Pender's Census

It is rarely worth reporting something that appears to be totally negative, but today I think I must as part of the search for the earliest date on which our clan name appears in Ireland. At present the earliest date is 1669, on the Hearth Money Rolls in County Antrim. I have just come across a transcription of 'A Census of Ireland circa 1659', Irish Manuscripts Commission, Seamus Pender, editor. It records first 'Tituladoes', the most notable people in a Barony, then the 'Principall Irish & Scotch [and] their Numb.'.  The only name which is even remotely linked to ours is in the Barony of Antrim, where the name 'Taggart' occurs nine times. Interestingly the name Crawford occurs 7 times, Boyd 7 times, and McCullough 6 times, all names to which ours is linked by marriage.

The negative conclusion we must I think draw is that our clan name had probably not reached Ulster from Scotland by 1659. However, to be established householders by 1669, only ten years later, which three men were in order to have to pay the Hearth Tax, must mean that they had crossed the North Channel very soon after Pender's Census was taken.