McGreevey, Sturgeon and Len(n)on families 1794-1838

Deirdre,

Killyleagh 1st Presbyterian church has the following records:

1st Killyleagh
Baptisms, 1693-1757 and 1835-1881; marriages, 1692- 1757, 1833-51 and 1854-72; minute books, 1725-32, and 1809-70; accounts, 1820-60; communion rolls, 1835-70.

So you would be able to see the original entries for the marriage and James’ baptism in those records. The originals are likely to be held by the Minister but there is a microfilm copy of both in PRONI in Belfast (which is free to view if you go there).

Did either the marriage or baptism include the couples townlands (addresses)? If so that may provide leads as to where they lived.

Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church, and so I would normally suggest searching their records for her baptism and that of any siblings but obviously the records for the years you need are lost.

If you have death certificates with the couples parents names you could search the Killlyleagh graveyards for their gravestones. However it’s possible that the parents were agricultural labourers and may not have had gravestones.

For accommodation in Killyleagh, try the Dufferin Coaching Inn:

http://www.dufferincoachinginn.com

The pub next door (The Dufferin Arms) has good food and traditional music some nights. I have had excellent mussels there (from Strangford Lough) on several occasions.

Both premises are close to the castle and a short walk down to the harbour, so it makes a nice location to stay.

Or you could stay in the castle grounds:

http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/Killyleagh-Castle-Towers-Ava-Killyleagh-Downpatrick-P6623

Info on the castle which is suppose dot be the oldest inhabited castle in Ireland (but there’s a fair bit of competition for that title):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killyleagh_Castle

Thanks so much Elwyn, that's very helpful for our planning.     We are looking forward to our trip - only four weeks now.

Deirdre

Hi Deidre, I would love to know what information you find out about Andrew Sturgeon and Ellen Lennon Sturgeon as they are my great great grandparents. Sturgeons were a stronghold in the church of the surrounding area of Ballynahinch Kilmore Killyleagh lurgan etc. There is also a hill named Stutgeons Hill between Kilmore and Killyleagh and it should be interesting to find out why its called that. You might also find that because of the long gap between their marriage and the birth of James that they might have lost one or mote children due to the potato famine. Sturgeons came out from Scotland because of King James plantation settlement scheme so you might also look for information on them although I do not have any names for them

Hello Jaymar     Thanks so much for your message.  A very slow response from me, I'm sorry.    Your message arrived after we had returned home from our trip to Ireland.    I assume you live in New Zealand, as I do - as far as I know all of Andrew and Ellen's family came to NZ with them.   They are also my 2 x great grandparents - from Margaret Sturgeon married to John Henry Parker.  I'm afraid I found no further information from our visit to Killyleagh.   I met with local family history people - from the local family history society and from the family history section at the nearest large library in Down Patrick.    All very interesting (both Sturgeon and Lenon are apparetnly relatively common names in that area) but nothing pointing specifically to our families.    I wondered about your source for the information that the Sturgeons came as part of King James plantation of Ulster.   Where have you made that connection?   I've read about three or four different plantation/settlements/major migrationsfrom Scotland to Ireland  but haven;t known how to decide which was the time they came.   I look forward to hearing from you further.   I am in contact with a couple of other descendants  - second cousins once removed! - one of whom I met at the Bombay reunion a couple of years ago.   My email address is deirdre.dale@gmail.com.    

Looking at the 1901 census for Co. Down there were 122 people named Sturgeon. 3 were RC, the rest Presbyterian or other Protestant denominations. So its overwhelmingly a settler name, not a native Irish name.

It’s quite common in Scotland but more common in England. The 1901 Scottish census has 292 Sturgeons and the equivalent English census has about 1300.

(The current First Minister of Scotland is named Nicola Sturgeon.)

If your family were Presbyterian (as appears to be the case), then that points to Scots origins. Presbyterianism was established in Scotland and brought to Ireland by the Scots settlers.  The name is found in Scotland principally in counties like Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, & Kirkcudbright all of which are counties known to have been the origins of many settlers in Co. Down. Killyleagh was founded by Scots settlers.

I looked in the Muster Rolls for Co Down c 1630. There are no Sturgeons listed, suggesting your ancestors arrived after that.

Thanks so much Elwyn for taking the trouble to respond with such useful information.  Yes, definitely Presbyterian - and Andrew Sturgeon was an Orangeman.   Also note that five of their children wre born in Scotland (just before they came to NZ) in Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Paisley. The couple were married in Killyleagh in 1838 and these children were born in Scotland between 1851 and 1859.   One older son was baptised in Killyleagh in 1845. Quite a few years between the marriage, then the first child, then another gap to the second child.  The famine was approx 1845-1852 so may have influenced both the number of children and the return to Scotland.

From my reading it seems that apart from King James Plantations (from 1609) and Cromwell's conquest and land confiscations (1650s but more English than Scottish?), the other major Scottish influx ("tens of thosuands") was in the late 1690s after the famine in Scotland!  

If any of the children were born in Scotland in 1855, it’s worth viewing the birth certificate on Scotlandspeople. 1855 was the first year of civil registration in Scotland and in that year only, the certificates contained a lot of extra information which was dropped subsequently due to it being too much work. 1855 birth certificates give the ages of both parents, their places of birth and the number of children born to them, alive and dead.

The famine may have been a factor in your family’s decision to move to Scotland, especially if they were labourers, but I suspect they left for the same reasons that 2 million others did. To find work. Ireland has very few natural resources (no oil, coal, iron ore etc) and so did not benefit from the industrial revolution in the 1800s, the way Scotland, England, the US, Canada New & Australia did, which created hundreds of thousands of comparatively well-paid new jobs in new industries (coal mining, steel making, railways, ship building etc). So that was a big pull factor. There had also been a huge population explosion in Ireland going up from about 3 million people in 1750 to 8 million in 1830. There simply weren’t jobs for all those people. In much of Ireland the only employment was subsistence farming topped up in Ulster and one or two other areas with a bit of linen weaving. And then the straw that broke the camel’s back, along came the famine, numerous times throughout the 1800s. The worst period was when the potato crop failed almost completely 3 years in a row in the late 1840s, and then partially several more years after that.

Other factors led to the continued emigration too, eg early mechanisation on farms. With new machines to turn the soil and plant seed, farmers no longer needed an army of agricultural labourers to help on the farm. So those jobs were rapidly disappearing. Likewise mechanisation had led to linen factories being set up in places like Belfast. These made home weaving uneconomic and so also upset the labourer’s family economy. Agriculture was the biggest single employer in Ireland, but it was mostly a barter economy. Few people had any ready cash save what they could make from weaving or any government sponsored work such as building new roads. So when the opportunity arose to get jobs with a regular wage packet, as opposed to a few pence from your father each week, the decision to migrate wasn’t really all that hard to make. So it was as much about economic betterment as anything. The famine wreaked havoc in most of Ireland but in Co Down, a comparatively wealthy county, it wasn’t too severe so I would say it was less of a reason for your particular ancestors leaving than it was for others elsewhere in Ireland.

There was a massive tide of emigration from Ireland all through that century, including long before the famine. All the famine did was speed it up. (After Scotland and England, the USA was the most popular destination for emigrants with about 40 to 50% choosing it. Only about 5% of Irish emigrants chose Australia and New Zealand, possibly due to the costs and length of the voyage).

Ending up in New Zealand via Scotland is called stepped migration. It was very common. The move to Scotland probably enabled them to earn the fares to New Zealand.

Co Down was heavily settled by Scots. One way of analyzing it is to look at the 1901 Irish census. There were 290,000 people in the county. 76,000 were RC (so mostly native Irish), around 126,000 Presbyterians and related denominations, and the rest were Church of Ireland and other denominations. So even 400 years after the first Scots arrived Presbyterians remained the majority denomination. (And many of the Church of Ireland people were of Scots origins too, notably those from the Scottish Borders. Border Reivers, as they are known). So Presbyterianism was (and still is) the main denomination in Down. Probably over half the population there today are of Scots origins.

 Mmm, there were births in this family in Scotland in 1851, 1852, 1854, 1856 - missing 1855.   Never mind it could have been a very useful suggestion.   Thanks also for the "picture" of life in those times - aiding my understanding of why/how they came to New Zealand.   1851 Census had Andrew as a Coal Miner with family in Scotland - presumably then earning the money for the passage to New Zealand.