William O'Brien in the Aghanloo Churchyard?

Carter,

You say that your family were Protestant. That could be so, though judging by the 1831 census, most Briens and O’Briens in Co Derry appear to have been RC. (The O’ prefix is detachable and often added and omitted at whim. The names are interchangeable. Something to bear in mind when searching Irish records).

Perhaps yours changed denomination at some point, possibly through a mixed marriage. And in the 1600s and 1700s, some RC landholders changed denomination to avoid the worst of the Penal Laws as they were known which made it hard to own land etc if you were not Church of Ireland. For some it was a token change but for others the change may have been real enough.

You don’t say what precise denomination your ancestors were. Were they Church of Ireland or Presbyterian? (Their burial in a Church of Ireland graveyard is no proof of their denomination since Church of Ireland graveyards were open to all denominations and were often used by RC and Presbyterians alike). Their denomination can point to their origins, especially if Presbyterian which would indicate Scottish ancestry.

However whatever denomination they were there are few church records for the area for the 1700s so it will be tricky discovering much about them, at least from those sources. There are no RC or Church of Ireland records for the early 1700s but the  one church that does have some records is Ballykelly Presbyterian church. (You mention a 1721 marriage in Ballykelly). That church has the following records:

Baptisms, 1699-1709, 1805-19 and 1826-1983; indexes to baptisms, 1699-1709 and 1805-19, and to marriages, 1699-1740 and 1805-11; marriages, 1699-1740, 1805- 11 and 1845-1920; session minutes, 1826 and 1846-68; list of communicants, 1804-18, 1826-55 and 1859-62.

So they have marriages for 1721. There’s a copy of those records in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. A personal visit is required to view them unless you wish to pay PRONI to do a look up for you.

Aghanloo gravestone inscriptions are on-line on the Coleraine Branch of the North of Ireland Family History society site but I don’t see any Briens or O’Briens. Presumably therefore your ancestors were either buried without a gravestone or it is now lost or illegible.

Hi Elwyn,

This is all very helpful information.  I'm afraid I don't have any specifics regarding William O'Brien's denomination, my best guess from the records we have would be that you are right and there was a conversion due to marriage, although it seems possible William's parents were also Irish-Scottish and his father (or grandfather, etc) had converted to Presbytarianism, given this info buried a bit further in that link I posted:

 "The question has often been asked, as to whether the O'Briens were Catholic or not. By way of answer to this oft-asked question, we can only say that Jotham O'Brien while on a tour in the Old Country took advantage of the occasion to visit the land of his fore-fathers; and the records showed them to be Protestants, and they were buried in Protestant cemeteries, in a suburb of Londonderry, as far back as the seventeenth century."

Ancestry.com tells us that William's wife's parents were born in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland, with William O'Brien's father-in-law listed as passing away in Ballykelly, Londonderry, Ireland in 1724.   William's son Timothy was born in Ballykelly, and as I take it that Ballykelly was a Plantation settlement, it would then seem pretty certain that William married outside the RC tribe and then their children followed suit. 

It would be interesting to learn what circumstances led to that (land confiscation would certainly be a powerful motivator), and why the records would have him buried in Aghanloo, perhaps he was a late converter back to Catholicism.

I am very grateful for your assistance and suggestions, I do hope to visit the area in the future as I have never been to Ireland, and I would love to visit Aghanloo.  I did at least go to a Jesuit Catholic high school here in Chicago, by the way!

Many thanks,

Carter

Hi Carter. I'm a descendant of William and Ester through Timothy and Margaret, then Jacob and then William, etc. The original source for the information in the write up you linked to is a book called Noel and A Genealogy of the O'Briens from the 1920s. It has been scanned by another researcher and can be found by searching for the title and adding "Lufkin" to the search terms. My ancestor William (Jacob, Timothy, William) is listed as Independent Presbyterian in the 1871 Canada census which is online along with other censuses up to 1911 from the government of Canada and as well the 1921 census through Ancestry.com. It seems as though the entire Nova Scotia branch of the family at this point was Presbyterian. The genetic information is very interesting. William is one of my brick walls and I've come to the conclusion as you have that either he was some younger son of the portion of the Clare O'Briens that converted to keep their lands or that he is completely not related (various genealogies for William online tie him directly to William O'Brien Earl of Inchiquin but there are apparently no actual records to support this).

Mike

Hi Mike!

Yes, WIlliam would appear to be the brick wall.  Going from Elwyn's suggestion I actually worked with a very helpful researcher at PRONI, and they were unable to find any marriage records using (he looked at a 30 year range, I want to say) that matched the one at the Hants County website, which indeed comes from the Noel and the Genealogy of the O'Briens.

I have a copy of that I received from the Minnesota Historical Society's Library btw (very clean if you'd like a copy), as well as hundreds of pages of journals from Wetmore O'Brien (pretty sure his full name was John Wetmore O'Brien) that date from the late 1800s, the info in Wetmore's journals is likely quite a bit of the source material for the book.  I am intrigued about the line in the book mentioning a fellow who visited Northern Ireland and visited the graves of his ancestors.

Have you done any YDNA testing?  The Earl of Inchiquin connection is complete rubbish, I found the fellow who invented that profile and he took more than a few liberties.  I have an entry for my father with William as the source here.

The O'Brien Project is here.

On the religion aspect, Ester's line can be traced back well over another century, she may have been born in Northern Ireland but her ancestry is decidedly Scottish.  I find none of this surprising, heat maps of the M222 YDNA shows hits at a roughly even latitude going through Northern Ireland and Scotland.  These folks all knew how to sail, after all. In the big picture it would seem to me that Hadrian's Wall marks the furthest north the Romans made a mark, so connections dating to that period across Scotland and Ireland would make plenty of sense.  William or his ancestors may have converted earlier to save land, or William may have done it for love, we'll probably never know.  I have been reading up on the history of Derry and Londonderry, and it also seems possible that William or his parents were some of the Gaelic Irish caught inside the walls (what today we would probably call the wrong place at the wrong time) during the siege or other military occupation/struggles and ended up forming relationships with the other urbanites there. 

I wish I could find out more about the O'Braoin>O'Brien confusion.  This is very intriguing but specifics of when the names were conflated would be required to be helpful for our purposes.

http://www.libraryireland.com/names/ob/o-braoin.php

Ó BRAOIN—I—O Brean, O Breen, O Bruen, O Browne, (O'Brien), Breen, Bruen, &c.; 'descendant of Braon' (sadness, sorrow); the name of several distinct families, of which the following are the most important: (1) Ó Braoin of Breaghmhaine. The head of this family, which is descended from Maine, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, was lord of Breaghmhaine, now the barony of Brawney, in Co. Westmeath, adjoining Athlone and the Shannon. The family still flourishes in this ancient territory, but the name has been incorrectly anglicised O'Brien, which somewhat obscures its origin.

We're descended from Henry D O'Brien, (John) Wetmore's son, btw.  He was awarded a Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg with the First Minnesota (http://firstminnesotafilms.org/men/henry-d-obrien/).  It's a pretty amazing story, and I'd hope our Northern Irish kin would be proud of him - it is apparently not at all a stretch to say that this unit singlehandedly swung Gettysburg, which is when the momentum turned to the Union.

Wetmore's line is: http://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/john-wetmore-o-brien_156147040, btw. 

Very glad to meet you!

Carter

I note the comments about changing denomination to avoid land confiscation. That did happen for people with significant land holdings (but not for the average famer or labourer)  but in general you would change to the Church of Ireland (the state denomination) if you were going to do that. Presbyterians were regarded as nonconformist and though not affected as severely as the RC denomination during the 1600s and 1700s, they also had restrictions on some aspects of their lives eg prohibitions on holding Crown Offices etc.  So switching from RC to Presbyterian was sort of out of the frying pan into the fire. Not too many advantages and still the wrong side of the religious blanket.

My guess this is about changing denomination following intermarriage. But who knows?

Thank you so much for all of this helpful information, it's all new to me.  I think I may have discovered a part of our problem - I checked the source record my original post came from, and it looks like in the course of transcribing to the Internet Aghanloo was confused with Anglinlow.  So perhaps there still is a chance I will find something tangible about the mysterious William O'Brien!

Carter

Hmmm, I don't see a listing for Anglinlow, would you have any suggestions, Elwyn?

Carter,

I don’t know of any place called Anglinlow. I’d say the writer has confused it with Aghanloo. Aghanloo is just to the east of Ballykelly, and so is pretty close to the place where the family are said to have lived in Ireland.

Ballykelly is actually in the adjacent parish of Tamlaght Finlagan but it wouldn’t be unusual for someone from there to be buried in Aghanloo, especially if they were Presbyterian. Presbyterians in Ireland don’t use the parish system and Aghanloo may well have been the nearest graveyard to where they lived. It’s Church of Ireland but it was common for Presbyterians to be buried in Church of Ireland graveyards as, in the early years, they often didn’t have their own graveyards. (Presbyterianism only arrived in Ireland in the mid 1600s, brought by Scots settlers. The first Presbyterian churches weren’t built till the mid to late 1600s, and few of those had graveyards. The Church of Ireland was open to all denominations and so Presbyterians were often buried there. In fact that still happens regularly to this day).

You get odd mistakes in these sorts of family histories. At the beginning, the writer describes the Snow in Londonderry in 1768, riding at anchor “below the bridge that spans the Foyle.” Afraid not. The first bridge wasn’t built till 1790. So a minor mistranscription over a place name wouldn’t be too surprising.

I had a look in the Muster Rolls for Co Londonderry c 1630*. The area around Aghanloo was leased by the Haberdashers (one of the London Livery Companies, after which the county is named). The Main tenants were required to ensure that they had sufficient armed men available to deal with any unrest or uprising by the native Irish. Lists were compiled from time to time of the men and their weapons. There are no Briens or O’Briens listed. However there are several Lintons/Lyntons (actually Lenton but it’s the same name) in the area. Linton is a very common Scottish name. And obviously huge numbers of Scots had settled in that area during the 1600s. You’ll recall that William O’Brien married Esther Lynton. So she would likely have been Presbyterian. It’s by far the most common denomination in Scotland. If the O’Briens were native Irish then they have to have been RC. In my opinion – and it is only an opinion – I’d guess that this was the marriage that led to the change.

Their first male child was named Timothy. That’s not a common Scottish name. It’s much more common in Ireland. Indeed “Tim” is sometimes used as a euphemism for Irish people. The Irish (and Scottish) naming tradition was to name the first son after the father’s father. So possibly William’s father was named Timothy.

* Men and Arms – The Ulster Settlers c 1630 edited by RJ Hunter 2012.

Well how embarassing that I never followed up to say thank you for your last reply, Elwyn, so a belated thank you!

Mike - I did Big Y testing last fall and discovered a very solid genetic link to a MacAdam family, here's some information the lady who runs that account (for her father) shared with me:

"The O’Brien who became the ancestor of my MacAdam line would have been Catholic because it was the 1480s and predated the Reformation. The area of Scotland where he settled didn’t convert during the Reformation and is still a predominately Catholic area, at least on the surface.

I went to look at the O’Brien DNA Project. Your kit 108748 does not match the Brian Boru line, although the story goes that that is who you descend from. This is a very common blanket statement for most clans prior to DNA testing. The first MacAdam in my group to be tested was actually paid for by someone in Oregon, who was a distant cousin. He put him in the O’Brien project. When I came along later, he was all by his lonesome there and not matching anyone else. That was about 9 years ago. I took him out and put him in the MacAdam project, where he and the others I tested are located. Brian Boru didn’t use the surname attributed to him, but 40 years later it was in use in Ireland. We don’t know who adopted that surname. They may not all have been his relatives, or the line was broken later on.

All the MacAdams in my group are matching your O’Brien and about 8-10 other O’Briens at the 12-marker level of Y-DNA testing, but Andrew and William are the only ones who carry your line as a match right into the 37-marker level, so these two lines are likely the oldest in my group. They are from two different sub-groups, but have your even older line as a common ancestor. It is a very distant match from Ireland (a genetic distance of 4 at 37 markers is way out there). Instead of a conventional close match in Y-DNA, by taking the Big Y test you have provided the rest of us with a pot of gold far more valuable than a closer match. I never expected to see this happen and just a few years after having these MacAdam guys take the Big Y. If you submit your test to Y Full later, you will get a rough idea of time to the common ancestor. Thank you so much for taking the Big Y test."

She also shared this on the M-222 yahoo group:

"http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/ireclan2.htm#conaill

This link puts the ODohertys and O'Gallaghers in Cineal Chonaill, which branched off Cenel Conaill, as you suggested.It also connects Cenel Conail to Columba, who is mentioned in the family history of this O'Brien match (*this match was my father's Big Y results). Somewhere else, an excerpt from the Annals, I think, I found a Brian in Cenel Conaill. It is possible that he could be the source of the O'Briens we connect to.

Hard to tell fact from fiction in some of these old Irish records, though.

The O'Brien connection already existed by the 1480s, when my ancestor was given land in the old Moidart area of the Highlands as a reward for services rendered in the Battle of Bloody Bay. From that time on until emigration in 1790, the line was known as "Mac Eamainn" or sons of Edmond. Emigration officials rechristened them "Adamson"; on two ships bound for what is now Prince Edward Island. Edmond and Adam are interchangeable in Gaelic. The 1798 census of PEI has them down as "McAdam."; Most of them changed it to "MacAdam"; in the early 20th century."

If you ever learn anything new/would like to compare notes please just email me at carterobrien@gmail.com.

Elwyn, thank you again for all of your help & have a great weekend.

Hello Carter, Mike, and Elwyn,

I have stumbled on this conversation from 5-6 yeas ago, and have no idea if you are still online and will see a reply now, but I found your exchange to be very interesting and informative, particularly your knowledge of Irish sources, Elwyn. My grandmother was an O'Brien from Noel. I have lived in many places around the world, but currently live just 20 minutes up the Cobequid shore from Noel in the neighbouring village of Maitland. My descent is: William>Timothy (immigrant to Nova Scotia)>Jacob>William>Samuel>Blanche. Blanche married the new young minister, Rev. William Forbes, on 7 Aug 1901 in Noel, so my Y-DNA goes down the Forbes line. I was therefore extremely interested in your Y-DNA discussion, as well as the question of denominations and burial sites.

I can confirm that the Protestant O'Briens who came to Nova Scotia in 1768 (Timothy and family) were Presbyterian, and any Protestant O'Brien in Nova Scotia is almost certain to be from this family. I have found very little documentary evidence of the O'Briens in the Aghanloo and Ballykelly area, but as you noted, there were plenty of Lintons not far from there. It is a few years since I worked on this line in Ireland, so my memory is a bit sketchy.

I was in the vicinity and went to Aghanloo several years ago to see if I could find any evidence of the family. We were told that the unmarked graveyard down the road from the Church of Ireland was the Presbyterian site, but there was nothing to confirm this, no one around. We were unable to find many legible inscriptions and found none mentioning O'Briens. There is a depression in the ground in the middle of this cemetery which I took to be the possible site of a former chapel. In any case, our failure confirmed earlier reports from other family members who had visited and come away empty handed.

I have often wondered what became of Timothy's siblings, but have thus far found nothing about them. The marriage to Margaret Gilmore in Ayr has always intrigued me, but I imagine Timothy was adventurous (otherwise he would not have moved to the New World) and there must have been frequent trade back and forth, enabling a young man to visit Scotland. The Gilmores were surely Presbyterian, but the conversion must have happened  at least a generation before with the O'Brien-Linton marriage in Ballykelly, if not earlier. Sadly Timothy's adventurous spirit resulted in tragedy. with his untimely death at Tenecape in 1777, riding home from Windsor.

In Timothy's family, eldest son William preceded the family to Nova Scotia by a year, and ultimately remained in Piziquid/Windsor, as a school teacher we believe, having fallen in love with a local girl, and they founded a line of O'Briens from Windsor. All the others settled with their parents in Noel and became successful farmers and later merchants. My great grandfather Samuel was in partnership with his older brother Osmond, who built 4 brigantines, 11 barques, and several schooners in the latter half of the 19th century, operating a global shipping business from the village country store they ran, while building the ships in the backyard. This was the "golden age of sail" in Nova Scotia, and the O'Briens were fully involved.

Thanks again for all the information you shared. I look forward to further insights in the future. Sincerely, Don Forbes

Travelling over to Ayr was no big deal. There were regular sailings between the port of Londonderry and various points in Scotland all the time, ever since the start of the Plantation. Roads then were very poor and overland journeys to Belfast or Dublin were lengthy and sometimes expensive. The easy way to travel or import goods needed in Ireland was by sea and so the short stretch of water between Ireland and Scotland was not a hindrance. It was the freeway of its day and folk went back and forth all the time. It’s only 11 miles between Scotland and Ireland at the closest point (Mull of Kintyre – Torr Head). These are not big journeys. In the 1700s Campbeltown on the Kintyre peninsula was the Customs clearance port for the north of Ireland. So ships arriving from North America would often put in there to clear Customs before going down the Antrim coast.

Today we can catch the ferry from Ballycastle to Port Ellen on the Scottish island of Islay for a day-trip to a distillery or for wildlife watching. The ferry takes 1 hour.

Don’t know if that gives a sense of context.