McGrath and White Families in Ardstraw

Marlsie,

There was an Andrew White farming in Meaghy, Ardstraw in 1834. Was Elizabeth’s father a farmer? If so, this might be him:

http://www.irishgenealogyhub.com/tyrone/tithe-applotment-books/parish-of-ardstraw.php

He had gone by the time of Griffiths Valuation in 1858, so that fits with your information. Meaghy and Kilstrule share a common boundary, so Thomas probably married the girl next door.

There are about 15 churches in Ardstraw. You can see what baptism, marriage and burial records exist on the PRONI catalogue. The majority of those records are not on-line and so a personal visit is required to access them.

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/proni-guide-church-records

If you are unable to go yourself, you could employ a researcher. Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net

Dear Elwyn,

Thank you so much for your quick reply and input.  I believe Andrew White also was at Derrygoon for a while.  It seems he worked for the Marquis of Abercorn - perhaps at different places over the years.

Your information about Thomas being next door to Elizabeth around the correct time sounds promising.  It's so good to be able to pinpoint these Townlands.  I don't know what Elizabeth's father did. I think he was most likely a farmer working for the Marquis of Abercorn.  On the immigration records for one of Thomas's children coming into Australia, it says Thomas was a labourer. Another 'snippet' we had previously of which I am not sure of the origin was that that Thomas worked in a linen mill.  I know that linen was produced in people's homes and I also read that at one time there were several bleach greens in the parish and today there is only one in operation at Spa Mount on the river Derg, where about 16000 pieces of linen are annually bleached and finished mainly for the London markets. Perhaps I cannot find Thomas in the valuations because he was involved with working with linen or perhaps producing flax.  Are you able to comment on this.

I feel very encouraged that you say there might be records in PRONI.  I had previously thought that all avenues were pretty much exhausted for finding records but it seems not.  I will have to pursue that avenue.

Thanking you again.

Best Regards

Marlsie

Marlsie,

You say the family “worked for the Marquis of Abercorn.” The relationship with the Abercorns wouldn’t have been quite like that. If he was a farmer, Andrew would have been renting his farm from the Abercorn estate but working for himself. The Abercorns simply received rent. The farmer was free to dispose of his crops, pigs and cattle as he saw fit. He kept the profits and owned the tools, seed, animals etc. Just not the land or buildings.

If you are interested in a study of the relationship between local farmers and the Abercorn estate then you might want to read Dr Wm Roulston’s book – “The Hamiltons of Barons Court.” They were generally regarded as compassionate landlords.

https://www.alistairlexden.org.uk/news/abercorn-hamiltons-barons-court

Farmers tended to stay put. You don’t spend a few years improving a farm and then move to another to start all over again. You might occasionally acquire a second farm but most farmers were reluctant to move. Labourers however moved all the time to follow available work. The Abercorn estate generally granted long leases, in the 1700s often for 3 lives, so if they wanted to, most farmers could stay as long as they liked. The only evictions tended to be for non payment of rent.  If the Whites were farming in Meaghy, I’d expect them to have been there for some time. Possibly since they arrived in the 1600s.

Another source you might find interesting is the Abercorn Estate papers in PRONI. Some of the estate manager’s reports to Lord Abercorn give a feeling for the economic and social situation, and so have been put on-line. As an example, here’s a letter dated 10 July 1772 (PRONI ref: D623/A/40/48).

James Hamilton, Strabane, to [Earl of Abercorn].

He acknowledges his Lordship's letter of 21st June; he told John Houston that his Lordship permitted him 'to dispose of his lease in Drumnabratty, upon paying a year's rent'. He refers in detail to the dispute between James Kerr and his cottier, French; Kerr 'would give him anything, treble what his improvements are worth if he would leave him'; Kerr fears that French has gone to his Lordship and Kerr proposed going himself to meet him there; 'I diswaded him from it, and told him that he would hurt himself by his obstinacey; he realey wept and sayed he would be content to give up that holding to any quiet neighbour, but that he (French) distroyed his grain and pestered (?) and bullyed him and his family'.

He refers in detail to a dispute between Alexander Cochran and Mr Carry concerning the want of a road to bring turf from Tonagh bog; he thought Cochran 'unreasonable' and 'in the wrong in most of his disputes'; 'he has something very strange in his temper; it is not his convenience he battles for, it's haveing his own way, that he still contends for.

Pat Buchanan of Ardagh has I am told agreed to sell his holding to James Harper who got John Barr's land in that town, as a portion with his daughter; Barr is dead; Harper is much a better tenant, than he was, or Buchanan is.

William Galbraith of White House, manor of Derrygoon is dead; he left his farm to his four sons; two of them are less than 18; the widow and two eldest sons hold it and manage it; the eldest wants to dispose of his fourth and go to America, and to leave the remainder to be managed by his mother and brother; the farm pays at pressent £24 15s.

George Leitch of Listimore wants to sell his farm to go to America; never did I see so many goeing from all parts, yet fewer from your Lordship's estates, than from any place else in those parts; I will observe your Lordship's orders in respect to the character and substance of the tenant comeing in, where your Lordship may allow the farm to be disposed of.

It is mighty strange that not one person has agreed to go to your Lordship's colierey; I did think when it was known that they might return at the end of a year, and that I might send them, from any place that I would have great choice offering, especially as bread is very dear and money very scarce.

The crops of all sorts are fine, and this is the finest summer I remember these twenty years'. He refers to the 'very satisfactory' accounts from his sons [in India]'.

P.S. 'Mr Edie is dead'.

D623/A/123/33 is a report from 1808 in which the state manager explains his work feeding the poor on the estate.

D623/A/123/40 is another report which mentions Samuel White of Derrygoon, as being interested in trying to grow a new type of grass, as a farming experiment.. Possibly a relation to Andrew?

I haven’t looked at all the possible matches but you might want to work through them. If you go to the PRONI e-catalogue search on terms relevant to your family eg Derrygoon + White, Meaghy etc.

https://apps.proni.gov.uk/eCatNI_IE/SearchPage.aspx

You could also search the Registry of Deeds records (on Familysearch) for any leases relating to the Whites and the Abercorn estate. Best to search under townland rather than the parties names and it’s a bit fiddly till you get the hang of it, but again it may provide some information. 

Farmers would often be found in the Registry of Deeds, labourers would not. Labourers rented small cottages. (Usually from a local farmer, rather than directly from the Abercorn estate). They were often on “at will” terms which allowed either party to give notice at any time. Sounds uncertain but helpful if something more rewarding turned up elsewhere. Rent could be paid to the farmer in cash but was more often than not paid by an agreed number of days work a year on the farm, after which the labourer was free to take any other available work eg on another farm or on government schemes eg road building. In the winter months when there wasn’t much work on the farm, they tended to weave at home on hand looms, such as are still used in the Outer Hebrides to make Harris Tweed.

Most farmers in Ulster grew flax.  Originally the weavers had woven cotton. The raw materials were imported from the Carolinas and processed in Ireland. However the American War of Independence led to the US ports being blockaded and the supply of cotton stopped, plus England also put a tax on Irish made cotton (if exported to England) which made it uneconomic. (That was a protectionist measure to make it easier for Lancashire cotton mills). So in Ireland they switched to making linen which comes from the flax plant which grows well in Ireland (Cotton won’t grow at all). The farmers grew the flax, the labourers then processed it. Dreadful smelly and hard work, involving building dams in local rivers and submerging the flax with heavy stones for a couple of weeks till the outside fibre rotted, then it was hauled out, the central thread removed and eventually wound onto bobbins for weaving. The whole family participated. Then it could be woven in the house, mostly by men. It was sold to local linen buyers who paid in cash. Useful a society which mostly operated on barter.  The linen money meant that the average labourer in Ulster was slightly better off than their counterparts in other parts of Ireland. Critical in the famine.

As the 1800s progressed, increased mechanisation on farms meant there was less need for labourers. Simultaneously, water powered mills started to be built which made linen (and other fabrics such as calico, damask etc) far quicker and to a higher standard than most home weavers. A final insult was that the linen mills tended to employ mostly women and children (being cheaper and nimbler than men). So all these factors meant the labourers prospects were not good. When you throw in a population explosion, lack of natural resources in Ireland such as coal, oil and iron which meant the industrial revolution largely passed Ireland by, plus a shortage of land, the famine, and a bit of social unrest you get an understanding of why so many emigrated.

I am sure if Thomas was a labourer he would have been a weaver. Almost everyone in Ulster did a bit of weaving. I doubt he worked in a linen factory though unless he was an overseer or millwright or some such. Most of the mill employees were women or children. His weaving will have been at home.

You mention bleach greens. The cheaper linen (normally brown or grey) was just used to make ordinary clothes, but the better quality linen was bleached and laid out in the sun on bleach greens. It was then beetled (run through a special mill and hit with very heavy wooden hammers) for a few hours till the material shone. That then created the posh strong linen which we are familiar with today, and which was expected to last a lifetime (literally). A newly married couple used to be given a pair of linen sheets to sleep in, and the norm 50 years on was to bury them in them too. The shiny black material on the inside of a good quality dinner jacket can be beetled linen. Obviously a lot is synthetic fibre these days but Savile Row and places like that still buy some beetled linen from Ireland. (A fairly niche market these days). Clarks of Upperlands in Co. Derry specialise in it.

The reason Thomas doesn’t appear in any land records is because he was a labourer. They largely lived their lives below officialdom’s radar. Their tenancy agreements would usually be oral with the local farmer. They didn’t appear in the tithes because they didn’t have sufficient land to be worth taxing. (Most labourers would have had a few perches to grow spuds and a limited range of vegetables. Or even some flax of their own. But not enough land to be recorded).

Your family would have been recorded in the 1821, 1831 & 1841 censuses but, with the exception of a few fragments, they have all been destroyed.  Birth, death and marriage registration didn’t start till after your families had left Ireland. So apart from church records, there’s not many places for them to be recorded. (Farmers are more likely to show up as the Andrew White in the tithes has demonstrated).

Hope this helps.

Dear Elwyn,
Thank you so much for your thorough explanation. I did find a couple of Thomas McGrath's and one in particular in Drummallard in Dromore and thought at first that this could be my Thomas as there was a James McGrath also in Dromore who was a relative of Thomas's son and when William came to Australia he said he had an uncle in the colony. In this case this James McGrath (uncle) could have been Thomas' brother and that is why I thought the 1934 Griffith Valuation record could be my Thomas. However, if Thomas was a labourer in 1841, then that doesn't ring correct. I have attached William's immigration record in case you are able to glean anything more from this. Thomas and Elisabeth had children born in 1822, 1825, 1832 in Ardstraw then 1833 in Tyrone, 1838 in Astray or Ardstraw, 1840 in Tyrone and 1842 in Ardstraw, so in my mind this eliminates Drummallard in Dromore as a place where he farmed; Would you agree?
You will see in the attached immigration record that William and also his sister Mary's native place is recorded as Artrea. This really puzzles me. I looked up Artrea and there is a William McGrath recorded there in 1825 in the Tithe Applopment Books, however we are told William was born in Ardstraw as were his other siblings so I don't understand this and believe it to be a mistake. Would you kindly comment on that please.
Also, with regards to Elizabeth's father working for the Marquis of Abercorn, I only assumed that because I found an Andrew White farming in Derrygoon. It does seem more likely that he is the Andrew White in Meaghy, next to the Townland where Elizabeth his daughter was in 1853 (as noted by her daughter on her immigration to Australia)prior to coming to Australia in 1854.
When did the death records begin to be registered in Tyrone? Thomas had a daughter, Lucinda, born in 1842 in Ardstraw and his wife came to Australia in 1854 as a widow, so it seems he died between 1842 and 1854. I though deaths had to be recorded during that period of time but we cannot find it.
Thank you Elwyn for helping me unravel my Tyrone history. I have only just recently been able to connect to places other than Ardstraw and Newtownstewart. I wasn't sure about the Townlands.
Best Regards
Marlene

Marlene,

Reading Mary’s 1848 migration record, I think it is attempting to record that she was a native of Ardstraw, Co Tyrone, Ireland. Written Arstraa, perhaps? (I don’t think it’s Artrea/Ardtrea which is a different parish on the other side of Tyrone).

Looking at her religion it says to me “Church of England, Castlederg”.  So I would infer that’s the church they attended. Castlederg is about 5 miles west of Kilstrule so that ties in reasonably well, though it is in the next parish. I happen to have a photo of that Church of Ireland/England church, taken last week for someone else connected with it. I have attached it. Castlederg Church of Ireland has the following records: 

Baptisms, 1807-87; marriages, 1807-45; burials, 1839-81. There’s a copy in PRONI  ref: MIC 1/16.

Let’s hope that is the family church. There is another closer to Kilstrule which is Drumclamph Church of Ireland, in Ardstraw parish. However it lost all it’s early records in the 1922 fire in Dublin and now has no baptisms before the 1870s. So fingers crossed your family were using Castlederg whose early records were not lost.

I agree that the family in Dromore is probably not yours. Just a similar name.

Statutory death records started in 1864, so far too late for you. However the Church of Ireland did record burials (most other denominations didn’t bother) so you might find some of the deaths in Castlederg’s records, if that was the family church.  Labourers wouldn’t normally have been able to afford a gravestone so unless a wealthy relative in Australia later paid for one (and you do see that quite a lot) then they are unlikely to have a gravestone.

Hello Marlene,

I'm a great grandson of an Andrew White (born ~1837) who was married to Grace Atcheson in the Presbyterian Clady meetinghouse of the Parish of Strabane in 1857. His father's name was Andrew as well, a weaver by trade, possibly living in Sion Mills.

Do you know whether Elizabeth McGrath (nee White) was a Presbyterian?

I'm wondering whether it would be possible to establish a connection through 23andme.com (a DNA testing company). My brother had himself tested there. If you have as well, he might appear as a link. More generally, you might find other links there as well!

With regards,

Carl White