Birth of John Clarke Hunter, Randalstown, 1824, son of William Hunter

Geoff,

You don’t say what denomination the Hunter family were. Drummaul Church of Ireland records start in 1823, the RC records in 1825 but none of the 3 Presbyterian churches in Randalstown has anything prior to 1845. The RC records are on-line on the NLI site. For the Church of Ireland records you may need to get someone to look them up in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast.

You ask what other enquiries you might make. You could check the graveyards in the town to see if any William Hunters have gravestones there. (Or get a researcher to do that for you if you are unable to do it).

I looked at the tithe applotment records for Randalstown in 1834. No William Hunter listed. There was a James in Sharvogue and a John in Feehogue. Both would have been adults with land. A clerk might not be listed in the tithes, so the absence of a William Hunter doesn’t mean he wasn’t living there then..

Practically everyone in Randalstown and Drummaul in the 1820s and 1830s would have been a tenant or subtenant of the O’Neill family at Shane’s Castle. Their lists of major tenants by townland for the years 1829 & 1831 are held in PRONI under references T1024/1 & 2. They are not on-line but you could get a researcher to search them for a William Hunter.

You could also try Randalstown Historical Society to see if anyone there has ever heard of the family.

https://randalstownhistory.wordpress.com

The Ordnance Survey memoirs for Drummaul were compiled in August 1830 and give some detail about the area. Some residents are listed but I don’t see a William Hunter in the pages.

Many thanks Elwyn.

I don't know for sure his denomination. I have a copy of the civil marriage record which of course doesn't say: I checked that date on the Catholic register for Drummaul on NLI but not there. His wife Martha Campbell (and also her siblings) were baptised Church of Ireland and her parents were married in Rosemary St Presbyterian. I haven't located baptism records for their 2 children born in Belfast (John Hunter b.28.3.1855 and William Hunter b. 28.3.1857) - they could give a clue. I don't see them on NLI. So assumption: Protestant. I gather from what you that this will need a PRONI search for the relevant Church of Ireland records

Does IrelandXO have access to names of researchers who I could enquire with?

Thanks for the advice on the tithe records esp. for Shane's Castle, also a PRONI search needed. And for the link to the Historical Society.

Best wishes and thanks again

Geoff

Geoff,

There’s a list of independent commercial researchers on the PRONI site:

http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/research_and_records_held/can_someone_else_do_research_for_me/independent_commercial_researchers.htm

Alternatively, I may be able to help you. (I live in Randalstown). E-mail me on: ahoghill@irelandxo.com

Geoff,

I doubt if I can be of much help since I am sorely in need of help myself, but I will try  (I haven't figured out how to post my own message here -- all I get is a blank page when I click on "New Message").

I am looking for relatives of my 4x-great grandfather, Nathan Hunter, who emmigrated with his large family to the U.S. (South Carolina) in about 1799. His wife was named Mary Young Hunter, and his oldest son, born 1769 in Randalstown, was William Hunter. Since the Irish of this era almost always named their first sons after their fathers, I presume that William was also the name of Nathan's father. Unfortunately, that is all the information I have, except that Nathan's son, William was known as "William the Weaver" in his South Carolina hometown of Prosperity. This has led me to assume that William, and his Irish family, had been involveed n the linen industry in Randalstown. They all seem to have been Presbyterian, specifically, "Seceder" Presbyterians. (In addition to the small numbers of Seceders, who met in borrowed meeting houses around the town, there are three substantial Presbyterian Churches in Randalstown. Any of them may have records of yuor William Hunter.

I have spent about 10 days at PRONI researching the Hunter name, and I can tell you that there are any number of William Hunters in the catalog, but I found no way to connect them, or any of the many Hunters I found there, to MY Hunters. Still, if you have more information, and because you are looking for a much mre recent name that I, you may have luck with your own search at PRONI. If you choose to find a researcher to help you, as I did, finally (still with no luck), the foks at Ulster Ancestry are very friendly, and seem very competent, although you may want to check their bona fides yourself.

I hope that this is of some use to you. Please do not hhesitate to wtite if you would like more information.

Scott Hunter

Scott,

As I think you have discovered, research in Ireland in the 1700s is very difficult if not impossible. There are few records to consult and the likes of weavers generally lived their lives below officialdom’s radar. There just are no records to consult. As I mentioned to Geoff a few years back, there are no Presbyterian records in the Randalstown area earlier than about 1840. The oldest church is the OC which was established in the 1650s but if it ever had records for the 1600s and 1700s they are long lost.

Many towns in this part of Ireland had secession churches. (Mirroring the various secessions within the Church of Scotland). Most eventually reunited with the mainstream Presbyterian church. Randalstown 2nd Presbyterian church was a secession church. There’s another at Craigmore, about 2 miles outside the town. (It’s also merged back and nowadays and comes under the wings of Grange Presbyterian church in Taylorstown). PRONI don’t have any records for it, and the Minister has the only copy. But they don’t go back to the era you are interested in.

Much of the population in Ulster were involved in weaving. In Randalstown the mechanized weaving mills that made the town famous for linen were only established from 1864 onwards. Prior to that the industry was very much home based. There used to be a monthly linen market in Randalstown where the weavers would sell their produce to linen agents. However the market ceased in 1828 and after that folk from Randalstown sold their linen in Ballymena market. (Source: OS memoirs). The OS memoirs for Randalstown in 1830 also had this to say:

“There is a cotton manufactory a short distance above the town, on the River Main. About a mile higher up is a linen manufactory and bleach green. There is little business doing at either of the above mentioned. … Formerly the family of every farmer was engaged in weaving linen. This is still carried on by a great number but yields a very poor return.”

The average weaver in Ireland in the 1700s and first half of the 1800s was a labourer who often lived in a small cottage on someone else’s farm, and would have a few perches of land to grow some vegetables and some flax (the raw material for linen). Rent would generally be paid by an agreed number of days labour on the farm, though occasionally it was paid in cash. The labourer was otherwise free to undertake any additional work that might be available, possibly on another farm or on government schemes such as road improvements.

Weaving was top up income for small farmers and labourers in Ulster.  It was originally undertaken at home using hand powered looms (such as are still in use in the Outer Hebrides for making Harris Tweed). The looms were portable and could be packed up when not needed or when moving house.  Men and women both did the weaving, with women and children spinning thread and other related work. It provided a bit of extra income, and cash (in a society that was largely run on the barter system). As well as purchasing the things that barter can’t buy eg a ticket to Canada or America, the cash ensured that the lot of the small farmer in Ireland was slightly better than that in of people in other parts of Ireland where linen was not made. (Most Irish linen was made in Ulster).

As the 18th century passed, new inventions led to the building of mechanized weaving factories, powered by water or steam. These could make linen far more quickly and to a higher standard than most hand loom weavers could achieve and so home weaving went into decline.

But even in the 1700s weaving wasn’t a great living, and emigration was the answer to many Presbyterians throughout that century. (Large scale emigration by the native RC population didn’t really start till the 1800s. Perhaps the Presbyterians, knowing that their families had only arrived in Ireland from Scotland within the previous 100 years or so, were more ready and willing to move on again, than was the case for families who had always lived in the area).

Elwyn,

Thank you very much for your promt and informative reply. There is much in it that I did not know, but much that I have encountered in my years of trying to connect my American family to its Ulster-Scot roots. As I mentioned, my Irish ancestors emigrated from Ireland (the ship and exact date are not known, but a best guess, based on Nathan's US citizenship application, puts the date at about 1799 or a few years earlier) at about the time of the 1798 Rebellion, which may have been the proximate cause of their departure. Nathan Hunter's wife, Mary Young, of County Down, had a brother, James Abram Young, who had emigrated with with his family to Charleston, SC, sailing from Larne on the ship John and Mary, from Larne in 1772, part of a 5-ship flotilla led by a Rev. Martin, carrying his entire County Down congregation to the New World. James Young and family had settled in the tiny town of Frog Level (now Prosperity), SC by 1774. Nathan and Mary Hunter, and their eight children, moved into this already established community at the end of the century.

In addition to my fruitless 10 days of research at PRONI (where, nevertheless, I learned much about Irish genealogy and the Randalstown area, including the purchase of a copy of the relevant volume of the OS Memoirs, and the map of Randalstown made as part of that effort, and studied such sources as Griffith's Evaluation and the O'Neill rental records), I have visited Randalstown twice (2001 and 2004) and combed the graveyard of the O.C. Church looking for Hunter graves. I have also written that church, and the other Presbyterian churches in the town, hoping for news of my ancestors. I never recieved a reply from any of them. I also looked for church records on microfiche at PRONI, but without luck.

Because of my surname, I assume that my ancestors originally came from Scotland, probably in the 17th century, in response to the efforts of Rose MacDonald (Marchioness of Antrim) to bring fellow Presbyterians to the area, but a sentence in the OS Memoirs volume, part of the apparent conspiracy to drive me crazy, reads, "The family of Hunter allege that their ancestors came to this country with Henry II." So perhaps we first arrived in Ireland in 1171 or so!

To be honest, I have given up my active genealogical research on my Ulster Scot ancestors, although I still recieve Ulster Ancestry's monthly newsletter, and I have any number of messages on various Irish and Scots message boards in hopes of some contact from a long-lost cousin or fellow Hunter reseacher. More recently, I have pinned my hopes on Y-DNA, trying to come at my ancestors from the other chronological direction. After 10 years, and several re-investments in more and more refined tests, I have narrowed the timeframe from about 50,000 years ago, when all us humans left Africa, to the 5th century AD, when, apparently, descendants of my ancestors' small band of wanderers arrived in what is now the UK as part of the Angle, or perhaps Jute, Germanic migrations of the post-Roman period in England. I also maintain memberships in various genealogical DNA groups, and my test results are part of the worldwide YDNA database. I have not yet tested my mitachondrial DNA, although that is my intention.

I am sorry to be so long-winded, but I do hold out forlorn hopes that if someone sees my information, I may finally make a connection between my American family and its European forebears. Thank you again for your interest. I look forward to further exchanges.

Hi again Elwyn and Scott. It's been good to read this correspondence.

I admire your persistence at the task Scott (ten days at PRONI) and yes, I can imagine that it was very informative even if it didn't provide you the information you were most hoping for! I was not able to allocate that much time, not by a long shot, and as Elwyn has explained, my William Hunter seems to be right on the cusp of the time between where there were no records, and when records started. So like you, though without your impressive perseverence, I have decided to set this particular ancestor search aside and focus on other ones where there is a greater chance of success. Especially since I now live in NZ and can't afford a researcher to spend the amount of time that might be needed to produce a result (or maybe, no result).

I have to share something, though. My wife and I were recently in Invercargill, the area in New Zealand where the Hunters settled (not William, but his son John Clarke Hunter, who was a ship's captain in the clipper trade). It turns out that on the death of John Clarke Hunter's son, the family decided to donate certain family treasures, basically things that JCH had collected on his travels. They include a set of duelling pistols made in Belfast, and a large ivory Chinese piece - they told us that the Queen has a similar one and they don't know of any others. So interesting (and in the right place, too).

I've just glanced at an Ancestry record of someone else who thinks that William Hunter married Jane Clarke (which would be a plausible source for the son's name) though no evidence is given. I'll follow that up.

Thank you, as before, Elwyn for all your helpful infoirmation. I so appreciate how you put the time into answering questions and enquiries like ours, patiently and thoroughly.

Geoff