Moses Hanlon and Isabella Scott

Jo-Ann:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

The church records for the RC parish and the Church of Ireland parish for Templecrone parish both start much later than you need to track your ancestors. (I was not sure of the religious denomination).

I did look at the Tithe listings from 1828 and there were 21 Hanlon records in the parish but there is no way to make a connection to Moses. Do you possibly know the townland where they resided which would allow you to narrow down the possibilities.

http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/results.jsp?surname=hanlon&firstname=&county=&townland=&parish=templecrone&search=Search&sort=&pageSize=&pager.offset=0

Let me know if you have any questions.

Roger McDonnell

Hi Roger:

Thanks for the rapid response!

Dungloe, or Dunglow, repeatedly shows up in the references to our family in New Brunswick.  In looking at the listings, I would favour

"A. C. Hanlon" over all of the others, as this entry specifically refers to Dungloe.  We have thought "James" but this ancestor is part of the 

Pennsylvania group.  Next question: who might "A. C." be??  Why New Brunswick when most went to the USA?

In terms of religion...they are often identified as Methodist in New Brunswick, or Church of England.  Recently, some documents suggest

there may have been a Roman Catholic connection owing to whom some of the kin folk married.  Do you have some idea as to the 

religious "flexibility"?  There are similar elements in my other Irish families,

I presume that we are in some related to many of the Donegal Hanlons. 

The other interesting note is that this family arrived in 1857 intact during the Famine.  My sister and I toured the famine related exhibits while

in Ireland, and this felt remarkable under the circumstances.  Even at this time, it pierces the heart in learning of such a time of loss.

Regards,

Jo-Ann Leake

Toronto

Jo-Ann:

I thought possibly they were Church of Ireland only because the surname Scott tends to be non-RC as well as Moses not being a given name you don't see very often on RC records. Mixed marriages in Ireland were not a usual occurence in the 19th century.

Roger

Hi Jo-Ann, 

Do you know anything of your Scott side? My cousins & I have many DNA matches to Brunswick, Canada, we live in Australia, and the connection appears to be from Scott's and Longs from County Donegal. 

Regards

Jennifer Winter

Hello Jennifer!

So pleased to hear from you.  Hope you are enjoing spring!

We know very little about our 3GG Isabella Scott.  I may have solved the issue of 3GG Moses Hanlon's father,

looks like he may be A. C. Hanlon based upon information sent to me.  Moses and Isabella emigrated to Alma,

Albert County, New Brunswick in the 1850s.  His birthplace is surmised as Dungloe, Templecrone, Donegal,

Ireland.  I have yet to determine Grandma's birth place - still looking thorugh the records.  So, we have family

named Scott AND Long.  In respect to religious faith, the Hanlons appeared to be Methodist once they were in

Alma.  I've been told that mixed marriages were rare in the early yo mid 1800s, so were the Scotts Methodist also?

Long is a new name.  Do you have a Scott name in particular on your direct line?

Warm regards from Toronto,

Jo-Ann Leake

For help with Methodist records you might try johngreham.com. There weren’t a lot of Methodists in the Dungloe area as far as I know but there were a variety of Methodist missions during this time period. Hanlon is usually a RC name but the Moses suggests that there was a renaming , perhaps upon joining the Methodist church. Isabella Scott is also unusual for an RC name in this parish.Could there have been a love match ? Maybe they were ostracized because of the mixed marriage which led to the emigration 

It's worth pointing out that in the 18th and 19th Centuries, the name Moses Hanlon was a very common one in Ireland and in the Irish diaspora. This leads to a lot of confusion and conflation of different figures, especially since there are examples of different founding Moses Hanlons for families in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Brunswick, and New South Wales, Australia. That said, there's a cluster of "Moses Hanlons" associated with Templecrone Parish, Donegal, which is the southern part of an area now known as "The Rosses" and centered on the town of Dungloe. There are many people to this day there with the name of Hanlon, who are found in both the Catholic Church and Church of Ireland (Anglican) population there, though the name Hanlon and, in particular, Moses Hanlon is associated with the Church of Ireland. This would be an example of the minority of Church of Ireland members who would be of native Gaelic rather than British settler origin and would have been likely part of the middle class during the Protestant Ascendency in Ireland.

Hope this helps,

Peter