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Hello,

I am trying to trace my family to Ireland and what I know is the following:  my great x4 grandfather was James Austin, born 1760.  He came to America where he ended up fighting for the British side during the American revolution.  He fought in the British Legion regiment.  After the war he settled in Nova Scotia.  His family and descendants were Presbyterian.  In his petition for a land grand he says he was born in Ireland, but doesn’t not specify.  
 

So, based on what I know and the period. I am guessing he was of the Ulster Scots group.  However, I have not been able to connect, either through paper trail or DNA with any people in Ireland past or present.  
 

if anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.  I have been working in this for over 20 years and I feel like this brick wall is the end of my research.  Also, I am coming to visit Ireland this summer, and would love to find a relative, or establish a point of origin for my ancestor.

 

thanks,

Andrew

AMA

Thursday 16th Mar 2023, 07:15PM

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  • Andrew,

    You can use this site to see where the surname Austin was found in Ireland in the mid 1850s. Quite numerous and scattered around Ireland.

    https://www.johngrenham.com/surnames/

    The Presbyterian denomination is a strong pointer to Ulster-Scots ancestry as you evidently know, though Presbyterian business people did establish themselves in towns like Dublin, Cork, Sligo etc too. MacLysaght says the surname is English and has been in Ireland since the early 14th century but if your family were Presbyterian then I think it likely they arrived from Scotland in the 1600s, and probably settled in Ulster. Presbyterianism was created in Scotland in the mid 1500s and brought to Ireland by Scots settlers, mostly in the 1600s.

    Researching in Ireland in the 1700s is very hard going due to the general lack of records. If you don’t know where they lived it’s a needle in a haystack. Ideally you need to know the person’s exact denomination and the townland or parish they lived in to have any chance of finding them, and even then there may not be any records for that location.

    Possibly DNA testing may be a way of matching with others who have additional information about where the family originate. Family Tree DNA reportedly has more people with Ulster roots than any other company. That obviously increases the chances of finding a match. You might want to try them or, if you have already tested, you can transfer your results to them for no fee.

    The North of Ireland Family History Society is running an Ulster DNA project in conjunction with FTDNA and can offer testing kits at a reduced price.  http://www.nifhs.org (Go to DNA project on the website).

     

     

     

    Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘

    Thursday 16th Mar 2023, 08:53PM

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