issue an author called Ronald Black has written on 'Personal names...' and made a comment relevant to our clan name in the Celtic period. I have printed it following my blog of 3rd February 2009, Celtic beginnings - Continued.

There is an excellent internet site in which an amateur genealogist collects references from Irish newspapers, mainly from Belfast I think. It is called Eddies Extracts. There are just two McIlhagga references. The first I have written about on an earlier occasion. In Eddie's Extracts it is under Ballyweaney Presbyterian Church, 'Pte. Robert McIlhagga, of Knockahollet, killed in action' in the 1914-1918 War. The second also refers to the First World War and is under Townsend Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast, 'Samuel McIlhagga, of 12 Castleton Gardens - Wounded'. This address does not occur with a clan name either in the Ulster Covenant of 1912, nor in the Irish Census of 1911. Does anyone know to which family this Samuel belonged?

There is another excellent internet site called deceasedonline.com on which you can access burial records, cremation records, grave maps, &c. It has just added more Edinburgh records from Seafield Cemetery, Seafield Crematorium and from Warriston Crematorium. There are just two clan records at Warriston. The first is for Daniel McIlhagga who died 3rd April 1985 and who was cremated on 5th April. Daniel was the son of Daniel Maitland McIlhagga and Annie Eliza Wright. He was born on 31st January 1903 in County Antrim, Ireland and died at 11 Gleneagles way, Livingstone, Scotland. He married Margaret Willis Crowe in Kirknewton, Midlothian. To the best of my knowledge they had one daughter. The second record is for Jean McIlhagga who died on 25th December 1970 and was cremated on 29th December. Although I am not sure, I think this could have been Daniel's sister, though it may have been another of the Jeans in this extended family. If anyone can let us know the true facts, I would be most grateful.

Death in Calgary

2011-06-11T02:52:00.000-07:00

The following notice appeared in the 'Find a Grave' website today. The "Jack" referred to is the person I included in my recent blogs concerning a World War One Widows Medal on 20 Feb 10; 8 May 10 and 23 Jul 2010. I send my sincere condolences to his family.

Birth:	Sep. 5, 1928 Elnora Alberta, Canada
Death:	Jun. 9, 2011 Calgary Alberta, Canada
McILHAGGA – John Owens "Jack" September 5, 1928 – June 9, 2011 Jack McIlhagga, beloved husband of Myrna McIlhagga of Calgary, went to be with his Lord and Saviour, on Thursday, June 9, 2011 at the age of 82 years. Jack was born in Elnora, AB and raised in Calgary. He had worked with Midwest Surveys and retired from Dicksons Food Services. He spent many years volunteering at the Mustard Seed and enjoyed gardening, and was an avid sports fan. Jack is survived by his loving wife Myrna; two daughters, Jodi McIlhagga and Jill (Troy) Hickling; three grandchildren, Danika, Tessa and Benjamin. Jack is also survived by Myrna's family, numerous nieces and nephews as well as his adopted family, the Doerksens. He was predeceased by his parents Catherine and Joseph, two brothers Ross and Allan. Funeral Services will be held at the Beddington Pentecostal Church (16 Bermuda Drive N.W.) on Monday, June 13, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. Forward condolences through www.mcinnisandholloway.com. If friends so desire, memorial tributes may be made directly to the Mustard Seed Street Ministry, 102 – 11 Avenue S.E., Calgary, AB T2G 0X5 Telephone: (403) 269-1319, www.theseed.ca, or the Missions Fund c/o Beddington Pentecostal Church, 16 Bermuda Drive N.W., Calgary, AB T3K 1H7, Telephone: (403) 275-7133 In living memory of Jack McIlhagga, a tree will be planted at Big Hill Springs Park Cochrane by McINNIS & HOLLOWAY FUNERAL HOMES, Chapel of the Bells, 2720 CENTRE STREET NORTH Telephone: (403) 276-2296.

Burial: Unknown
Created by: K Record added: Jun 10, 2011 Find A Grave Memorial# 71100610

The Nanaimo Passenger Project

2011-06-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

The Nanaimo, Canada, Family History Society has published a Ships Passenger List of people arriving at Quebec Ports during the period 11 June 1904 and 13 October 1910. It includes four clan members, the first of whom to arrive was Saml. McIlhaggs aged 22, born Ireland, who disembarked from the ship Victorian on 14th July 1906. His birth year would have been 1884. The 'nearest' Samuel I have in my clan Birth Index is the son of John McIlhagga and Margaret Douglas, born 1883, though there is a Samuel Robert born to George McIlhagger and Mary Ann Boyd on 23rd September 1884. However this Samuel emigrated to Australia, not Canada. The first of these two is in the 1901 Irish Census but not 1911 so may well have been in Canada by then. However, he must have returned to Ireland for he died on 30th November 1944 aged 61 and is buried in Templepatrick Old Graveyard. His occupation, Night Baker, was the same as that of his father John, so he may have returned to take over the baking after his father died.

The second to arrive in Quebec was Lizzie McIlhaggo aged 25, on the ship Lake Manitoba. She arrived on 22nd May 1909. She would have been born in 1874. Again, I have no-one in my indexes for 1874. The third immigrant was Thos. McIllhagga aged 13 who sailed on the ship Corsican and arrived a week after Lizzie, on 28th May 1909. I have written about Thomas in earlier blogs, on 24th Jan 09, 11th Apr 09, 8 Jul 09 and 16th Jan 10. It is ironic that in all probability Lizzie and Thomas never met. So near and yet so far.

Finally, arriving on 1st august 1910 we have Samuel McIlkagga on the ship Lake Champlain. He was 27 so born probably in 1883. On the assumption that his name has been mis-transcribed, the only candidate I have in my indexes is the Samuel above, son of John and Margaret. Maybe he made two journeys, first in 1906 and then again in 1910. If anyone has any further information about any of these four migrants I would be very pleased to hear from them.

A question of accent?

2011-06-07T02:53:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking the variations of our clan name can be divided either by the first vowel following 'Mc' or by the last vowel of the name. The first distinction appears to give us an evolution from 'E' to 'I' and we can probably account for this as a modest change in accent as the clan moved from Scotland to Ireland. The evolution of the last vowel may be accounted for by the same process, that is the change from 'o' to 'a'. Thus, putting the two parts of the evolution together, though they may not have happened at the same time, we have the shift from what may be its earliest form in Scotland, namely McElhago to its latest form in Ireland, McIlhagga. It seems to me that all other variants, which have been many, are secondary to these.

Evidence from Armagh

2011-06-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

The above photograph is of Andrew McIlhagga when he was twenty-two and about to become a Fireman in the Merchant Service. The number in the picture above him, 448498, was his Identity Number in the Service and is in fact the number of the Identity Certificate given to him, which also gives his date and place of birth, 13th April 1896 in Ballymena, Ireland. It states that both he and his father were Irish. His parents were Robert McIlhagga (1859-1912) of Ballee, County Antrim and Margaret Craig, both of whom are buried in Dundonald Cemetery, Belfast. His paternal grandparents were James McIlhagga, a Weaver, and Jane Middleton, and one more generation with William takes us back into the 18th Century.

Andrew had nine siblings and the grand-daughter of one of them, Robert James, has done some excellent research including identifying Andrew's wife, Elizabeth May Walker. There have already been several references to Andrew in this blog, on 14 July 09, 7Oct 10, 23 Mar 11 and recently on 2 June. The last of these references included my postulating that he may well have been the RUC Constable who was involved in a 'Border Incident' in County Armagh. I am delighted to say that we now have a piece of circumstantial evidence which supports my hypothesis. His wife Elizabeth's family was from Armagh, so the probability is that he met her when he was serving with the RUC in that county. Perhaps he lived in Lurgan where Elizabeth's mother was living when she married and where she was still living during the 1911 Census. It may even be that Andrew lodged with the family.

Elizabeth May McIlhagga, nee Walker, came from an Army family. Her death certificate identifies her birth date and place as 20th April 1908 in Hounslow, England. Her sister gave notice of her death. Her father was a Private soldier serving in the Inniskilling Dragoons, though he, Thomas Walker had married Margaret Ann Connor back in Armagh in 1899. They were born respectively in Dublin and Cork, in the south of Ireland, as the 1911 Census makes clear. The evidence appears to be that Elizabeth and Andrew did not have any children.

Irish Land Records

2011-06-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

The best known of the Irish Land records, which act as a census substitute, are of course the Griffith Valuations of the early 1860s. Our clan references are nearly all dated 1862. In addition to the main valuations there are two supplementary sources, the Griffith Revision Book for 1867-81, which I think is not on line, and some Court Records. I have mentioned the twenty-four clan references in 'Griffith' in my blog of 10th August last, and one entry in the Revision Book on the same date. There is a new internet site called which also lists Court records which seem to refer to sales of land. There is just one clan name in them, though it appears three times, John McIlhaggart, under Landed Estates Court Rentals 1850-1885.

It is uncertain whether John McIlhaggart appears in the 1862 list in which there are several clan Johns but no McIlhaggart. In the period July-October 1872 he was living at 101 Charles Street, South where he was a tenant paying a yearly rent of £7.3s.0d, due on Monday in each week. The tenure of the tenancy, which was the same as that of the other tenants on the same plot of land, was described as "Weekly tenant, tenancy determinable on Monday in any week". It appears that this 'Parcel of Ground on the West side of Charles-street South, Sandy Row', was up for sale. It was 'Lot 3' so presumably it was to be auctioned. The description was, "(s)ituate in the town, parish and barony of Belfast and county of Antrim, with the Houses and Premises thereon in Charles-street South and Glenburn Alley, held under lease for lives renewable for ever, dated 30th July, 1839, at the yearly rent of £20. 6s. 0d". On the page (10) on which John McIlhaggart's name appears there are twelve names in Charles Street and four in Glenburn Alley though there may well have been further names on adjacent pages. In the Court records on findmypast there are three references to this 'Lot' which all appear to be the same.

As no John McIlhaggart appears in the Griffith Valuation for 1862, and presuming that John in 1872 would have been a married man, he may well have married before 1865-70 and so have been born before, say, 1845. In my clan indexes I have no such marriage. A John whose dates do fit, who by 1881 was using the spelling McIlhaggart, was married to Mary Stewart (as McIlhagar!) but by 1862 had moved to Greenock, Scotland, so couldn't, one would have thought, have been living in Belfast in 1872. There is however one rather remote, though unlikely, possibility. This John did indeed move to Scotland in 1862 - we know this from the places of birth of his children - but clearly did not settle to work in Greenock immediately, and in 1881, when his wife and family were in Greenock, he was working temporarily in West Ham, London! Did he also temporarily return to Belfast for work in 1872 and live for a time at 101 Charles Street, South? If this be the case, then from my knowledge that he was born in Ballycloghan, it also raises the possibility that he was after all in the 1862 Griffith Valuation (presumably just before he left for Scotland), listed there as John McElhagan.

A Border Incident

2011-06-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting clan stories from Twentieth Century Ireland comes from the mid 30s. On the 5th July 1935 one Constable McIlhagga was seriously wounded when on duty in the townland of Skeriff, Newtownhamilton, Co. Armagh. A Belfast Telegraph Newspaper report said the incident took place on the border (between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) at Cullyhanna, South Armagh. The full record is in the National Archives of Ireland in Dublin. Constable McIlhagga was in fact on a Royal Ulster Constabulary Customs Patrol about a mile from the border and an animal was involved. The Constable's superintendant, M.J. Glynn, took some photographs of a cow that had been seized, and had circulated them to the border stations in the hope of tracing its owner. However, despite distinctive marks on its head and sides they had had no luck. The fact was that cattle were purchased in fairs in the south and west of Ireland and were then railed to Castleblaney where they were divided into small lots and were smuggled across the border. Constable McIlhagga had been part of the constant task of attempting to prevent cattle smuggling.

About 2am two Customs Patrols, each of two men, were due to exchange positions, when an animal was sighted on the public road coming from the direction of the Border, followed by one man who was intercepted by the Patrol that was in ambush. The first patrol consisted of Sgt. Napier and Constable Lowe. They pursued the drover along the public road. The second patrol, with Constables Todd and McIlhagga were approaching along a lane at right-angles to the road. But who was the drover?

Suspicion fell on a member of the 'B Specials' named Albert Burns of Skerriff. He was no less than a Sergeant in the Special Constabulary! Some members of the RUC were suspected of cooperating with him, and it was known that the two RUC Constables Todd and McIlhagga were friendly with Burns. It was suggested that the two RUC Officers, Sgt. Napier and Constable Lowe, when they arrived on the scene, fired at the decamping drover. Unfortunately Constable McIlhagga was in the line of fire and got wounded. He received a bullet wound a few inches beneath the heart. Unfortunately it was not able to confirm who fired the shot as the RUC members "became rather reticent about the subject". In the mellee the drover escaped. The light was not sufficiently clear to identify him.

The RUC dropped any attempt to act in a way which would have implicated any of their members. All known smugglers condemned the 'outrage' very vociferously. Moreover everyone said they wanted to avoid friction on the Border. The official report of the incident concluded that the incident did not have any political or territorial significance and that it was in everyone's interest to have the smuggling continue under peaceful conditions!

Unfortunately we do not know whether Constable McIlhagga fully recovered, nor do we know with certainty to which clan family he belonged as his Christian name is never mentioned. The fact that he did survive is evidenced by a report in 'The Straits Times' on 3rd May 1936 (p.15) which said, 'A special rate is to be levied on twelve Ulster border towns to raise the £475 Compensation which was awarded at Armagh to Police Constable McElhagga (sic) who was shot last July while on Customs duty on the border of Northern Ireland. A patrol was passing a cattle rustler at two o'clock in the morning when the constable was shot through the stomach. The bullet lodge near the spine and an extremely delicate operation was necessary to remove it'.

To the best of my knowledge there are only two clan members who have been RUC Constables. One was George McIlhagger who served in Co. Galway and who by 1935 had been dead for some years. The other as Andrew McIlhagga who from 1918-25 was a Fireman in The Merchant Navy and who died in 1971 as a retired Police Constable. In 1935 he would have been 39. If he is to be identified with the 'border incident' then it looks as if he might have been in the service for upwards of 25 years.

Permission to cite from an Irish Department of Justice file, NAI, D/Justice, 8/416. has been given by the National Archives of Ireland and by the Director of the National Archives of Ireland, dated 17th November 2010.

Two follow-ups

2011-05-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today someone has kindly posted a comment on my blog called A baker in Australia which I published on 17th September 2009. It contains new and useful information for our clan archives, particularly about George Robinson McIlhagga the eldest son of Samuel Robinson McIlhagga and Jane McNeice. It mentions a firm of glaziers in Belfast called FaircoMcIlhagga which has not been mentioned before in this blog. If anyone has more information to add I would be glad to hear from them.

Also today one of my regular correspondents in Australia has sent me two e-mails about my last blog with a number of supporting documents. After examining the relevant migration and marriage documents it is clear that William McIlhagga and his brother Liston were the children of Andrew McIlhagga and Sarah Wilson. However there is an interesting variation between two spellings of Sarah's middle name. Their marriage record spells it Patillo but her birth record, in Edinburgh, Scotland, spells it Pattali. This birth record shows us her parents' names, John Wilson a Hammerman and Liston Bonsof - this last name is difficult to read. Thus we have the origin of the first name of the eldest son of Andrew and Sarah. The reference in my last blog to Mrs. C. McIlhagga as the mother of Liston and William appears to have been a mistake on a migration document which was picked up by the Winnipeg Free Press in 1945. The only other explanation for this 'error' conceivably may have had something to do with Andrew their father returning in 1938 to live in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Interestingly at that point he declared his age to be 42 when in fact it was 49 - for what reason we do not know.

Freed from Stalag

2011-05-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

I wrote about Flight Lieutenant W. McIlhagga as a prisoner of war on 18th December last, following up an earlier blog on 28th April about him joining the RAF. The above newspaper cutting is from the Winnipeg Free press dated Thursday, June 07, 1945. The text reads, 'FLT-LIEUT. W. McILHAGGA has been freed from Stalag 3A prison camp in Germany and is safe in the United Kingdom according to word received by his wife, who resides at 151 Ferry road. FL McIlhagga was reported missing after air operations Oct. 9. 1944 and was taken prisoner of war in November 1944. He is the son of Mrs. C. McIlhagga, 944 Sherburn street'.

First we can note that William McIlhagga was a POW for about 7 months. My earlier information was that the camp was called Stalag 4, but Stalag 3A which was situated at Luckenwald may well be correct. If anyone can confirm whether it was 3A or 4 I would be most grateful. William's wife is mentioned but not named. She was April or Ella Smith whom he married in March 1942 at Westminster, London, England. She must have moved to Canada after October 1944, presuming that she was with him when he flew from Yorkshire, England, on the air operation on which he was captured. Both her and her mother-in-law's addresses are given in this cutting. An important piece of information is that William was the son of Mrs. C. McIlhagga. No father is mentioned. Does this imply that his father had died by 1945? Also, does anyone know the full maiden name of his mother? I think I am right in saying that William's older brother was Liston Burns McIlhagga, born 1918. When he sailed to New York aged 22 or 23 he declared his 'friend' to be Mrs. C. McIlhagga. Presumably this was his mother. When the family sailed from Belfast to Montreal in 1923 there is a Sarah. Who was she?

Bygone Borderlands

2011-05-25T01:37:00.000-07:00

In the area we in the UK call 'The Borders', straddling the boundary between England and Scotland, we have just had an interesting couple of days called Bygone Borderlands with an Archive Exhibition in Berwick-upon-Tweed Guildhall. On both days there were a number of related talks. I was persuaded to give one which I entitled 'Tracing my family history: Celtic Origins - what price DNA? A rare surname - and a few costly mistakes'.

Most of what I planned to say (only part of which I used because of the time constraint) can be gleaned from what I have written in this blog over the past couple of years. However, here is a summary. Historically I have two starting points for my family 'tracing'. The first was about 50 years ago meeting a Gaelic speaking Scottish Highlander, a stonemason working on the rebuilding of Iona Abbey, who told me the meaning of the Gaelic of McIlhagga, 'Mac-Ghille-Sagairt', namely 'the son of the servant of the priest', and proceeding to tell me that the name was from the Isle of Jura. Half-truths are only half true, and sources should be checked! Gaelic yes, but not from the Highlands at all and therefore not from Jura, but rather from the South-West of Scotland, in fact Ayrshire where Gaelic also used to be spoken. And rather than 'servant', more 'follower'. In my talk I proposed the theory that 'followers' of Mochuda (the Gaelic priest's name which evolved into McIlhagga via Medieval references in the Scottish Border Abbeys) came as 'missionaries' from Lismore in the South of Ireland in the 6th and 7th Centuries to found villages like Colmonell and Kirkmichael where the earliest Anglicised form of 'McIlhagga' can be found.

I commended the internet site <http://www.publicprofiler.org/> which supports the Celtic-Scottish origin of our McIlhagga name, though interestingly confirms that its variant McIlhagger is Celtic-Irish. This fact enabled me to introduce the influence that sometimes the female line has, for 'McIlhagger' was adopted in a marriage and for its descendants from a clan daughter. This in turn let me introduce the difference there will be therefore between the male DNA for the respective McIlhagga and McIlhagger lines. There may of course be McIlhagga DNA in families using another surname where a name change has occurred for other reasons, and I cited an example in New Zealand.

I then came to my second personal 'starting point' for tracing my family tree, namely being brought up to believe that I was 'last of the line' of our branch, something that my 'tracing' has proved in a number of ways not to be true. I mentioned cousins in Canada, one of whom was sent out as a 'Home Child', and another whom I discovered when trying to help with his family tree and who proved to be my third cousin (once removed). Such a 'eureka moment' is one of the rewards we get from our hobby of tracing our families, though there are also 'brick walls', and I cited my own, not being able to find records for the birth or the marriage of my GGgrandfather William, partly caused by the loss of Church records in Clogh, a townland of County Antrim, Ireland. My hope for the future is to find a way back from William who was born about 1795 at least to the earliest references to our clan name in Ireland which occurs in the Hearth Tax records of 1669, and then may be to Ayrshire where references go back to 1527.

By the time I had reached this point in my talk I had nearly run out of time and I was not able to do justice to other material I had prepared, including the experience of having my own DNA analysed and so being able to demonstrate that our clan name is not to be confused with similar names found in the 'Borderlands', like McIlhargy. I had hoped to warn folk not to be taken in by commercial firms which produce false heraldic devices and dubious family name origins. I had hoped to tell the story of how I spent two years being misled by false information which had been given to me in good faith and which at the time I was too inexperienced to question. I also wanted to tell how such experiences can be balanced by good fortune which I have had on at least two occasions by being in touch with people who had done well-resourced research into two branches of my family tree and have taken me back many generations. Sadly I had no time to sum up what I had said by referring to a number of individuals who have proved to be really interesting characters or who have experienced life-changing events and so made their stories memorable in our clan. Most of them are there in this blog, with one exception, perhaps the most intriguing, a story which I will tell very soon.

DNA Update

2011-05-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

Kelso Abbey, The Scottish Borders

This blog supercedes the one I wrote on 18th April, last month. The firm called , which I used to analyse my DNA, each year republishes what it calls its Haplogroup Tree which shows how one person's DNA relates to another's. The 2011 tree has been published and, if I understand the prompts from my own DNA result correctly, it significantly changes the 'coding' which I had been previously given, and to which I have referred in earlier blogs. It seems to have introduced a new sub-group for my (McIlhagga) DNA. It uses the detailed code R1b1a2* which is part of the larger category M269. Its own commentary on this category is brief, namely: 'Observed most frequently in Europe, especially Western Europe, but with notable frequency in Southwest Asia. R1b1a2 - M269 is estimated to have arisen approximately 4000 - 8000 years ago in south west Asia and to have spread into Europe from there'.

Alister Moffat and James F. Wilson, in their recent The Scots, A Genetic Journey, Birlinn, 2011, p.66f., write as follows: 'The M269 marker... is predominant in Scotland with 70% of men carrying it. It does originate in south-west Asia... (and) what persuades geneticists and historians that (it) was the farmers' marker is its very rapid multiplication and spread. How did that happen? How did M269 get to be common so quickly? The overwhelming likelihood is that it came to Balbridie, Claish, Kelso and elsewhere, and, as farming was rapidly and successfully adopted, immigrant pioneers took native women as partners.... . The arrival of M269 represents the most influential immigration in all our history.... . Many sub-lineages from the M269 group have been recognised, some of them arriving in Scotland later (sometimes from Ireland, where they had existed since pre-farming times)'.

The sub-group of M269, coded R1b1a2* appears to be very rare. There are still only two in the database, both McIlhagga's, and conceivably it could have come into Scotland via Ireland. Isn't it interesting that Moffat and Wilson name Kelso when one of the Medieval references to our name is in the Annals of Kelso Abbey?

Three (or four) Pensioners

2011-05-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

Most people know that many Irish records were destroyed. This includes most of the 1851 Census, though for some reason a 2% sample was retained. I consider our clan fortunate that I have no fewer than twenty-four names in an 1851 Census Index for Ireland, though there are a few duplicates because the surname has been spelled in different ways. And I have just found eight extra people for the list from a new Internet site called Ireland Genealogy. This site contains a record of all the people in about the second decade of the 20th Century who applied for a State Pension and needed to prove that they were of pensionable age. One way to do this was to show they were in the 1851 Irish Census. I put 'McIlhag*' in to the site's search box and received four 'hits'. I paid up £2 each and downloaded them. Interestingly all four were women.

First is Mary McIlhagga or Fullerton. I assume this means Mary married a man called Fullerton and interestingly in the clan Marriage Index I have compiled I have a McIlhagga - Fullerton marriage, on 8th Jan 1872 in Connor Church of Ireland. This was of John son of John Fullerton to Margaret (not Mary) daughter of James McIlhagga. I have this record from the Ulster Historical Foundation's Internet site called Ancestry Ireland. The Pension application record says that Mary McIlhagga/Fullerton's father was James, of the parish of Connor. In an 'Observation' note dated 1920 there is a reference to 'Agent, St. Saviour's, Connor, Antrim', which must have been the name of the Church of Ireland which was prepared to vouch for Mary. However, either we have two sisters, Margaret and Mary, who both married a Fullerton, or we have two sisters who serially married the same John Fullerton, or we have a woman who was known as both Margaret and Mary who married John Fullerton.

Perhaps the rest of the 'Observation' note gives us a clue, '1851 Parents married 1843, no Mary, a daughter Mary 7 years died 1850.' I take this to mean that in the 1851 Census there is a reference to the parents of Mary (who is making the application) marrying in 1843 and having a child in 1843 whom they called Mary but who died in 1850. The Margaret who married John Fullerton in 1872 must have been born after the 1851 Census, maybe later that year, in which case she was 21 when she married. Her marriage record simply says 'FA', Full Age, which meant 21 or over. The only conclusion I can draw is that Margaret had by 1920 come to be known as Mary. If she made her application in the name of Mary, I fear that because no Mary was found in the 1851 Census, she may have been turned down for a pension - she would have been 69 in 1920 - but we don't know.

There are two further interesting references in this record. Margaret's witness at her marriage to John Fullerton was Eliza Ann McIlhagga who was in all probability her sister. I will return to this point. On 'Mary''s pension application the names of her parents are given who therefore must have been in the 1851 Census. They are James McIlhagga and Mary Anne McIlhagga nee Gardner. In passing I must say that in my clan Birth Index I do have one Mary born 1843 whose father was James, though the Ulster Historical Foundation records the surname as McIlhagger. There is no such person in my McIlhagger family tree so the reference may well be to the Mary who died in 1850 aged seven. To return to her parents, I'm afraid I have no record for the marriage of James McIlhagga and Mary Anne Gardner. If they were married in 1843 as the pension application says, they would have been born (say) about 1820. The application gives the townland, Slaght, and the parish, Connor, and there was certainly one McIlhagga - Gard(i)ner marriage in that parish. Agnes, a daughter of Francis Gardiner married Henry son of Henry McIlhagga. It could well be that Agnes had a sister Mary Anne who married James McIlhagga, and there was certainly one James in the family which hailed from the parish of Connor, but alas I have no record to back this up.

So from this one Pension record we have one or two unsolved issues. Was Mary Anne Gardner a sister of Agnes Gardiner and a daughter of Francis? Probably. Did James and Mary Anne (nee Gardner) McIlhagga have three or four daughters, Mary (1843-1850), Margaret (?1851-m.1872), ?Mary (?69 in 1920) and Eliza Ann (?sister of Margaret)? At least we can be clear about Eliza Ann for the second pension application was for an Eliza Ann McIlhagga whose parents were given as James McIlhagga and Mary A. McIlhagga of Slaght, Connor, the same townland and parish as those on Mary (Margaret?)'s application. The 'Observation' note is very brief, '1917 - Agent, The Rectory, Ballymena'. This again indicates a Church of Ireland link, presumably the Rector vouching for Eliza Ann. The date 1917 (against 1920 on Mary's application) probably means that Eliza Ann applied for a pension three years before Mary/Margaret, telling us that she was probably three years older than her sister, which is consonant with her being a witness at her sister's wedding. There is no indication that Eliza Ann was married, which accords with references I have in my clan Birth Index to the only Eliza Ann McIlhagga I have come across, as the single mother who had several children, possibly including Eliza Ann (1869), James (1872), Andrew (1875) and twins Mary Jane and William John (1879). The major unsolved question is who was the father of James McIlhagga who married Mary Anne in 1843? We don't know, though if her sister Agnes married Henry son of Henry McIlhagga, it is possible that the two sisters married two brothers, which would make James also a son of Henry.

The third pension application was from Ellen McIlhaga the daughter of Nathaniel and Ellen McIlhaga from the townland of Mountpottinger Street, Ballymacarrett, Belfast in the parish of Knockbreda. The 'Observation' note says '1917 - Mrs. Ellen Hinton, 30 Rathlin St, Crumlin Rd, Belfast', which I take to mean that by 1917 she was married to a Mr. Hinton, and from other Irish records I do have the marriage of John son of William Hinton, on 5th Jan 1872 to Ellen McIlhage/McIlhaggo daughter of Nathaniel, at Eglinton St. Presbyterian Church, Belfast. I also know that she had a sister Jane who was married the following year at the same church. One of the witnesses at both Ellen's and Jane's marriages was James McIlhage whom we may assume was their brother. Beyond this I cannot at present discover further relations.

The final pension application was for a Rachel or Jane McCormick whose parents were James McCormick and Matilda McCormick nee McIlhags, from the townland of Cloghogue in the parish of Drummaul, County Antrim. The 'Observation' note reads '1917 - The Secy, L.G.B., Edinburgh. 1951 James and Matilda McCormic (sic) married 1832, Eliz. 18, Mary Ann 15, Martha 13, Margt. 10, Agnes 7, Rachel 4'. The clan link is Matilda whose marriage, as Matilda McIlhagga, I had known of from the death certificate in 1921 of her daughter Rachel Chesney (nee McCormick), Springburn, Glasgow. Some time ago on 'RootsChat' someone was looking for this James McCormick. I have sent him a message and await a reply.

An Unknown Lady

2011-05-05T09:07:00.001-07:00

My correspondent to whom I referred in my last blog has kindly sent me some photographs of the clan family who resided in Courtrai, Belgium. The one I have put at the head of today's piece is marked 'unknown'. Most of us are very bad at not writing the names of the people on the backs of our photos. Perhaps it is for fear of spoiling them, and we should certainly not use the kind of pen or pencil which would leave an indentation. I recently attended a Family History Fair in Port Sunlight, Cheshire, where I found the catalogue of a firm called 'My History' from which I bought some acid free pens which won't damage documents. They are really for writing on charts and acid free (archive) paper. The ink is water resistant and archive safe. However, they have ball-points and might I think dent a photograph. Fortunately 'My History' also had a felt-tip safe for use on the backs of photos. Its trade mark is ZIG. I must get busy! And if anyone knows the name of the lady in the above photo, please tell me. From the style of her clothes, and therefore my guess at a date, I suspect she was Grace Marrs who married Samuel McIlhaga about 1870. You can just see at the right foot of the photo that it was taken by a professional photographer in Courtrai, where she and Samuel lived.

Belgium - twice in two days!

2011-05-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

In writing this blog it is continuously gratifying to have people get in touch about our clan history, and the first two days of May have been no exception. The second e-mail came from the grandson of Isabella Emily Marrs McIlhagga of Courtrai, Belgium. I didn't know she had married (a Samuel Bowden). Interestingly my correspondent spells her surname with two 'g's, though to the best of my knowledge this branch of the clan, even to today, spells it with one 'g'. So have we here an indication that a 'two-g' family changed to being a 'one-g' family? Maybe, and this may be so for a further reason. Isabella's parents were Samuel McIlhaga and Grace Marrs. Samuel was a flax-buyer and lived and worked for a number of years in Courtrai, Belgium. I have never known who Samuel's father was. My correspondent tells me that Samuel and Grace had living with them in Belgium until 1912 William John McIlhagga who, he assumes, was Samuel's father. Now Samuel and Grace had a son whom they called William John Marrs, surely after his paternal grandfather, and according to the Celtic naming pattern. He thinks, probably correctly, that William John in his turn was the son of Eliza Ann McIlhagga of Slatt, County Antrim. All this adds to my knowledge of this family and I hope that Isabella's grandson and I can continue to correspond and discover more. I certainly have more to tell him, and I have sent him some comments and questions which might help us forward.

My first e-mail was even more gratifying because it came from my own fifteen-year-old grandson. When he first went to Secondary School his history teacher set the class a project to find out whether any of their ancestors had taken part in the World Wars of the twentieth century. I was then able to send him photos of my father in France in the First World War and told him of over a dozen McIlhaggas who had served, some of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice. Recently he must have been on a school visit to a Commonwealth Cemetery where on his own initiative he photographed a document with the name McIlhagga, Private H.... 46th Battalion, Canadian Infantry... died 26th October, 1917, and the reference to his grave. I was able to e-mail him back and tell him about 'H's family. He was in fact John Hutcheson McIlhagga, one of 12 children, four brothers of whom had served in the First World War, and all of whom had emigrated to Canada. 'H' - he must have been known as 'Hutch' - was in the Saskatchewan Regiment of the Canadian Infantry, though he was born and brought up in Belfast, Ireland. He fought at Passchendale and is buried at Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium. My grandson had simply sent me a message to say 'This may be of interest'. It was - he had sent me some documentary evidence that was new to me, and he had made me realise that 'J.H.' must have been know as 'Hutch'. And even more gratifyingly he had remembered his Year 1 Project and my interest in our clan genealogy.

Some free information and a McPhee problem

2011-04-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

In honour of a certain (Royal) wedding which will take place next Friday one of the commercial genealogy internet sites, Ancestry.co.uk, has given free access to certain of its resources. First, it has opened its marriage indexes for England and Wales. I put 'McIlhag*' into the search box and got 61 hits. Having saved the details to my 'Ancestry shoebox', I now have to find the time to check that I have all of these in my clan Marriage Index. These are all marriages of people who are still alive so I will not be commenting on any of the details in this blog.

Second, Ancestry has given free access to some of its Canadian records. Again, I entered 'McIlhag*' and got three hits. All were from the Drouin Collection of 'Quebec Vital and Church Records, 1621-1967'. Two related to a branch of my own family and one contained new information. The first was the birth/baptism of William Neil Duncan McIlhaggie, 1921 at Montreal, Knox Presbyterian Church. It reads, 'Baptism. McIlhaggie. William Neil Duncan McIlhaggie son of Thomas McIlhaggie and Annie Campbell his wife was born in Montreal on the twenty first of December in the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty and was baptized by me on the ninth day of March in the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty one. R.W. Dickie. Thomas McIlhaggie. Annie C. McIlhaggie.' The image is clearly in Mr. Dickie's handwriting, except for the signatures of Thomas and Annie which were in their own handwriting.

William Neil Duncan was the only child of Thomas and Annie who survived. I have known for some time, from William's son in Canada, that there were two earlier births of children who did not survive and whose names we have not known. The second child, a boy, may have been stillborn and not given a name. The first child's name is now known to us from a death/burial record from The Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal. It reads, 'McIlhagga buried 2nd Aug. 1917. Christina Bird infant daughter of Thomas McIlhagga, and of Annie Campbell his wife, died on the first day of August one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, aged nine days, and was buried on the second day of August in the same year. By me, M.B. Johnson, Curate. Witnesses present at Committal, Thomas McIlhagga.' Interestingly Thomas' signature in 1917 was clearly McIlhagga and in 1921 was clearly McIlhaggie. The Ancestry transcription for 1917 states incorrectly that it was McIlhagge. Both these entries derive from the Ballycloghan McIlhagga family.

The third Canadian clan record comes from a different family line. It is another baptism, this time from the Catholic Church Records of Notre Dame du Bon Conseil, Ottawa (1910). It reads, 'B.80. Eliz. McPhee. On the twentieth day of September nineteen hundred and ten, I the undersigned priest have solemnly baptized Elizabeth McIlhaggo lawful daughter of John McPhee and Elizabeth [McIlhaggo crossed out] McMinn born on the twenty first ultimum. The sponsors were myself and Eliz. McIlhaggo. Geo. W.O'Toole'.

Now I have only one McPhee - McIlhagga link, and that is indeed a John McPhee who married Sarah Bell McIlhaggar, daughter of William McIlhaggar (1850-1935) and Mary Jane Bell. William was son of Francis who almost certainly was part of the Maxwell's Walls branch of the family. Sarah Bell McIlhaggar was born in Carmyle, Scotland. The John McPhee whom she married could well have been born a little earlier, perhaps 1860. They had five children, the eldest of whom was also John. He would have been too young to marry Elizabeeth McMinn and have a child in 1910. John born perhaps 1860 would have been the right age, but he was married to Sarah Bell McIlhaggar! Could a marriage to Elizabeth McMinn in Ottawa have been a first marriage? And who was Elizabeth McIlhaggo the baptism sponsor, after whom the McPhees clearly called their child? There was certainly one Elizabeth McIlhaggo in the family from which Sarah Bell McIlhaggar came. She was in fact Sarah Bell's aunt, and a daughter of Francis, so we could have the scenario that I am suggesting. I would be most grateful if anyone can enlighten me further.

Surname finder maps

2011-04-23T00:22:00.000-07:00

In this blog I have written a number of times about the origins of our clan name and have maintained, with I think the best 'name historians', that it has Scottish origins, despite its strong Irish links. Clearly discovering the origin of a surname is a great help for genealogical and indeed its associated genetic research. In a recent article in the magazine Your Family Tree Anthony Adolph mentioned a new internet site for mapping the whereabouts of Western surnames, and therefore a start for guessing where they originated, or perhaps a confirmation of a paper trail. It is at www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames. Does it agree with the name historians and with the conclusions I have come to about our clan name?

The site uses OnoMap, an academic project developed at University College, London. Consideration of language, religion, geographical region and culture in relation to names has resulted in 185 Categories organised into 66 Subgroups and 16 Groups. So what do these reveal for our clan? I put 'McIlhagga', 'McIlhagger' and 'McIlhaga' in to the site 'search term' box. First a World Map appears and then you can click on a country to get a more detailed map of an Area, like Europe. Then you can click on a Region, e.g. Ireland, to give even more detail. Each map is coloured in six shades to show from high to low density of a name. These maps are of course showing present day usage of a name, not historical usage, so are different from maps produced from historical sources, such as censuses. Tables with statistics and names give the top five Countries, Regions and Cities, and the top five forenames associated with the surname.

Finally under the title 'Roots of this name' you are given 'Group', 'Subgroup' and 'Language'. There is also a question for you to respond to, 'Do you agree? Yes/No'. For McIlhagga we are given, Group: Celtic; Subgroup: Scottish; Language: English. For McIlhagger we have Group: Celtic; Subgroup: Irish; Language: English. For McIlhaga we get the message 'Sorry we don't have any information on the roots of this name'. For McIlhagga and McIlhagger I ticked 'Yes, I agree'.

Y - DNA Haplogroup tree

2011-04-18T01:24:00.000-07:00

To the best of my knowledge only two of us in the McIlhagga clan have had our DNA analysed. To my gratification the personal 37-marker result for each of us is identical. A particular Y chromosome result is known by an M(arker) number and ours in M335. This indicates the place where a common ancestor probably originated and how many people are known with this Marker in a particular place, say Scotland. I am at present reading a book entitled The Scots, A Genetic Journey by Alistair Moffat and James F. Wilson, and I am interested to see whether M335 gets a mention - though not in the first 60 pages! The American firm which does the DNA analysis has drawn a 'Marker' Tree to show how the different numbered markers relate to one another. This tree seems to make it clear that the McIlhagga M335 is very rare and is found in very few people! And it indicates that it originates in Anatolia - the middle of Turkey! (though as we know in dim pre-history everything came from Africa). The book I am reading does however say (p.58), with reference to another Marker (423), which it calls the Scots founding lineage, that it could have arrived in Scotland about 6000 BC, having crossed the Bosphorus from Anatolia, then along the great river valleys of Central Europe, the Danube and the Rhine. This of course is in the period when Britain was not divided from the rest of Europe by the English Channel, and the Rhine virtually joined up with the Thames.

Having noted this place for a possible common ancestor, I have to say it is based on the developing science of Genetic Migration, and this is what I understood from the 2010 Y-DNA Tree. On 21 March this year many groups were updated by recent research, including our Haplogroup clade, which is R1b1c (Haplogroup is a population descended from a Common Ancestor, and a clade is a sub-section of it). The result is that our origins are now said to be found most frequently in SW Asia and Africa and the African examples are associated with the spread of the Chadic languages. This is the result of research from an Italian University and published in the Jan 6th 2010 issue of the European Journal of Human Genetics. An abstract of this article states that '(a)lthough human Y chromosomes belonging to the haplogroup R1b are quite rare in Africa, being found mostly in Asia and Europe [like the McIlhaggas] ...(t)he analysis of the distribution of the R-V88 (this code seems to have replace M335) haplogroup in >1800 males from 69 African populations revealed a striking genetic contiguity between the Chadic-speaking peoples from the central Sahel and several other Afroasiatic speaking groups from North Africa'. This is due to what is called 'back-migration' from Asia to Africa in prehistoric times.

Now all this is very interesting, but we (of the McIlhagga clan) have to conclude that despite the 'back-migration' some continuing east to west migration must have taken place which included some at least of our clan. The fact that some of us have the same DNA as Chadic speakers in the Lake Chad basin is amazing, if not mind-blowing! Where we go from here I don't know. Hopefully someone will do some work on 'M335' or 'V88' in the European population and enlighten us further.

Glenboig to Maryhill

2011-04-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

This is my final bite of the 1911 Scottish Cherry. The last household was in Maryhill - George and Isabella McIlhago and children Margaret (19), Harry (18) and James (14). Interestingly George was a 'Railway Constable', presumably in the early Railway Police Force. Harry was also employed by the Railway Company as a Bookings Clerk. The family had moved to Maryhill from Glenboig near Coatbridge in North Lanarkshire where the first two children had been born and where George had been a miner. However, it was when the children were very young for they are all there in Maryhill in the previous 1901 Census. It must have been quite a change from small rural town to large city. In the 1901 Census Harry had been mis-transcribed as Harvey and Margaret had the second name initial B. In fact both she and James had the second name Boak.

One of the interesting things for us is where George originated in Ireland. If he was 48 in 1911, his birth year was 1863 and the only Irish George McIlhago (sometimes McIlhaggo) I have on record is George Gardner McIlhago who in 1890 married Isabella Scott Boak in New Monkland, Lanark. Clearly from the evidence of second names we have the right couple. Their son James Boak was to marry Margaret Watson Mackenzie on 25th February 1927 in Hope Street Free Church of Scotland, Glasgow. George's father, back in Ireland, was Henry who had farmed in the townland of Maxwell's Walls in the parish of Connor. His mother was Agnes, daughter of Francis Gardiner a neighbouring farmer in Castlegore. Henry's father and grandfather were also Henry, each farming in the same townland, in a family line which consistently used the 'old' spelling of McIlhaggo, back to the end of the eighteenth century and maybe earlier.

The Greenock Family

2011-04-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

Ina McIlhaga, working as a servant to a physician, gave her age as 18, which means she was born about 1893. My first reaction which I put in my last blog was that she was Ina McIlhagga who emigrated to the States. There she worked as a housemaid and in the 1930 USA Census gave her age as 27 therefore with a birth year of 1903! She was in fact born on 24th January 1894 (Statutory Birth Record). If this was the same Ina she would have been 37, not 27. It is not unusual for someone to falsify their age, perhaps to get employment, perhaps to wish to appear younger to a prospective marriage partner. Ina did marry a James Strathearn in the USA. I have to say that I have no other Ina in my records, and certainly not an Ina McIlhaga, and I am convinced that the Greenock Ina and the USA Ina were one and the same. Do I have Ina in the 1901 Scottish Census when she would have been about eight? I think so. Born in Greenock I have an Alexander aged 7 which is I'm sure an error for Alexandrina, Ina's full name. His/her parents were James and Johanna (nee McCulloch) McIlhagga of 19 Ingleston Place, Greenock. James was 45 in 1901. Where is he in 1911? He is surely James aged 54, still a Rivetter and now living at 31 Lyle Street. His eldest daughter Marion was keeping house as his wife Johanna had died six years earlier in 1905 having had 'Pulminary Phthisis' for two and a half months. That sounds like Tuberculosis. The family had moved house after her death. In 1911 only four of their fifteen children were still 'at home', namely Marion, Agnes, Isabella and James. They also had a lodger, David Bell who was born in England. It is likely that he was a relation as they had called their eighth daughter 'Annie Bell', but how the Bells and the McIlhaggas were linked I'm not sure.

We now come to Joan McIlhagga, 22, who was a Domestic Servant in Greenock to Robert and Marion Anderson. I am somewhat mystified! I have no Joan on record. However the name could be short for Joanne or Joanna, and there was one Joanne McIlhagga born about 1885, which would have made her 26 in 1911, who eventually married Melville Russell Dean in about 1919 in Alberta, Canada. This does not immediately solve the mystery because I don't know her parentage from that event. Do we get anywhere by going back to the 1901 Scottish Census? Yes, I think we do, for there was a Johanna McIlhagga aged 13 in Greenock East who was another daughter of James and Johanna. And (aha!) she was none other than the person who married Melville Dean. She had two children by him but died at the early age of 35 in 1923, sadly in childbirth. Interestingly her sister Agnes, whom I have noted above, also died in Calgary, Alberta, also at the young age of 27. Their sister Isabella also went to Canada, married Hugh Gallagher Bates and died in 1944 in Kimberley, British Columbia, aged 47. They had one daughter Isabel in 1921 who married John Duff Leith and died in Trail, British Columbia, aged 49. James, who also appears with this family in 1911 emigrated to New York where he married Aa Scots girl from Fairlie, Jean Blue Crawford in 1924. They were to have two sons.

But we haven't dome with this family yet! The Catherine M C McIlhaggie in the 1911 Census is a slight misreading for Catherine McC McIlhagga - her middle name was her mother's maiden name, McCulloch - who, aged 24, was also a Domestic Servant, to Daniel and Margaret Kerr. Like so many of her siblings she too emigrated across the 'pond', ending up in Plant City, Hillsborough, Florida where she died at the great age of 89 in 1976. As far as we know she didn't marry.

Who was the James McIlhaggie, aged 29 in the 1911 Census who was in the Merchant Navy? The record says he was born in Greenock, but there is no James aged 19 in the families of the 1901 Census. The reason? He was at sea then, but in the Royal Navy! He was in fact James the son of William Carson McIlhagga and Rachel McLelland, mentioned above, who was born 19th August 1882. In 1901 he was counted on board a battleship in Gibraltar Bay. Between 1901 and 1911 he must have transferred to the Merchant Service. And in that time he married Mary Young on 30th October 1908 in Govan. They had a son John Young McIlhagga who when he was a Quay Labourer in 1931 married Margaret Smellie Allan in Union Church of Scotland, Maryhill, Glasgow. They had a daughter, Margaret Allan who sadly died as a small child in 1937. John died at the young age of 31 in 1940. Lastly, in this mixture of McIlhagas, McIlhaggas and McIlhaggies, all of who were near relations in the same clan family, we come to Mary McIlhaggie aged 29 who had the one year old son John. We learned from the Census form that she had been married for three years, so her maiden name was not a clan name. Who was she? Yes, she was the Mary Young who married James was was on board ship in 1911 and whose son was John Young McIlhagga. I do not know if they had any other children.

Finally, and from the same clan family, we have William, Martha and Thomas McIlhaggie in the 1911 Census. Their name is also spelled McIlhagga in other documentation. William's wife Rachel (nee McLelland) had died in 1893. In 1911 two of their nine children were still at home. Martha was to remain in Scotland and marry a Mr. Dickson. She died in Dennistoun in 1959 at the age of 71. Thomas, who had the interesting second name of Norris, was to emigrate to Canada where just two years later he married Ann Munro Campbell in Montreal. They were to have just one son who lived past infancy, William Neil Duncan who to this day has five descendants in Canada and the USA. Thomas Norris McIlhagga died at Daytona Beach, Florida.

1911 Scottish Detail

2011-04-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

In order to access the full details of the 19 clan members in the 1911 Scottish Census I had to download the details of eight different households. Unfortunately the original census forms have been destroyed so one cannot see one's ancestors' handwriting, but one can see the copies made by the enumerators. Thankfully they seem to have had good clear handwriting. First Ina McIlhaga (either wrongly entered by the householder or mis-transcribed - she was a McIlhagga) was staying with Thomas and his 12 year old daughter Catherine G. Philip at 38 Union Street, Greenock. Ina was employed as an 18 year old servant to Mr. Philip who was a Physician and Surgeon. Next we have a McIlhagga family living at 31 Lyle Street, Greenock. James, a Riveter employed in shipbuilding aged 54 was the head of a household of three daughters, a son and a boarder. His daughters were Marion, 33, who appears not to have had paid employment, so one suspects she was the housekeeper. Agnes, 19, was a net worker in a Merino Mill and Isabella, 14 was still at school. The son James aged 12 was also at school. All were born in Greenock. Their boarder was a 24 year old Joiner working for a Builder, David Bell who had been born in England.

The next McIlhagga was Joan aged 22, who was a Domestic Servant working for Robert, 36 and Marion, 40 Anderson at 17 Robertson Street, Greenock. Robert was a 'Public Accountant'. Next we come to Catherine M.C. McIlhagga aged 24 who was working as a Domestic Servant at 1 Margaret Street, Greenock, for Daniel 58 and Margaret 56 Kerr. Daniel was a 'Factor to Trustees'. They also had in the household a 26 year old Cook, Margaret McKechnie. She was a highlander from Argyle who spoke both Gaelic and English. Next is listed James McIlhagga aged 24 who was a 'Seaman AB' in 'Foreign Trade'. On Census night he was on board Numedian in Princes Dock, Glasgow Harbour.

We move to a variant surname with Mary McIlhaggie aged 29 and her son John aged one. They lived at 22 Blackburn Street, Plantation, Glasgow. Mary is described as Head of Household who had been born in Govan. In the Census columns 'Particulars as to Marriage' it states that she had been married for three years (so married in 1908) and that she had had one child. We now come to a household of eight people, three of whom are William McIlhaggie 59, who is a Labourer with the Town Council, born in Greenock, Martha McIlhaggie 22, who was a Restaurant Waitress and 19 year old Thomas McIlhaggie who was a Cook (vegetable) with the Marine Merchant Service. These three were 'in-Law' relations to the head of the household, Adam Woods McLellan aged 36, who was a Blacksmith in a Horse & Hoeing Forge. They were respectively Father-in-Law, Sister-in-Law and Brother-in-Law. This means that Adam's wife Matilda (34) was William's daughter. Adam and Matilda had three children, Rachel 12, Jessie 9 and William 6.

Finally we come to the five members of the McIlhago family at 40 Murano Street, Maryhill in the Quod Sacra Parish of St. Cuthbert in Glasgow North. George aged 48 was a 'Railway Constable' with the Railway Company. He had been born in Ireland. His wife Isabella, 42 was born in Colyston, Lanark. They had three teenage children, Margaret 19, a Milliner, Harry 18, a Railway Booking Clerk and James 14, a Clerk with a Granary Warehouse. All the children were born in Glenboig(?), Glasgow. Next time I will compare the 1911 Census with the 1901 and maybe earlier Censuses.

1911 Scottish Census

2011-04-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

Today the 1911 Scottish Census came on line at ScotlandsPeople. I simply searched it with the surname McIlhag*. With the wildcard * I got 19 clan results. I also tried McElhag* with zero results. There are 10 females and 9 males, 10 adults (21 and over), 9 under 20 - all teenagers except one one-year-old. There are no fewer than 8 households, three of them being 'single person' (as far as we are concerned) plus one man in the Merchant Navy. 8 people lived in Greenock on the West Coast, the rest in Glasgow, 5 in the district called Plantation and 5 in Possilpark. There are no fewer than four variations of the spelling of our surname: one McIlhaga, six McIlhagga, seven McIlhaggie and five McIlhago. If we compare earlier official censuses, our clan numbers in Scotland have been small but remarkably steady: 1841-7; 1851-9; 1861-14; 1871-21; 1881-23; 1891-22; 1901-22; 1911-19. Next time I'll start to spell out the details of each household.

McIlhagga - Glass

2011-04-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

In my last blog I outlined the facts we know about the thirteen or fourteen people in the family around Samuel McIlhagga or McIlhaggo or McIlhage who was born on 1st January 1832. Its first home was in the Antrim coastal town of Carrickfergus, almost certainly the place where the girl her married, Elizabeth Glass, grew up. As we have no other clan references to this town it seems likely that Samuel came from somewhere fairly near by. The place where there was a significant clan presence, and had been for about a hundred years, was a mere ten to fifteen miles along the coast, going north, on the peninsula called Islandmagee, so named because in the 16th Century the Magees from the Rinns of Islay followed their laird to Ulster.

There are some circumstantial 'reasons' why Samuel may have belonged to Islandmagee. The clan there spelled their name with an 'o' ending, McIlhaggo, as did Samuel on occasions. Second, the first name Samuel was certainly favoured among the McIlhaggos there and some of our information comes from the Will of Samuel McIlhaggo who died in 1818. This Will makes it clear that he had a son and three grandsons, two of whom were named Samuel and John. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Samuel born in 1832 had sons named Samuel and John, though they cannot have been the two referred to in the Will. The dates don't fit. We are probably looking at two generation apart. It is therefore possible that the Samuel named in the Will, or one of his brothers, (the great-grandsons of the Samuel who made the Will), could have been the father of Samuel born in 1832. Third, the clan families on Islandmagee were all farmers, so if Samuel born in 1832 in his early days was a cattle drover/dealer, then this was something he had likely been brought up to. Fourth, whether or not he was son of the brother called Samuel, it could have been that Samuel who was the witness named at the baptism of a couple of the children of Samuel and Elizabeth.

Do we have any further clues from later events? Not very much. We think that two children of Samuel and Elizabeth must have died as infants. If any of the others survived and married I'm afraid I haven't found any such records. We do have the evidence of the 1901 and the 1911 Irish Censuses. Samuel senior would have been 69 in 1901 but there is no Samuel of that age in the Census. Samuel junior would have been 30, and again, there is no Samuel of or near that age. Nor do they appear in the 1911 Census. John however would have been 26 in 1901 and in that Census there is a 26 year old John and his 25 years old wife Mary living at 102 Queen Street, Ballymena. He was a Carter. In the 1911 Census there is no equivalent Mary though there is a 36 year old John who is boarding with a Sinclair family at 32 Agnes Street, Belfast. He was a Shipwright. He was recorded as single, though he may have preferred to say he was single rather than a widower, if Mary had died.

Cattle Drover to Car Driver

2011-04-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

I have been checking my own clan Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes against those available at the Ulster Historical Foundation. I'm afraid that 82 of my entries are missing facts which are hidden in the UHF entries, so I had better do something about it! Fortunately I have a little credit left in my UHF account, enough to check about twenty, and it seems logical to start with one of the oldest. I have 11 births/baptisms from the 1790s. The one I decided to check was that of Margaret McIlhaggy. I knew she was born to Nathan and Sarah and that her birth/baptism was 4th March 1790. The church was St. Anne's Church of Ireland, Shankill, Belfast. I hoped to find Sarah's maiden name, but didn't. I also hoped to find whether the date was a birth or a baptism. The full record has the birth and baptism dates separate, but gives 4th March for both. I can only conclude that Margaret's baptism took place on the day of her birth, possibly because it was thought she would not survive. I have no knowledge of whether she did or not.

I next decided to look up the two entries I have for Samuel McIlhage in 1832 and 1871. Oddly the 1832 entry recorded no parents' names. The full record shows the reason. Born on 1st Jan 1832 Samuel was conditionally baptised in St. Mac Nissi's Roman Catholic Church on 10th Nov 1850 at the age of 18 years by the Rev. A. O'Neill. The baptism of an adult probably needed no parental sponsors. But if only I could find another Samuel born in 1832 I might have found his father, but I can't! There must have been a good reason for Samuel being conditionally baptised in 1850, and the second Samuel McIlhage entry surely reveals it. Samuel born 25th April 1871 and baptised on 28th at St. Mary's Roman Catholic church by the Rev. M. McCashin had parents Samuel McIlhage and Elizabeth Glass. The family lived in Abbey Street, Belfast. There were two baptism witnesses, John McIlroy and Alice Fagan. Surely the father Samuel in 1871 was the Samuel conditionally baptised in 1850.

The reasonable assumption would I think be that in order to marry Elizabeth Glass, Samuel converted to Roman Catholicism. He converted in 1850 when he was 18 and would have been legally able to marry when he was 21 in 1853, and I do have a record of a marriage on 23rd June 1853 of Samuel McIlhagga to Elizabeth Glass at Carrickfergus Roman Catholic Church by the Rev. J. Cunningham. Sadly, on the marriage record the two fathers' names are given simply as surnames, McIlhagga and Glass, and no mothers' names are recorded. We may read into this scenario that the families were not in favour of this inter-church marriage, this being the reason not only for 'surnames only', but also for the fact that Samuel waited until he was 21 to marry. The witnesses' names are given, Bernard Conway and Susan Higgins, but these do not give any clues to Samuel's family.

From other records we do know a little more about this couple. They had other children than Samuel in 1871. John McIlhagga/o was born on 12th May 1875 also in Belfast. Susan McIlhaggo was born on 23rd June 1867, also in Belfast. And most interestingly Agnes McIlhaggo was born on 11th Dec 1862 (and registered on 14th Jan 1863) at 5 Corporation Street, Carlisle, Cumbria. So this family gives us the earliest of our English references. And the Cumbrian baptism gives us an occupation for Samuel. He was then a Cattle Dealer. In the UHF records there is a third McIlhage entry, with a father Samuel, but no given name, born in 1876. At first I assumed this was a child born to Samuel and Elizabeth who had died at birth. But on checking I was again taught the lesson not to take anything for granted. It was an entry for a completely different family. This nameless child, who probably did die at birth, belonged to Samuel a Flax Buyer who was married to Grace Marrs and who lived at 33 Greenmount Road, Belfast.

In order to check whether I had collected all the references to this family I then returned to the UHF to get the full entries of all the births/baptisms with a father Samuel from the middle of the 19th Century. In addition to Agnes in '62, Susan in '67, Samuel in '71 and John in '75, several more were revealed! Margaret was born in Carrickfergus on 14th May 1854, the year after Samuel and Elizabeth were married. John was born two years later, on 3rd February in Carrickfergus. A later John born in 1875 must mean this first John died as an infant. Elizabeth was born on 16th January 1858 in Carrickfergus and Mary Anne was born on 8th October 1860, also in Carrickfergus. All these are recorded as Roman Catholic baptisms. None record an occupation for Samuel, though we may suspect that a move from Carrickfergus to Cumbria by 1862 may have meant he was involved in cattle dealing in Ireland. There are three significant changes when we come to 1867. On 23rd July that year Susan was born and registered in the 'Civil Parish' on 2nd August, and the family had moved back from Cumbria to 30 Greenland Street, Belfast. Second, Samuel's occupation is given as Car Driver. Third, the witness's name is recorded as Samuel McIlhagga. Conceivably this could have been Samuel himself, but it may have been his father. If so, then we know the name of Samuel's father, of which we have not had a clue up to this point, though we must say we cannot be certain. We must also record that there is the birth of another Susan, 14 months later on 9th September 1868, from which we must conclude that the first Susan must have died as an infant. By this time the family had moved to 57 Boundary Street, Belfast.

Lastly I must return to Samuel McIlhage's 1871 birth/baptism mentioned above, because there is also a Civil Parish record of Samuel son of Samuel and Elizabeth (nee Glass) McIlhagga in the same year. Clearly these are two records of the same event, but the mystery is that the dates differ slightly though significantly. The McIlhage record says born 25th April 1871, baptised 28th. The McIlhagga record says born 18th May 1871, baptised/registered 2nd June. The Abbey Street address is the same. The parents are the same. The McIlhagga record has the additions of Samuel's occupation, namely Car Driver, and there is a witness, also a Samuel McIlhagga. I have no explanation for the discrepancy. Samuel's occupation accords with an entry in the Belfast Directory for 1880 when Samuel was living at 27 Abbey Street, as a Car Owner, presumably running an early taxi service.

Finally, in the UHF records there is one more event that surely refers to the same Samuel, whose occupation is also a Car Driver. Eleven years after the birth of Samuel, but only two years after the 1880 Directory, we have a record of the birth of Mary Jane on 13th October 1882, baptism/registration a week later on 20th. The address is different, 20 Brown's Square. The parish named is St. Stephen's and the denomination is no longer Roman Catholic, but Church of Ireland. The significant difference is that the child's mother is not Elizabeth Glass, but 'Sarah Jane' (no surname). We must presume that Elizabeth had died and perhaps Samuel had remarried, this time in a Protestant Church. The officiant was the Rev. R. Irvine. For some reason there is a second copy of this record in the UHF, the only difference being that the officiating minister's name is give in full, Richard Irvine. We not only have Samuel's job evolving from cattle drover to car driver, but his conversion to Roman Catholicism being reversed as he returns to the Church of Ireland.

A Correction and More Burials

2011-03-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

First, may I say how pleased I am to receive information which corrects something I have written. Often my information comes from a member of the family though perhaps a distant relative and I have to accept it until it is proved wrong. On 17th September 2009, under the title 'A baker in Australia' I recorded the deaths of a married couple, Colin and Jean (nee McIlhagga) Cormack, on the same date and then made the false deduction that their deaths must have been the result of a tragedy. This is not so and a correspondent, a niece of Jean the wife, has kindly put a comment on the blog for that day, not only to record the cause of Jean's death at the young age of twenty six, but to say that Colin lived for many years afterwards.

Second, I had an email from a friend in Australia on the day after I published my last blog to say 'what a nice St. Patrick's day gift' - she could now add a lot of information to her family tree. She also 'claimed' two of the people I said I couldn't identify, namely Andrew and Margaret who may be two of the children of Robert McIlhagga and Margaret Craig who were her great-grandparents. She (I think rightly) also 'claims' Samuel, buried in the same grave as Andrew and Margaret, yet another sibling. However, I'm afraid there are still people I can't yet place in family trees, among whom are Catherine and Henry McIlhagga both of 293 Belmont Road, Belfast, buried in Roselawn Cemetery. Also in Roselawn there are George and Kathleen M McIlhagga. In Dundonald Cemetery is another Margaret McIlhagga who died aged 78 at 27 Kinbayne Avenue, G'Island. Finally there are two deaths in Purdysburn acute care Hospital, one of whom I cannot as yet identify, Robert McIlhagga who died aged 80 in 1980.

Fortunately there are a good number I have been able to identify. Daniel son of John and Margaret (nee Douglas) McIlhagga died in 1905 aged only 25, in Belfast Fever Hospital. He left Harriet Jane a young widow. They had only been married for three years. She was to marry again four years later. I do not know if there were any children. Daniel is buried in City Cemetery. Three people buried in the same grave in Dundonald Cemetery are a father and two of his six children. William John McIlhagga who married Jane Anderson, died aged 81 in 1943. His son William John who died aged 41 in 1946 and daughter Violet who died aged aged 79 in 1989 are all buried together. As a result of the extra information on this family I have become convinced that they belong in an already existing larger family tree going back to Nathan McIlhaggar and Betty Burney of Carnmoney in the mid-eighteenth century.

Next we have no fewer that nine people who belong to one of the two largest clan family trees, that centred on the townland of Maxwell's Walls, again going back to the mid-18th Century. In alphabetical order there were Elizabeth, died aged 63 in 1949, the second wife of James Wilson McIlhagga (Dundonald Cemetery); Elizabeth aged under three whom I mentioned last time; George who died aged 41 in 1882 (City Cemetery) the husband of Eliza Ann Robinson; Henry who died aged 76 in 1981, probably the son of William McIlhagga and Mary Ann Boyd (Roselawn Cemetery); James Wilson who died aged 81 in 1952, husband of Elizabeth above and later of Sarah Jane Hoye (Dundonald Cemetery); Jane who died aged 57 in 1932, wife of Samuel Robinson McIlhagga (City Cemetery); Lizzie Ann aged 7 years, mentioned last time; and finally Samuel Robinson McIlhagga who died aged 67 years in 1941 (City Cemetery).

The last clan family represented in the Belfast City Council Burial Records is that which spells our name with the last syllable 'er', though its first representative is misspelled, namely Henry Joseph McIlhagge, who died aged 32 in 1918. He was the youngest son of George and Mary Jane (Boyd) McIlhagger. He was a shipwright and died as the result of an industrial accident at Harland & Wolf the ship builders. The others, in alphabetical order are first David who died in 1919. He too was a shipwright and Henry Joseph's eldest brother. Elizabeth Louise, nee Sherwood, was David's wife. She died aged 67 years in 1948. George, father of David and siblings, a Police Sergeant, died aged 66 in 1914. John George was a grandson of George and Mary Jane, who died aged 68 in 1980. His father John George died aged 72 in 1954. Martha who died aged 90 in 2009 was the wife of William Boyd McIlhagger who predeceased her aged 79 in 1993. A baby Martha who died in 1875 I have mentioned before, as I have Sarah who died aged 97. Mary Jane (nee Boyd), the wife of George the Police Sergeant, died aged 75 years in 1929 and their grandson William Boyd died aged 79 in 1993. Two other children I mentioned last time, Ruth and Rebecca. Finally, William Boyd McIlhagger, son of William Boyd and Martha, died aged 35 in 1972.

New Burial Resource

2011-03-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

A really useful new free resource has come on line. It is the Belfast City Council Burial Register. It covers a number of cemeteries: City, including the Glenalina Extension, Dundonald and Roselawn. The information is perhaps a bit limited. For each person there is the full name, the last place of residence, sometimes both a hospital and a private address, the age and sex (often left blank), the dates of death and burial, and the name of the Cemetery with the grave section and number, plus the Burial type, in all cases, 'Earth Burial'. Having put in three clan name variants I have received the details of 46 burials. There appears to be quite a lot of new information to add to clan family trees. Two initial comments: some dates are well into the 20th Century, and as a result at least one person has been crossed off my current World Address List! Second, some of the women will have been buried using their married surname and there is no immediate indication of next of kin or of their spouse or late spouse. Also there is no indication of whether a woman was born with a clan name or has 'married in'. Occasionally relationships are revealed by comparing grave numbers. If two or more people have the same number they are buried in the same grave, that is a grave owned by a particular person or family, so it is a reasonable assumption that they are related, whether by blood or by marriage.

In referring to individuals on the list I am sensitive to the fact that there are probably still alive near relations, possibly living at the same address, so I will try to be careful in what I say. The first burial in the list is of an infant just 11 weeks old. None of the records state the cause of death. For that you need a death certificate. However, the 'last place of residence', and therefore of death, may in this case hold a clue for speculation. It was 'Workhouse'. This little girl has a distinctive name, one which I think enables me to identify her family tree, though not at present her mother. This is a case where I won't give any further clues as I don't know whether any living relatives today are aware of where she died. My next comments are also about children. First, 7 1/2 year old Lizzie Ann. This is not quite the name by which her birth was registered. I believe that was Eliza Ann, though clearly Lizzie was the name by which she became known in the family. For a reason I don't know, occasionally a name has a title, Mr., Mrs. or Miss. On this occasion it is wrong. Little Lizzie Ann is listed as Mrs! Clearly a transcription error. Here are the other children. There is a stillborn child with the name 'Wm. Margt.' Presumably the person registering the death or making the funeral arrangements was unsure whether the child was a boy or a girl. The sex is left blank. Next we have three children in the same grave in City Cemetery, so we may presume they were siblings. Elizabeth was 2 7/12 moths (stet). Ruth was 2 years old and Miss Matilda was aged 7 years. Also in City Cemetery there are three other children: Miss Martha aged 15 months, and another Ruth, aged 1 8/12 years and Miss Rebecca aged 17 days.

When we come to the adults a first point of interest is that a couple of people who have ended their lives living outside Ireland clearly wished to be buried 'with their ancestors'. William John who died aged 40 in Tranmere Hospital, Birkenhead (Cheshire, England) and lived there at 6 Suffolk Street, was buried in Dundonald Cemetery. Ninety seven year old Sarah's last place of residence was Fort William Oph. I presume Oph stands for old People's Home. She too was buried in Dundonald. Next, I have to admit that some names are quite new to me, so are folk that I cannot as yet fit into a family tree. These include two people with the same address, Andrew and Elizabeth who lived at 24a Moyard Gdns, G'Island, Carrickfergus. Then at 293 Belmont Road, Belfast, there are Catherine and Henry. Next, in the same grave but with different 'last residence', we have George at 62 Abbey Park, Knock, Belfast and Kathleen M. at 126 Holywood Road, both buried in Roselawn Cemetery. George (57) predeceased Kathleen (74) by ten years, so she could have moved her residence when left alone. Another Roselawn burial is that of James aged 67, who lived at 45 Richmond Park, Belfast.

I will continue my analysis of the Belfast City Council Burial Records in a subsequent blog.

Henrys in Donegore and Maxwell's Walls

2011-03-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

I've had an interesting email via the Internet site RootsChat from someone whose family line goes back to the 19th Century Stevensons of Ballywoodock, Donegore, one of whom, Agnes (or Nancy) married a Henry McIlhagge. I have the marriage record of Henry and Agnes from which we learn that he was a Farmer in Maxwell's Walls. I replied to my correspondent to say he was not the only clan Henry in my reconstruction of the Family Tree for the townland of Maxwell's Walls, in the Parish of Connor, but it was only after I had sent the reply that I added up the number of Henrys in it. There are no fewer that thirteen, as follows:

1 A probable Henry who was the progenitor of the clan in the townland, who would have been born about 1755;

2 Henry born about 1780, son of the progenitor and who married Mary McDowell;

3 Henry born about 1800 to Henry and Mary (nee McDowell);

4 Henry born 1821 to Henry, who married Agnes Gardiner in 1857;

5 Henry born 1821 to John and Mary (nee Houston), who married Agnes McMeekin;

6 Henry born about 1833 to William, who married Agnes Stevenson in 1854;

7 Henry born about 1838 to William Gage (McIlhaggie) and Mary (nee Houston);

8 Henry born 1870 to Henry and Agnes (nee McMeekin);

9 Henry born 3 Feb 1870 to Henry and Agnes (nee Gardiner);

10 Henry born 5 Apr 1872 to Nathaniel Owens (McIlhagga) and Henrietta (nee Wilson), who died 5 July 1890 aged 18;

11 Henry born 10 June 1879 to John and Elizabeth (nee McCulloch);

12 Henry born 1893 to George Gardner (McIlhaggo) and Isabella Scott (nee Boak);

13 Henry born 1907 to William and Mary Ann (nee Boyd).

The totally new fact that my Stevenson correspondent shared with me was that Agnes/Nancy's parents were William Stevenson who died in 1815 and Martha Montgomery who died in 1854, both buried in Donegore. Now, if Henry and Agnes were married (as they were) on 12th December 1854, this must have happened soon after the death of Agnes' mother. Furthermore, Agnes must have been conceived before her father died in 1815, making her at least 39 years old when she married. My attempted reconstruction of the McIlhagga clan tree in Maxwell's Walls, made in ignorance of Agnes' true age - I only knew from her marriage record that she was 'of full age' - has assumed that Henry's father, William, would have been born about 1810 and that Henry would have been born about 1833. So do we have an 1854 marriage of Agnes Stevenson aged 39+ and Henry McIlhagge aged 22, a 17 year gap in their ages?

Perhaps they hadn't got married as early as Henry was legally able to, without parental permission, at least a year before, because Agnes' mother was against the marriage. Perhaps they therefore got married as soon as was reasonable after her death and before Agnes had reached 40! My correspondent asked me whether I had any record of children from this marriage? I'm afraid I don't. And perhaps that is no wonder, given Agnes' age. The reason I have listed all thirteen Henrys above is to check that I haven't mixed up two of them. If the Henry who married Agnes Stevenson had been nearer to her age, and conventionally slightly older, he would have been (say) 40-45 in 1854, with therefore a birth year of 1814-1819, but I think there is no other 'free' Henry in the Maxwell's walls Family Tree with whom I could have confused him. How interesting!

Mull flying visit

2011-03-13T05:05:00.000-07:00

Baliscate Old Farmhouse (modernised)

I am just home from the shortest visit I have ever paid to the Isle of Mull (Argyll, Scotland). I spent one night there in order to attend the annual dinner of the Mull Historical and Archaeological Society, to hear the speaker, Nicholas Maclean-Bristol who is recognised as the leading Clan Gillean (Maclean) and West Coast Historian. He has published numerous papers and books on the clan's history and its significance in the wider history of Scotland. This indeed was the subject of his talk. He and his wife live at Breacachadh Castle on the Isle of Coll, which he has rebuilt. It was when I was on Coll three or four years ago I bought his From Clan to Regiment, Six Hundred years in the Hebrides, 1400-2000, in which I found my great-great-grandfather John McLean and so found the link back to the Maclean Clan from my grandmother Margaret McLean who married my grandfather William McIlhagga. I didn't meet Nicholas Maclean-Bristol then, so it was a chance to make his acquaintance in Mull. He too is descended from a Coll branch of the clan and is in fact a distant cousin (9th). We had the pleasure of having the Clan Chief, Sir Lachlan with Lady Maclean at dinner. He is an even more distant cousin (11th)!

Since I was last on Mull the farm of Baliscate (see photo above) has been in the news. The television Time-Team has partially excavated a site on the farm where the present owner has discovered the ruins of what turned out to be a Celtic Chapel. Although I have no other firm evidence, the obituaries in the Oban Times of three of my McLean family say that when the above John and his wife Flora and their large family moved from Coll to live on Mull, they first farmed at Baliscate. This would almost certainly have been in 1875. Admittedly they were there only a short time, probably the two years before John died in August 1877, before they moved and son Lachlan farmed at Drumfin, also just south of Tobermory. It was good to meet the present owner of Baliscate and compare notes and to be able to inform her that my family had been part of the farm's history.

Christchurch and Great-gran

2011-02-26T05:22:00.000-08:00

I had a skype call this morning from Western Australia (evening there in 40 degrees!) from a son of Albert Collins (1922-1980) and Agnes McClure McIlhagga (1922-2008) who is collecting together many McIlhagga photographs which I hope to see in the near future. But first, some news of great relief. We've all been thinking of the people suffering from the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, amongst whom is one McIlhagga who works in banking, and is my caller's cousin. Thankfully she is safe, much to the relief of her parents who also live in Western Australia. Her father is one of the children in the above picture, and he is hoping to identify the lady who is holding the baby. Clearly the picture is of four generations. The young lady on the left is Agnes McClure McIlhagga and the other adults standing are her parents, John McIlhagga and Jeannie Anderson Hay. My best guess is that great-gran in the middle is John's mother; they have the same shape face! Also dates fit. The baby was born in December 1950 and the picture was therefore taken in 1951. John's mother, born Agnes Anderson McClure in 1876 was still alive in 1951. She in fact died in 1960. If anyone has other evidence to help with this identification, do please let us know.

The Boar War revisited

2011-02-25T06:48:00.000-08:00

Tyne Cot Military Cemetery, Belgium

Recently I wrote about the Imperial Yeomanry in the Boar War in which John McIlhagga served. On 20th February 2010 I said I didn't know where he fitted in to a Clan Family Tree, but on 4th January 2011 I hazarded a guess that he may have been John G. McIlhagger who returned from the war to work in the Belfast Shipyards where he was killed, and I repeated this in my latest blog on 22nd February. Sometimes one's right hand does not know what one's left hand has done! I had been ignoring the information I gave on 8th September 2009 when I said that John Hutchison McIlhagga, who enlisted in the Saskatchewan Regiment in the First World War had previously served in the 134th Company, the Imperial Yeomanry, Irish Horse, gaining the South African Ribbon. This was of course in the Boar War, and he, 'John H', and not 'John G', was the McIlhagga who so served. He was killed in the First World War and is buried in Tyne Cot Cemetery, Belgium, illustrated above. And of course I do know in which Family Tree John H. belongs. It is the one based in the townland of Maxwell's Walls, Connor, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, where he was born to Nathaniel Owens and Henrietta (nee Wilson) McIlhagga. My apologies to all concerned!

The 12 Months of 2010

2011-02-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

The last couple of session at the Family History Group I go to have been home made, and very interesting and useful. People have shared their finds and their problems. Although I only had time to share one event from the past twelve months, I thought it would be interesting to list the progress I've made. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but things do happen!

1. DNA - Last January I had a 25 marker match from a Mr. Smith in America. We've compared notes and photos, but haven't got anywhere. In November I had a 37 marker match from a 3rd cousin in Canada!

2. I discovered that my gt-grandfather who worked for the sugar firm of Tate & Lyle was involved in the process of crystalising sugar and represented the firm at the famous Paris exhibition of 1889 where he won a prize related to the process.

3. I've discovered a clan grave in Carnmoney, Co. Antrim, and am grateful to the Secretary of the local Family History Society for photographing it for me.

4. I've found the first Quaker who married a McIlhagga and I'm hopeful of finding their Marriage Register entry in Dublin. She's buried in the Friends Burial Ground at Blackrock.

5. I've had my first video link on Skype with a McIlhagga in Australia and he has kindly sent me some old photos of Glasgow from where he emigrated.

6. I've revisited my grandfather's grave in Liverpool and have realised there is room on the stone to put my parents' names, so have found a mason to do this.

7. I've discovered the one McIlhagga who was a pilot in theBattle of Britain and later found he spent time in a concentration camp, Stalag Luft IV, and may have gone on the infamous 'long march'. Also I've found the only McIlhagga who fought in the Boer War, in the Imperial Yeomanry. He returned to Belfast to work on building the Titanic as a Carpenter, on which he was killed.

8. I've found a new 3rd cousin in Wales who has given me new information about a relative who was blinded at Peebles Tweed Mill and then went to the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh.

9. I've been sent a copy of a letter from the 1920s in which an aged matriarch lists all the birth, marriage, and some death dates of her twelve children.

10. I've found my first McIlhagga in the Isle of Man who apparently went to work there for the Bank of Ireland. There is still a family there in the Travel Industry.

11. I've been sent a World War I widow's medal (from County Mayo, found in a Car Boot Sale in Yorkshire), on the condition that I tried to find the nearest relative and send it to them. I found a second cousin in Calgary and it went in July.

12. I've compiled Indexes of BMDs (McIlhaggas and name variants) and they have enabled me to fit a number of people into families, and have enabled me to link up with someone who has retired to Kelso, Scotland, and though we don't think we are related, we do know our respective grandparents knew each other when living in Greenock. He's from Northern Ireland and I've learned a lot from him about the townland called Maxwells Walls where a lot of McIlhaggas lived. Our families intermarried.

And those were only the twelve new discoveries of the twelve months of 2010. The everyday work of researching the clan continued, and continues. Please get in touch any time with news, however small or insignificant you may think it is. It may be the link we're looking for. And please don't forget, old photos and other ephemera can reveal part of our history.

A Notebook, two Visits and three Weddings

2011-02-16T01:13:00.000-08:00

Often when I come across an interesting 'snippet' which might be relevant to our clan I note it on a scrap of paper which then gets lost in a pile which I promise myself I will take time to think about. But sometimes it takes a long time to surface! So recently I decided to start a file which sits on my computer desktop which is called 'Random facts that might fit in somewhere, sometime!' The very discipline of noting them down starts me thinking. The fourth 'fact' in the file, which I noted down yesterday, was contained in four or five lines from an Archive 'IRL-ANTRIM-L' dated Friday 03 Nov 2000. It is headed 'Visitation Records: Racavan'. And little did I know when I started to think about it that it would refer back to my last blog! It reads, somewhat enigmatically, as follows:

Mar 12, 1860: William Lowry & wife - family = Widow Lowry & daughter & her children. First husband McIlhasen (I'm not sure about the surname) Thomas Lowry & wife - faily. Now goes to Cloughwater (don't see any Hamiltons).

Jan 20, 1863: "Bessy Lowry" or "McIlhaggar" or "Graham" & son &c-------

This looks like a couple of shorthand references from someone's notebook, someone who has been doing some visiting, very probably a church minister, possibly the minister of Racavan. Now the name 'Lowry' sent me to the Index of Clan Marriages which I have been compiling, where I have that of Elizabeth McIlhagga (surely Bessy above) born 1824 whose father was given as William Lowry. Assuming she was his legitimate child she must have been a widow, which indeed the marriage record says she was, her first husband having been a McIlhagga. She was marrying one James Graham, son of Robert Graham, and James also was recorded as a Widower. The surprising thing about this marriage was that, born in 1808, James was 16 years Elizabeth's senior. He was in fact 46 and she was 30. Unusually the Marriage Record gives both ages. Clearly this marriage fits with the reference to 'Widow Lowry' in the notebook.

James and Elizabeth were married on the 10th April 1854 at the Ballymena Registrar's Office. It would appear from the Jan 20th entry in the notebook that James Graham had a son, either from a previous marriage, or perhaps a son with Elizabeth. From the March 12th entry we note that Elizabeth had children, who of course would have had the surname McIlhagga. I wonder whether they changed their name to Graham? In that earlier entry the 'first husband' McIlhasen was clearly Widow Lowry's first husband, so the name should have read McIlhagga. So, the 'process' had been that Elizabeth Lowry married a McIlhagga who had died before 1854. She then remarried, one James Graham, setting up family life with both her children and possibly with any children of his who were still at home, and eventually having a 'son'. From the first notebook entry we may surmise that despite having had a civil marriage in Ballymena Registrar's Office, they attended a Racavan Church, probably a Presbyterian Church, and have recieved a couple of visits by the minister, in 1860 and 1863, apparently because they are by then (some six to nine years after their marriage) attending a Cloughwater Church.

Now I have two other references to Cloughwater Presbyterian Meeting House, as it was properly called. The first is to the marriage of Martha McIlhagga, born about 1833 who as a minor and a daughter of John McIlhagga was married to James McCory on 15th June 1849. I mentioned this marriage in my last blog. Is there a link between it and the events referred to in the notebook? I think there probably is. Martha had a sister, Elizabeth, born 1838, who married a Robert Graham, son of James Graham, both Weavers, on 21st July 1851, also at Cloughwater Presbyterian Meeting House. As was a common practice, Robert was probably named after his grandfather and we know from the notebook that James who married Elizabeth ("Bessy") had a father Robert. This of course had to be a different son to the one referred to in 1863. So was Robert's step-mother to be, Elizabeth nee Lowry, whose first husband was also a McIlhagga (though as yet we don't know his name)? I think so. We must remember that we are relating to the very small world of County Antrim in the middle of the 19th Century, and I think we may make the very reasonable deduction that all of the above events are indeed related and that they may be incorporated into the same Family Tree. As I pointed out in my last blog, that Family Tree contained people who emigrated to Jamestown, Pensylvania, USA. It would be good to discover the first name of Elizabeth's first husband and the names of her children. If we did we might find that we could join two Family Trees. At the time of their marriage James was a Labourer resident at Ballygilpatrick and Elizabeth was resident in the parish of Racavan.

An 1851 Deduction

2011-02-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

For some reason I haven't come across the irishgenealogy.net internet site before, and neither had I come across the 1851 Census record on it for Dunaghy Townland: Donbrought number 15:

James McCrory 22 (Head)[Married 1847]-Linen Weaver (Antrim)(R);

Martha McCrory 22 (wife)[Married 1847]-Linen Weaver (Antrim)(R);

Robert McCrory 1 (son) [Unmarried] - None (Antrim);

Esther McIlhagart 19 (Visitor)[Unmarried]-Linen Weaver (R/W).

Why was Esther visiting this family? It was probably either because she had a link through work or family, or both. Let's assume she was Martha's younger sister. Well, according to Ancestry Ireland, a Martha McIlhagga did marry a James McCrory on 15 June 1849 at Cloughwater Presbyterian Meeting House. Admittedly the year is different on the Census, but we know how many errors there are when information is given for someone else to write it down, presumably the enumerator. Note that the Census says that James and Martha could read (R) but not write. So Martha was born in 1829 and Esther in 1831.

Now in the 1851 Census there is also an Esther McIlhaggart living as a Servant aged 18, a Weaver, at 10 Carnmore, Dunachy, working alongside another 'Servant, Weaver', William McGowan. It looks as if she has been entered in the Census twice as resident in two places on census night. I have argued in earlier blogs that Esther was one of five children of David McIlhaggart/McIlhago of Newtoncromelin in County Antrim. See my blogs of 19th and 22nd June 2009 and 13th August 2009. David was probably the brother of John who with his wife Jenny McCarley emigrated to Jamestown, Pensylvania. Martha was not one of those five children, so I think we now have to add her, making six. Up to this point Martha and her husband have been in my Clan Marriage Index, but have not been allocated to a Family Tree. Now they are. Esther was subsequently to marry Robert Whiteside later in that Census year, on 9th August 1851 and then have five children of her own. Interestingly her 1851 work colleague (or fellow apprentice), William McGowan must have had a sister Mary, for Esther's brother William, also a weaver, born probably in 1826, married a Mary McGowan also in that Census year, on 29th April. Like his sister he married at the Ballymena Registrar's Office.

Back to FamilySearch

2011-02-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

I thought I had done a thorough search of the Mormon Internet site, FamilySearch.org, until a genealogy blog suggested going straight to the 'advanced' method of searching, and after putting in a surname and not ticking 'exact form' - I put in McIlhaga - and then selecting either 'spouse' or 'parents' - I selected 'spouse' - and clicking 'search'. I immediately got 90 page of 'Historical Results', most of which I admit were for names not among my clan 115 variants of 'McIlhagga' (yes, there really are 115 variants!). Many however gave me good 'clan information'. Much I already had, though it was all worth checking as there were date and place details I didn't have, or maybe had not previously noted down. Many results gave me totally new information, not least about children born to clan women who had married and so had non-clan surnames.

Again, some of this information contained additions to marriages about which I knew. Inevitably the most interesting was the earliest. For example Margaret was born in Ayr on 8th April 1714 (baptised in Ayr on 18th April), the daughter of Agnes McIlhago and James Gemill - a marriage I didn't know about. Unfortunately there was no date for the marriage, though doubtless I can probably find this on the ScotlandsPeople website. Agnes was the eldest child of four born to Robert McIlhago (or McIlhagow) and Bessie Johnstone (or Jonstoune). The FamilySearch site gave me dates (rather than simply years) for the births and the baptisms of all four offspring, Agnes, Robert, Mary and John. Sadly it didn't give me marriages for the other three. If either Robert or John had had descendants we might be nearer knowing who emigrated to Ulster!

The other interesting piece of 18th Century information was that Robert, the eldest son of Robert McIlhagow (or McIlhaggart) and Elizabeth Jamieson (or Jamison) who was born on 10th October 1789, was baptised on 8th November at Paisley Abbey. The rest of their children were baptised in Ayrshire. Assuming that the internet site is accurate, I wonder why Paisley Abbey? Perhaps one of the grandparents was living there at the time. Of the six children in this family all of whom I had assumed must have spent all (or most) of their lives in Ayrshire, I was surprised to find that John had marriage banns called in a Greenock parish where he married Jean Glen, who presumably came from there. This is of course the family for whom in an earlier blog I postulated a youngest daughter, Margaret, who went to live first in Ulster, before emigrating to Pittsburg, Pensylvania.

There are many marriages in the 90 pages that I cannot place in clan Family Trees, marriages where there are children born to clan women with non-clan married surnames. These names include Bates, Brownlees, Christie (2 children), Clarke, Carmichael, Francz, Fullerton, Gibb (7 children), Hill (6 children), Hilton, Johnston (3 children), Kelly (3 children), Sloan (7 children), Winning (2 children) and Wylie. If any of these names ring bells with anyone, I would be glad to hear from them.

My Biggest Historical Clan Problem

2011-02-08T15:35:00.000-08:00

What is my biggest clan genealogical problem? What would be the biggest breakthrough I would like to happen before I revise my first draft of the Clan History? Most of my clan Family Trees start in Ulster and end up all over the world. My earliest Family Trees start in Scotland and end up all over the world. What I believe must have happened is that the 'earliest' people in the Ulster trees must have hopped over the water from Scotland to Ireland and in consequence transplanted our clan trees from one country to the other. But do I have an indisputable 'Mr. X' who on an indisputable date boarded a boat in Ayr or Irvine or Stranraer and landed in Larne or Derry or Islandmagee? No I don't. But surely it had to have happened. Would that I could find such a person.

For a time I thought I had a candidate. In a Scottish family which certainly goes back to 1780 and perhaps much earlier, we have a Richard McElhago or McIlhaggert, born in 1832 to James and Jane McIlhaggert in Dundonald, Ayrshire, who became a sailor and died in 1891. In Ireland there is a marriage of a Richard, son of James McIlhagart, who married Ellener Boyd in 1860. Were the two Richards one and the same? However, there are two problems. I'm sure the Scottish Richard remained single. We know this from a Poorhouse Application made shortly before his death. Second, the Irish Richard's surname on the marriage record is Kennedy! Had Richard changed his surname? Was he an 'adopted' son? We don't know. So I must conclude that I haven't got a candidate for a clan male who went 'over the sea' to Ulster.

I am also left with the mystery of which clan family was involved in the marriage. The marriage record gives Richard's father as James McIlhagart and names his spouse as Ellener Boyd, daughter of Thomas Boyd. The marriage took place on 7th June 1860 in Donegore, County Antrim. This was a Church marriage in Donegore 1st Presbyterian Church, by License, by the Revd. W.J. Gillespie. James' witness was Thomas Boyd, presumably Ellener's father. Her witness was Margaret Boal. Richard Kennedy is listed under the Griffith Land Valuation (1862) at Browndod, the townland named on his marriage record. His landlord was the Marquis of Donegal from whom he rented a house, offices and land of just over 34 acres, and for which he paid a total of £20.10s.0d. per annum. Similarly Thomas Boyd farmed in Ballynoe townland, Donegore parish. There is no James McIlhagart in the Griffith Valuation in these places, though there is a James McElhagan who is a tenant in Kinbally townland, just a few miles to the north. If anyone can shed any light on how this family fits into a clan 'tree' I would be delighted to hear from them.

A Grave mistake

2011-02-04T04:33:00.000-08:00

I was recently attaching a document to the name of Mary McIlhagga (1860-1940) of Belfast in my Computer Family History Programme. This was an extract from the Will Calendars at PRONI (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland). It gave the dates of her death and of the grant of probate and also the value of her effects in the following extract, "McIlhagga Mary of Newmarket Villas Whiteabbey county Antrim spinster died 25 May 1940 Probate Belfast 19 July 1940 to Robert McIlhagga coal merchant and Rebecca Kennett widow Effects £293. 18s. 7d".

Robert and Rebecca were two of Mary's siblings. Now my record already had a date of death recorded for Mary, 14th October 1940, which I had noted from the Memorial Inscription on a headstone in Kirkhill Cemetery, Connor, which had been erected by Mary's brother, Robert. I think we can take it that the extract from the Will Calendar is correct. If the probate had been granted in July Mary could not have died in October. Clearly the Memorial Inscription is wrong. It shows how careful you have to be to check what you assume to be facts. Either Robert had forgotten when his sister died, which is somewhat unlikely, or else the stone mason had made a mistake. I think the latter is very likely as the date of 14th October is a repetition of the date he had carved two lines up, the date on which Robert's uncle, Robert McCullough died.

I wrote about the Kirkhill headstone in my blog of 2nd February 2009, headed 'Two Johns'. If someone would like to photograph this gravestone and email me a copy, I would be most grateful. I have to say that my information about the details on the stone come from a third party, and of course the mistake might be his, and not that of the stone mason after all!

Salvation Army

2011-02-01T07:00:00.001-08:00

A correspondent has made me aware of the existence of the above badge which used to belong to a member of the McIlhagga clan. We believe this was 'Dolly' McIlhagga who died fairly recently, perhaps a couple of years ago. She was born Dorothy May McCormick in 1916 in Seacombe-cum-Poulton which is part of the borough of Wallasey on the Wirral. The story, as we understand it, is that in the Second World War Dorothy went with her parents to Belfast to stay with a couple who were running the Salvation Army Canteen for the troops stationed in that city. There she met William McIlhagga and they married in 1941 or 1942. A year or so later they returned to 'Dolly's' home, to live in Wallasey where they joined the Poulton Road Corps of The Salvation Army. William got employment with an Insurance Company associated with 'The Army'.

William was one of a large family of five boys and five girls belonging to Andrew McIlhagga who was born about 1880 in the Ballymena area and Elizabeth Todd who was born in Gracehill about 1883. Elizabeth may have been part of the Moravian community which made its home in that central Antrim village. I am unsure who Andrew's parents were. Married at Ahoghill Church of Ireland in 1906 Andrew gave his father's name as John McIlhagga of Queen Street, Ballymena.

If anyone knows more about the history of this family I would be delighted to be in touch, particularly if the information contained a suggestion about who might like to have the above Salvation Army badge. It is a small heirloom that should go to someone who perhaps remembers Dorothy McIlhagga.

Naming Pattern in Maxwells Walls

2011-01-23T01:24:00.001-08:00

I think I need to follow up my last blog on the townland of Maxwells Walls in the Parish of Connor in County Antrim. Of all the clan Family Trees I have attempted to compile the one centred on Maxwells Walls has always had the largest element of 'reconstruction', though I think I may now have reached a reasonable level of accuracy. Of course I always hope for more facts to emerge which will either confirm or correct my present conclusions.

I concluded my last blog with the hypothesis that there were probably four siblings who must have been born in the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, Henry, John, James and William, all of whom farmed at Maxwells Walls. I have written earlier blogs about each of them, but have not however come across any documentation which has named either of the parents of these siblings, if siblings they truly were. There is of course one 'test' which might suggest a name for either or for both of them, and that is to apply the Scottish and Irish naming pattern. Can we demonstrate that this Maxwells Walls family followed this tradition which was indeed strong in the 18th and 19th Centuries in the Province of Ulster?

So can we reasonably ask, from the information we already have, what was the first name of our clan progenitor in Maxwells Walls? First, we must ask whether there is a common first name given to any first male grandchildren of our eponymous male. Let us take each of the siblings in turn. Henry's first son (so the eldest grandchild) was either John or Henry. They appear both to have been born about 1800, and possibly even were twins. Henry's brother John, as far as I can tell, had only daughters. The third brother, James, though it is possible that he married, it is uncertain whether he had any children. The fourth brother William certainly did, and his eldest son was also Henry. Therefore our first proposition from the 'Naming Pattern' must be that the 'common name' of a first son in the third generation was Henry, and that therefore quite possibly our progenitor had been Henry McIlhagga.

This hypothesis would be strengthened if we could find that the same pattern applies when we look at generations two and four, seeing them of course as grandfathers and grandsons. And what do we find? Henry (generation 2) had three 'first grandsons', who were Henry son of John, Henry son of Henry, and Henry son of William Gage. William (generation 2) had four 'first grandsons', William son of Nathaniel Owens, William son of George, William son of Jane, and William son of Archibald. Our conclusion? The naming pattern seem to have been followed perfectly! Strictly, Jane's first son should have been Daniel (her husband's father's name) and her second son should have been William, but for some reason she and her husband reversed the name order. Their 'second' son was indeed Daniel and their first was William. They must have had some special reason for calling their first after Jane's father, for they even gave him the second name of McIlhagga. Their surname was Boyd. I have put the word 'second' in inverted commas because the Boyds had two male infants who did not live beyond infancy.

So we have seen that the second and third generations follow the patters almost 100%. What of the fourth generation? This list is bound to be longer and the percentage accuracy not as high. It will be clearest if I list them:

John son of Henry, 1st son Henry named after paternal grandfather;

Henry son of Henry, 1st son Henry named after paternal grandfather;

William Gage son of Henry, 1st son Henry named after paternal grandfather;

William Gage's 2nd daughter Margaret not named after paternal grandmother;

John's 3rd daughter Ellen's only son Robert may not be named after paternal

grandfather, William, but after his father;

Nathaniel Owen son of William, 1st son William named after paternal grandfather;

Nathaniel Owen son of William, 1st daughter Henrietta may be named after maternal grandmother and is named after her mother;

Nathaniel Owen son of William, 2nd son James Wilson named after maternal grandfather;

Nathaniel Owen son of William, 2nd daughter Margaret may be named after her paternal grandmother;

George son of William, 1st daughter Margaret may be named after a grandmother;

George son of William, 1st son William named after paternal grandfather;

George son of William, 2nd son Samuel Robinson named after maternal grandfather;

George son of William, 2nd daughter Eliza Ann may be named after her maternal grandmother and is named after her mother;

Jane daughter of William, 1st son William McIlhagga named after maternal grandfather;

Jane daughter of William, 1st daughter Mary Ann named after paternal grandmother;

Jane daughter of William, 2nd daughter Margaret may be named after maternal grandmother;

Jane daughter of William, 2nd son Daniel named after paternal grandfather;

[NB. As I have noted above, Jane and her husband reversed the naming pattern, presumably for a good reason.]

Archibald son of William, 1st son William named after paternal grandfather;

Archibald son of William, 1st daughter Jean named after maternal grandmother;

Archibald son of William, 2nd son Robert named after maternal grandfather;

Archibald son of William, 2nd daughter Margaret may be named after paternal grandmother.

You will have realised that of these twenty-one relationships, ten definitely follow the naming pattern, ten probably follow the naming pattern and one does not, so our conclusion must be that in all probability we have reconstructed the Maxwells Walls family tree with a high degree of accuracy. And so the last thing that must be asked is whether the naming pattern can help us fill in any gaps in the Family Tree? We have already said that there may be a good probability that the name of our clan progenitor in Maxwells Walls is Henry. The other name which has kept cropping up is Margaret: William Gage's second daughter, Nathaniel Owen's son William's second daughter, George son of William's first daughter, Jane daughter of William's second daughter, and Archibald son of William's second daughter. I think the likelihood therefore is that William, son of our progenitor [Henry?] married a Margaret. Finally, do we have any clues from the naming pattern to the possible name of the wife of the progenitor [Henry]? There are two Marys and one Jane in generation three. More than this we cannot say, except that two to one, she may have been Mary!

The McIlhagga - Boyd Intermarriages

2011-01-20T06:04:00.001-08:00

Castlegore/Maxwells Walls Farms

I have written a good number of times about the McIlhagga families in the townland of Maxwells Walls, recently because I have met a descendant of the Boyd family which lived in the neighbouring townland of Castlegore. The Boyds and the McIlhaggas intermarried and there are three particular marriages which are very interesting, the first being of Jane McIlhagga to James Boyd in 1872, and then of two of their daughters, Mary Ann Boyd who in 1902 married William son of Henry McIlhagga, and of Margaret Boyd who in 1903 married William son of George McIlhagga. George was a clerk in Belfast but doubtless knew well and was probably closely related to the three or four men who were farming in the Parish of Connor which embraced the townlands of Maxwell Walls and Castlegore. The map above shows clearly at least three McIlhaggas, William, John and Henry and at least three Boyds, James, Daniel and James Junior, who all farmed within a couple of square miles. One Henry McIlhagga worked and farmed with a Boyd and a Gardiner in Castlegore, living in plot 37 on the map.

I got in touch recently with my friend who is related to the Boyds to tell him that during some Scottish research I had discovered that James and Jane Boyd had had their first child in Greenock, Renfrew while James had been working in the Sugar Industry there. Neither of us had known that they had had this son in 1874 whom they called William McIlhagga Boyd. There is however no evidence of William playing any continuing part in the life of this family and although we cannot be certain we agree that he may well be the 'William Boyd' whose death is recorded in Ballymena in 1876. The FamilySearch website puts his age at three years, though no parents are listed. This couple's third child was given the single name William. It was not an unusual practice to give the next male the same name as an earlier child who had died. Our continuing discussion has clarified for me one or two relationships between the families, and most importantly has corrected the Family Tree which I have been attempting to reconstruct for the McIlhagga clan family based in Maxwells Walls.

For some considerable time I have worked on the assumption that William who married Mary Ann Boyd was part of the family of Henry and Agnes (nee McMeekin) McIlhaggo/ie/a. I was right about the Henry and the Agnes but not about her maiden name. From the standpoint of a greater appreciation of the relationships between the McIlhagga and the Boyd families, I have realised that the Henry concerned must not be he who married Agnes McMeekin in 1855 but Henry who married Agnes Gardiner on 27th July 1857 at a Civil Ceremony in the Antrim Registrar's Office. Incidentally I have no idea why this was a Civil rather than a Church Ceremony. The Gardiner link is implied I believe from the evidence of the map above, with its reference on plot 36 to the joint tenancy of James Boyd and George Gardiner. What happened was that in 1864 farm 36 consisted of a house and land of just over 61 acres and was being rented by Francis Gardiner from Viscount Massereene. It was Francis' daughter Agnes that Henry McIlhagga married. By 1876 this house and farm was being rented by James Boyd the husband of Jane McIlhagga in a joint tenancy with George Gardiner, who I assume was Francis' son. Henry McIlhagga was living in a house in plot 37, within plot 36. Clearly by 1876 he and Agnes had returned home from Greenock.

The father of Henry (of the McMeekin marriage) was William McIlhagga. The father of Henry (of the Gardiner marriage) was another Henry McIlhagga. My present thinking is that Henry of plot 37 and John of plot 27 on the map were probably brothers and that their father Henry (possibly of plot 30) was one of four siblings, John, Henry, William Gage and Mary, who were all the children of another Henry (born about 1780) who married Mary

McDole/McDowel/McDowall. He in turn could have been one of four brother, Henry, John (who had three daughters, Rose, Mary and Ellen), James and William (the father of nine children, one of whom was Jane who married James Boyd).

James and Jane Boyd had ten children born between 1873 and 1888, two being the sisters who married McIlhaggas. Mary Ann Boyd and William McIlhagga had (at least) two children, Jane and Henry. Margaret Boyd and William McIlhagga had (at least) four children, Jane, Elizabeth, James and William. The parents of William McIlhagga who married Mary Ann Boyd, namely Henry and Agnes (nee Gardiner) McIlhagga migrated to Scotland where most of their family stayed in the New Monkland area of Lanarkshire and where both Henry and Agnes died.

Blood Group in Calgary

2011-01-19T03:31:00.000-08:00

There is a new Canadian Discovery Portal where you can search archive material for your ancestors. I looked for any McIlhagga references and there was just one, in the Glenbow Museum. It was the above picture of a group of men who in November 1955 had attended a blood donors session in Calgary, Alberta. The picture was published in The Albertain, November 23rd, 1955, page 3. It was taken by Jack De Lorme of Calgary. The picture is entitled 'Fraternity gives blood'. The eight people in the picture who are seated round the two tables are named, with the comment "(s)hown being served coffee and cokes by Red Cross House staff after giving blood. Mrs. Jennie Shannon and Mrs. Pearl Anderson are shown serving the boys". The fourth person from the left is named as Al. McIlhagga.

I have looked at my clan births, marriages and deaths records, and I'm afraid I cannot identify 'Al'. Presumably Al is short for Alastair or Albert or conceivably even for Archibald. From the age of the men they must all have been born around 1930, and it is possible that 'Al' is still alive. Maybe of course 'Al' was a nick-name, rather than a short version of a first name. If anyone can identify our clan member, I would be most grateful.

The Ross Line

2011-01-13T09:06:00.001-08:00

Ross Crest

In my blog of 1st August last and subsequently of 19th December I was bold enough to include as possibly the earliest clan Will, that of Farquhar McIntagairt. 'Taggart' is of course an anglicisation of the same Gaelic word behind the last syllable, 'hagga', of our clan name, in Gaelic 'sagairt', meaning 'priest'. In my enthusiasm I thought the 'In' of McIntagairt must have the same derivation as the second syllable of our clan name, 'Il', a shortening of 'ghille'. I now know this is not so and hence I should not have included Farquhar in the Probate Index, however attractive the copy of the original document which adorns one of my paper files which I obtained from the National archives in Edinburgh.

I will in due course remove the Will from the Index but not before I have noted some interesting and relevant medieval facts which just might link in to our history, which are I think, worth a 'blog'. The Farquhar McIntagairt Will originated in Inverness in 1667, in the Northern Highlands of Scotland. I was intrigued recently to receive a copy of an occasional paper called West Highland and Island Notes and Queries (Series 3, No.15, October 2010), edited on the Isle of Coll, which included an article by Andrew B.W. MacEwan entitled Random Thoughts on Sir Farquhar, Earl of Ross. This earl of Ross, aka Farquhar Maccintsagairt (McEwan's transliteration) lived four hundred years before Farquhar who wrote the 1667 Will, ie c.1181 - 1st Feb 1251/2 - he died at Tain - and with etymologically the same name, one Farquhar was conceivably the ancestor of the other.

I quote the Paradox of Medieval Scotland internet site, 'Fearchar, earl of Ross, aka Farquhar MacTaggart... overthrew Alexander II's enemies when they entered Moray in 1215, cutting off their heads and presenting them to the king; as a result Alexander knighted Fearchar'. G.F. Black, in The Surnames of Scotland, points out that Ferchar (sic) was the son of the red priest of Applecross. I presume this is a reference to the colour of his hair. It would of course be super-serendipidous if I could say at this point that I or some other clan member has or had some known relationship to Sir Farquhar, but I can't!

It is however interesting that Sir Farquhar married a girl from the south - the Scottish Borders. We don't know her name but we do know that she was a daughter of William de Bruce, the 3rd Lord of Annandale and Christina Steward the daughter of Walter, the High Steward of Scotland. This is personally of interest to me because I do have a very distant blood relationship to Farquhar's wife and hence to all his offspring - he had two sons and two daughters, five grandchildren, including the last King of Man, and three great grandchildren. The title Earl of Ross descended through the eldest son, through three Williams, a Hugh, then to another William who was the 6th Earl (1310 - 9th Feb 1311/12). It was incidentally the third Earl who chose the above crest for the Earls of Ross.

Hugh, the 5th earl also married a Bruce, Matilda (or Maud, the name MacEwan uses) daughter of Robert the 6th Lord of Annandale and Marjorie, Countess of Carrick (my 20th Great Aunt!). Hugh and Matilda's son William, the 6th earl, married Mary Macdonald (my 17th Great Aunt!). Andrew MacEwan calls Mary the cousin of William. By my reckoning she was his 7th cousin 3 times removed. MacEwan says they were related as grandson of Countess Marjory and great-granddaughter of Affrica, daughter of Neil earl of Carrick (d. 1260).

I have at last reached the really interesting possible link to our clan history. Neil, earl of Carrick, was the son of Duncan the 1st earl of Carrick (1174-1250) whose Steward - he had the title Steward of Carrick - was Gillescop McI(l)haggain. Although in the past I have assumed that McI(l)haggain is a version of our clan name, I have to admit that it could equally be a version of McIntsagairt, the 'aka' name of the Earls of Ross. The Carrick connection may simply indicate that Duncan had employed as his Steward someone who, through the marriages I have mentioned above, was known to him from the Ross line.