WATSON Surname (perhaps Drumlegagh, County Tyrone)

Ron,

I think that the place where your Watson family lived was a townland named Aghalunny, in the parish of Termonamongan.

Griffiths Valuation for 1859 lists Thomas Watson farming there. He had plot 10 which was a 24 acre farm. That farm today is at the junction of the Ballymongan Rd and the Shannaghy Rd. I noticed a Moses Watson and John Watson also farming in the same townland. They may be relations.

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml

Thomas Watson had died by the time of his son Thomas’s marriage on 3.7.1889 in Dublin South. The farm appears to have passed to John Watson who married Ann Young on 18.7.1876 at Drumlegagh Presbyterian church. There’s a possible death for Thomas Watson registered in Strabane in 1865 aged 60.

Eliza Watson married William John Hamilton in 1869 in Castlederg Registration area.

You can view the first two marriage certificates free on-line on the irishgenealogy site https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/ but the 1869 is not free yet and you would need to pay to view it on the GRONI site. Likewise the 1865 death. It should cost £2.50 (sterling) to view each certificate.

Thomas & Georgina in the 1901 census:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/Pembroke_West/Carlisle_Avenue/1287044/

Here’s John on the family farm in 1901:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Tyrone/Killeter/Aghalunny/1723511/

Your Watson family would appear to have been Church of Ireland. So if you are looking for births prior to 1864 you need to rely on church baptism records.  That parish has records from 1812 onwards (with some gaps). There is a copy in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. A personal visit is required to view them.

You mention that your family may have originated in Galloway. That’s quite possible. Given the location they were living in the 1800s, the surname and their denomination they fit the profile of a fairly typical Scots settler. Well over 100,000 Scots moved to Ireland in the 1600s, and many settled in Tyrone.