James Stinson

Hello Ken and welcome to the site, firstly you do not specify the denomination, this is important as we rely on church records at this remove, I had assumed Church of Ireland given the name but a search on Roots Ireland does not return a David, there are 3 Stinson born in that period, 1829 plus or minus 5 years, two in Antrim and one in Limerick, I was surprised to find the Antrim ones were a C of I and an RC while the Limerick one is RC, if they were Presbyterian it is another story, Methodists I understand have not relaeased their records online.

Ashfield I know in later years, was the estate of the 3rd Earl of Leitrim, assassinated in Donegal circa 1878, he had land in Donegal; Leitrim; Galway and Cavan, he appears to have sold up Galway around 1860, I have ancestors who worked for him and I cannot find records circa 1850 but know at least one of his estates had a private church so not sure if they kept or released records, C of I records were lost in the civil war of 1921 in the public records office, about 50% or thereabouts so can be fruitless search there, RC records are patchy at that remove also, I am not sure if the 3rd Earls father was active at Ashfield but they later had yeomanry there and the later fellow was a recruiting officer for the Inniskilling Fusillers, when ever they came into being.

I also found in the Registry of Deeds project a number of Stinson records for land (land registry only got under way in the 1700s) you can see those records or a synopis here, a large tranche in Clare, also Tyrone and Armagh. https://irishdeedsindex.net/deeds_index/name_index.php It really only confirms the name in Ireland at that time, a search of the Down Survey does not show that they received land during the Plantation of Ireland in the mid 1600s. 

Ashfield is an electoral district in Cavan of 17 townland and you can see it here, https://www.townlands.ie/cavan/ashfield/ and the parish appears to be Drumgoon, the town there is Cootehill after a Lord Coote, on this note I will touch the DNA of which I know little, it is possible that if the family came from England and were Church of Ireland (Protestant) and worked within the estate they married others of the same persuasion in Ireland, ie they lived worked; married etc for a few generations in Ireland but married within other families who came with hem or were already here and then left for Canada or the US. This is sort of what happened with the so called Scotch Irish.  

I did a general search on Roots for Stinson born in Ireland from 1790 to 1810 and got 43, none in Cavan, variants were returned, some in nearby counties and some in Limerick, on the Deeds Registry they were in Clare, Limerick borders Clare in the South West of Ireland.

I have both RC and C of I ancestors in Cavan myself and the area is still fairly rural, did you search Griffiths by area rather than name, also some small bits of early census for Cavan were found but very small bits. It is on the census website just select year and county to see. I see 7 hits for Stinson in Griffiths Valuation for 1857 including a James in Cootehill, landlord is a Richey, never saw the name until last Monday night when Catherine Ryan a Canadian comedian working in London and on Channel 4 televison had a Richey ancestor from Donegal in Ireland. 

Well Ken I said a lot but not got you any further on the road, there is a Cavan Genealogy centre that I have found reasonable cost wise but they may have some info or you could try the local history section of the Cavan library, a lot of areas have produced local history books in the recent past. 

GoodLuck,

Pat

Thank you Pat, that's very interesting. Yes, they were Presbyterian. I have searched most of those and came up empty. Even variants of David as I see nothing on Davids and know of three of them that moved from Ireland to Ontario, all born around the same time. The service record peaked my curiosity because I had seen the family Deyell in Ashfield as well and Davids first wife was Katherine Deyell.

Thank you again for the reply, I appreciate it!

Ken,

You are puzzled by your DNA ethnicity results. I am fairly cautious about DNA ethnicity tests. I am not convinced they are very accurate. However if your ancestors were named Stinson (a variant of Stevenson, and not a native Irish surname) and were Presbyterian then they are probably descended from Scots who settled in Ireland in the 1600s, as part of the Plantation. So, depending on how you perceive that background, arguably not Irish at all. You can see where Stinson was found in Ireland in the mid 1800s using this link:

https://www.johngrenham.com/findasurname.php?surname=Stinson

Thank you, I have looked at his site in the past too. I was just curious if there was a rule of thumb like 1%= a range of (x) generations. I know the Morton's/Jackson's (Martha's parents) had several generations in Ireland, but with no information on James or Mary I began broadening my search. I have seen family trees saying he was from Cavan , Ireland but no documentation showing how they know that or what town, parish, county. Someone said his wife Mary was from Scotland, but again, ask where they had found that and no repsonse. With no information other than the parents names, it was suggested by a research author to look at the towns with the same name. I guess it was common for someone from Cavan, Ireland to move to Cavan, Ontario and other matching town names. David and Katherine were in Millbrook, Cavan, Ontario until she passed away and he married Martha on 1870. We are heavily Scandinavian and I was told Stinson/Stevenson is Scandinavian and the family could have came to Ireland from there.

I typically dont do much with this in the summer as winter gives us plenty of computer time. I was a volunteer fishing guide last weekend for Take A Vet Fishing and we got on the subject of genealogy. The gentleman I was speaking to said that since David Stinson was a loyal Member of the Orange Order, I should check British records too (yes, now I am reading up on the Orange Order). That is where I found the Chelsea Pensioner British Army Record wo 97/127/36. I dont have a findmypast account, so cant access at this point, but what I had read regarding this James Stinson was that he was born about the same time period and gave the county and parish. The only reason I stuck on this instead of making a note for winter, there was a Deyell family in the same parish. David's first wife was Katherine Deyell and I am sure of this as we have the obits and photos of my great grandfathers half siblings from his marriage to Katherine. This too was the first time I came across the Deyell family name spelt that way. Just got my wheels turning. Weather is just too nice to start feeding this addiction now, but those two items are all I am thinking about while trying to relax and enjoy my cigar.  Thank you for your response Elwyn.

The Stinsons could indeed have originated in Scandinavia at some point, but the strong clue that your immediate ancestors came from Scotland is the Presbyterianism. Presbyterianism was brought to Ireland by Scots settlers in the 1600s. (It was established there in the 1500s by John Knox). If your ancestors had travelled directly to Ireland in say Viking times (600 - 1100 AD) they would have been RC in the 1800s.

Interesting. This line has certainly been challenging and from what I gather, is due to the lack of Presbyterian records. The information I have received from people like Pat and yourself is really interesting and highly addictive. Thank you very much as I really appreciate you sharing this. Have a great day!! Ken

This line is what I can only imagine crack cocaine is like. I just get to the point where I am fine with letting it go and another teaser comes along. That 1% DNA test listed above was from a cousin and now my sister recently did a 23andme and it came up 9.4% Irish & British about 3-5 generations ago. That is actually correct as it would be my gg granparets and beyond. Again, I realize the accuracy of these are questionable, but this time it came up as County Mayo, Ireland and Glasgow, UK. No idea if the UK is from the same line or one of the other grandparents.  County Mayo is part of the country I have not looked at and It may be a stretch, but a lead is a lead. So the carrot is dangled and away we go just in time for winter!!