Posted on 03/10/2014 1:12:12 PM PDT by Little Bill
I have been doing this Ancestor stuff, because I am getting old and I have verified that my dads family were exactly what the claimed to be, Limeys.
My Old Ma's family were Harps from Northern Ireland and possibly Scotland, Gaelic is not a language a civilized person would speak and tracing these Names is driving me to drink.
Old Ma was black Irish on The J2c2e scale of MTDNA which means her family were Polocks, this thing has me confused.
My grandmother’s parents were Harps from the North of Ireland—Co. Derry (or Londonderry according to the side of the road u live on)—she was O’Connor (not a common name up there—much more a southern name) but I have found strange names up in Derry that were Catholic Logue (my great grandmother’s surname —catholic name only in Donegal and Derry Grieve A Derry catholic surname in towns and country side as you head toward Tyrone. Granny had cousins named McKinney but heard there were Protestant McKinneys as well. There was a family named DunnI had met who were Protestant—spelled Dunn (Catholics down south spell it with an E at the end same for the name Browne and Clarke)
Another funny name up in Derry and Tyrone is Askin. The Gaelic language it seems died out in my grandmother’s part of Derry possibly before the time of the Famine—also it seems as though way back then there were more Protestant families. The Protestants didn’t have as many kids and some families died out—or if they weren’t so well off—they emigrated as well. Catholics (many Gaelic speaking from Co. Donegal came to work in Derry City and sometimes the country as well) Much earlier in the late 1600s even into very early 1700s there were Scottish Gaelic congregations of Presbyterians. For all its worth!
Bushmills is the Irish whisky up in the north
My Grandmother, a Toole, figured my Grandfathers family were conversos, either for love or of the catholic on protestant persecutions of the 1640’s.
If you had seen Photos of my Grandmother taken in 1910 you would have converted too.
I remember me, a bottle of Jamison, and a Young lady willing to contribute to the welfare of the Troops in San Francisco in 1965 as on my way across the pond.
Hard to trace my Mattesons too. They came here in the 1600s. Teachers might have a tendency to correct a bad spelling of the name to Madison, Matterson, Matison...
I’m just glad I’m not a Smith or Jones!
lol
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