Looking for a Martin Hearn (Heron) - Townland of Ballycallan, Parish of Clondavaddog.

June:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

We have a parish liaison in Clondavaddoge parish. I will send him an e-mail and alert him to your message.

Roger McDonnell

Many thanks Roger, I appreciate you letting us know!.

Welcome June to irelandxo,

Thank you for getting in contact. I will try to give some small bit of help, so much as I can. The fact that Martin Hearn was born in about 1818 makes it quite difficult because the Births, Marriage and Deaths for the Parish were recorded from approx 1847 onwards for Roman Catholics and approx 20 to 30 Years before this at best for Church of Ireland and Presbyterian. But all questions about family are worth asking, and exploring even if it is a long shot!

You would be right, the Townland of Ballycallan is to be found in the Parish of Clonadavaddg, I did a couple of initial checks on this townland itself for any referance of the name Hearn or any variations of the name back in 1858, 1901 and 1911. but unfortunately there were no Hearn families in Ballycallan. I attached these below as well as a Map showing the Townland.

Griffith's Valuation (1847-1864) for Ballycallan

1901 Irish Census for Ballycallan

1911 Irish Census for Ballycallan

I did a quick search for any Records for the name Hearn within the County as a whole, in 1858, 1901 and 1911. Surprisingly it did referance two in the Griffith Valuation of 1858, but unfortuntly none  could be found in either the 1901 or 1911 Census of Donegal which was strange...what did happen to these Hearn families..

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=doNam…

1858 Griffith Valuation - David Hearn - 4 x Acres of Land in Ramelton (Parish of Aughnish)

1858 Griffith Valuation - Jane Hearn - Medium sized house in Carricknamart (Parish of Raymoghy)

It took me while to figure this out, but I have since found that this David Hearn family in Ramelton were referanced in the 1901 and 1911 Census under a different yet similar pronounced name that being Heron.

Heron also happened to a name that could be found in 17 different locations in North Donegal in the 1850's, however none of them happen to be in the Parish of Clondavaddog nearby where we hoped in Ballycallan.

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=doNam…

This is as far as I happened to get just for now.

Seamus

Hi June,

I am afraid I have exhausted all my resources to try and connect the Hearn/Heron family in and around these locations above to the townland of Ballycallan, in Clondavaddog.

It is just because it is so far back that the Hearn/Heron Birth, Marriage, Death Records, plus Census Returns I have found for the Milford/Rathmelton area unfortunately do not referance back far enough as in 1820’s.

I have here a few suggestions that you should try and explore further:

1) Rootsireland (Short 24Hrs Subscription)

Unlike nowadays the first name Martin is a very unusual name back in the 1800s.. You possibly may have tried this already ,but if you haven’t  it would be worth looking up Martin Hearn and Martin Heron for 1818 using a Ireland Wide search in Rootsireland. You may get lucky as Church of Ireland and Presbyterian Roots Records seem to go back further than any available on ancestry or other genealogy resources. http://www.rootsireland.ie/

2) Church Records (Presbyterian & Church of Ireland, Early 1800’s)

All the Churches below are well known to have a friendly inviting congregation, and I am sure they would be more than helpful if you did happen to send them an email with the information you have (or this site link), they may possibly take the time to look into their archives for the years in question, in and around early 1820’s.

http://www.clondevaddock.derry.anglican.org/

http://milfordrpc.org/

http://rameltonpresbyterianchurch.com/Ramelton_Contact_us.html

Parish Genealogy  Information

http://donegalgenealogy.com/coficlondavpics.htm

http://donegalgenealogy.com/tullyfernproj.htm

http://donegalgenealogy.com/aughnishproj.htm

Other Parish

http://donegalgenealogy.com/raymohjyproj.htm

3) I would recommend submitting a DNA sample with ancestry.co.uk. It’s something I explored lately and the results are an excellent resource, matching families connections as far back you won’t believe.

In receiving results back,  I would pay particular attention to families such as McIlwain, and Stewarts, as these names are to be found in and around townlands such as Ballycallan and Clooney (between Milford and Ramelton), and these names were present in the Griffith Valuation Records I posted referencing Hearn/Heron families.

I hope this might be of some small help. Please don’t forget let us know how you get on, I would be interested to hear back on this.

All the best

Seamus Callaghan