My father's father, William John "Jack" GILLESPIE was born 23 aUG 1876 in Co Tyrone apparently, possibly in/near "Augher" but that should be thought of as a phonetic rendering of what he said - once! Who knows. His father, George GILLESPIE, b. about 1851 in Newtown, Tyrone, married Catherine ARMSTRONG in about 1875. She'd stated she was born in "Parish Clogher" about May 1853. We also have some indication of her baptism in a "Parish Devenish" - does that make any sense to anyone?
Their 2nd son after Jack above, was James Robert GILLESPIE, b. 7 Apr 1878 in "Parish Beagh", in ?Armagh, in possibly Tyrone or Fermanagh.
We have extremely limited information about my greatgrandparents unfortunately. The whole family (3 generations) moved over to Barrow in Furness (Lancashire, England) to work at the shipyards there in about 1870. And the two eldest sons emigrated from Barrow to Canada in the early part of the 1900s.
I'm not sure how to begin to commence to start to figure out some of these places, as I live in Vancouver BC Canada, and know little about our Ireland connections.
Any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated. I'll post over on County Fermanagh as well, perhaps.
Cheers from Canada! - Celia
celia37
Thursday 27th Dec 2012, 04:04AMMessage Board Replies
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Hi Celia,
Thank you for your message.
Augher is the nameof a small village in the parish of Clogher, in Co. Tyrone. (surprisingly it's name was not lost in translation!)
With regards to George's birthplace, I would say that this is referring to Newtownstewart, which is in the parish of Ardstraw.
For Catherine's birth, Clogher is a parish in Co. Tyrone. Devenish is a parish in the neighbouring county of Fermanagh.
Here is a link to a map showing you the civil parishes in CO. Tyrone (you can click on each parish for more information and maps etc):
http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/fuses/civilparish/index.cfm?fuseaction=GetMap&CityCounty=Tyrone
and here are the civil parishes for Co. Fermanagh:
For a Beagh in Tyrone/Fermanagh, the only place I can find is Sliabh Beagh which is an area which straddles the borders of Counties Fermanagh, Tyrone and Monaghan. Part of it extends into the parish of Clones in Co. Fermanagh.
If you follow thi link it will show you all these areas in google maps:
I hope that this helps clarify the different places for you and helps you with your research!
Kind regards,
Genealogy Support
Friday 15th Feb 2013, 04:23PM -
Hi Celia
I live in Garrison, Co. Fermanagh and have recently joined Ireland Reaching Out and hope to serve as a local contact/administrator for the Devenish parish.
i was interested to see that you live in Vancouver. Small world- I lived there for nearly 11 years, at 836 West 68th, near Cambie. I worked as a social worker for the Long Term Care Program in Burnaby. We have very happy memories of Vancouver. Our oldest children were born there before we returned to my husband's home town here, 25 years ago. We still keep in close touch with our good friends now living in White Rock, Surrey and Maple Ridge and regularly have visitors from Canada.
Not sure I can help you much with your search- I'm new to the formalities of researching connections- but I can say there are long established Armstrong families in this area of Garrison, which falls within the Devenish parish.
As we have holiday homes we have had several American visitors in the past who have been looking for their roots. They must have googled "Garrison" and our houses would be featured. We've helped several families find their local connactions in this way- one set were Fergusons from New York who were directly related to my husband's family, which was very interesting and we've kept in touch since then.
Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you, if you have found out any more details.
Best wishes,
Pam Ferguson
Thursday 22nd Aug 2013, 10:58AM