Four CUNNINGHAM families

Lynn,

I’d say that if your families appear in church records in Ireland they are most likely to be Church of Ireland. (Church of Ireland is the same as Church of England).

Methodism took a lot longer to become established in Ireland as a separate denomination than in England. In Ireland there was considerable resistance to separating from the Church of Ireland. It was 1815 before Methodists started to conduct their own baptisms. However because of continuing loyalty and other factors, many continued to use the Church of Ireland for baptisms for years after this and it was 1871 before all Methodists routinely performed their own baptisms.

For Methodist marriages, the earliest that I am aware of, date from 1835 (Belfast Donegall Square, the first Methodist church in Ireland). However in the mid 1800s there were only a few Methodist Ministers (Methodism relied heavily on lay preachers). So that shortage led to the continuing practice of marrying in the Church of Ireland. In addition, in the early years, many Methodist Meeting Houses were not licensed for marriages so that too contributed to couples marrying in the Church of Ireland.

So to summarise, you are unlikely to find many Methodist baptisms before 1820. Few marriages before the 1840s and only a handful for many years after that. If there are no Methodist records in the location you are researching, I would search Church of Ireland records instead, as that’s the most likely place to find the relevant event.

Not many Methodist Meeting Houses have graveyards and so they may be buried in public or Church of Ireland graveyards (which are open to all denominations).

I noted that Archibald Cunningham and Jane had their first child in 1846. Statutory marriage registration began in Ireland on 1st April 1845 and I wondered if they may have married after that. There’s no sign of them in the statutory records, so I assume they married before that, which is unfortunate. Pre 1845 you have to rely on church records. Not all churches have them and of those that do, they are not all on-line.

I looked at the surname Lendrum. There were 25 Lendrums in the 1901 census of Tyrone. Most lived around Fivemiletown or Fintona. A mix of Methodists, Church of Ireland and Presbyterians. Like the Cunninghams, the Lendrums are likely originally from Scotland and probably settled in the Ireland in the 1600s. MacLysaghts “The Surnames of Ireland says Lendrum is “A Scottish  (Aberdeenshire) toponymic associated with Cos Tyrone & Fermanagh since mid-seventeenth century”. So they probably came from Lendrum, near Turriff in Aberdeenshire.  Cunningham is obviously also a Scottish surname, from Ayrshire as I understand it. All these families are therefore likely to have arrived in Ireland in the 1600s.

There were other Lendrums in Ireland, notably in Fermanagh and Cork.

You mentioned Dromore as a possible place the families may have lived. Unfortunately all it’s early Church of Ireland records were destroyed in 1922 in the Irish Civil War.  However there were a lot of Lendrums in Clogher. They do have records which still exist. They start in 1763. They are not on-line anywhere, so far as I know, but there is a copy in PRONI. I have attached a map showing 43 civil parishes in Tyrone. 

https://www.johngrenham.com/browse/county_civil.php?county=Tyrone

This link explains what records exist, parish by parish:

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/proni-guide-church-records

You could go through the list and see which have Church of Ireland records for the years you are interested in (and for baptism after 1820, any relevant Methodist records too).  If you are unable to go to PRONI yourself, you could employ a researcher. Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net

You asked a bout a Cunningham society in Tyrone. I am not aware of anything as sophisticated as that. There is a Co Tyrone board that you might find helpful:

https://cotyroneireland.com/index.html

But what you probably need to do is get someone to search the church records in PRONI to see if they can find the families you have mentioned.

I have attached a list of all the Lendrums (with townlands & parishes)  in Tyrone in the tithe applotment records (c 1828 – 1834) which may help your search:

Lendram, James-T: Aghenlark Y: 1825-Clogher-Tyrone

Lendrum, Andrew-T: Sess Moulray Y: 1825-Clogher-Tyrone

Lendrum, Geo., Jr.-T: Rakearnbeg Y: 1834-Dromore-Tyrone

Lendrum, Geo., Sr.-T: Rakearnbeg Y: 1834-Dromore-Tyrone

Lendrum, George, Esq.-T: Cork Hill Y: 1826-Kilskeery-Tyrone

Lendrum, George, Esq.-T: Corkraw Y: 1826-Kilskeery-Tyrone

Lendrum, George, Esq.-T: Drumsonas Lendrum Y: 1826-Kilskeery-Tyrone

Lendrum, James-T: Gortmore Y: 1825-Clogher-Tyrone

Lendrum, Jas.-T: Dromore Y: 1834-Dromore-Tyrone

Lendrum, Joseph-T: Fivemiletown Y: 1825-Clogher-Tyrone

Lendrum, Matthew-T: Ranenly Y: 1825-Clogher-Tyrone

Lendrum, Richd.-T: Rakearnbeg Y: 1834-Dromore-Tyrone

The tithe applotment records list folk with land. So it’s not a census. Just farmers really. However if your Lendrums were farmers in Tyrone, then they should  be in the above list. 

Hello Elwyn,  

I visited Ireland in 2018, and went to PRONI, but only for a few hours.  I didn't know where to start and was somewhat overwhelmed.  I didn't know about the Aikin Cunningham and Archibald Cunningham lines at that time, and since those two Cunningham lines didn't leave Ireland as early as the other two, there may be more information available on them.  We hope to visit Ireland, and PRONI, again when travel is safe. 

I notice that you have referenced "Lendrum" in your reply.  The records in Canada mention "Landrum".  This could be a mistake on the Canadian records, or the two names may be interchangeable.  Is Lendrum more common than Landrum?  Should I be pursuing one or the other in my research?  Thanks so much for all the information and your help.  Best wishes to you in 2021.

Lynn,

Yes PRONI can be challenging. It takes a day to understand what records are kept, how to find them and how to use them. So if you are going to search properly you need to set aside 3 or 4 days. Not everyone is able to do that.  Which is why sometimes it’s easier to hire a professional. The UHF runs training courses on how to search records in Northern Ireland which would give you the skills, but obviously you have to pay for the course, and you need the time.

Looking to the future, the Church of Ireland is putting all its surviving baptism, marriage & burial records on-line free, on the irishgenealogy site. It’s a mammoth task with no published end date and it was expected to take 3 years or more. Except that it has come to a stop due to Covid. Goodness knows when it will resume. But if you are very patient, one day the records should be on-line.  But until then, searching in PRONI is really your only option. And if you want to search the Methodist records too, there are no plans to put them on-line so you have to go to PRONI for them.

I agree that Aiken & Archibald seem to offer the strongest hope of being traced.  Archy’s marriage must be in the early 1840s, just a year or two before the start of statutory marriage registration. Very frustrating. Births weren’t registered till 1864, so although they have 3 Irish born children, there will only be baptism records to search and those records are probably not on-line. Rootsireland (subscription) has some Church of Ireland records. No harm in searching them for the children.

Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church so if the couple came from different parishes or denominations, then the marriage and children’s baptisms may not be in the same church.

Were either Archy or Aiken farmers in Ireland? I looked at the tithe applotments again and there’s just 1 Archy farming in Tyrone in 1826.

Cunningham, Archy.-T: Lackagh Y: 1826-Longfield West-Tyrone

I checked Griffiths Valuation for Lackagh in 1859 and there are no Cunninghams living there then. So that would fit with them having emigrated, but there’s no way of knowing. Unfortunately the early Churhc of Ireland records for that parish were destroyed in the 1922 fire. They have baptisms for 1809 & 1810 only then nothing before 1875.

No Aiken but there was an A. Cunningham:

Cunningham, A.-T: Aughnamo Y: 1834-Dromore-Tyrone

I searched Griffiths for the townland of Aghnamoe in 1860 and again there are no Cunninghams there. So they might have emigrated. But Dromore Church of Ireland’s early records were also lost in the 1922 fire and there’s no baptisms before 1875. It’s all very frustrating.

I searched the British Newspapers Archives for Cunningham + Lackagh  and also Aghnamoe but without success.

I also searched the Londonderry Sentinel indexes for the marriages and the childrens baptisms in case they were in that paper, but again without success.

The most common spelling of the Lendrum/Landrum surname in Ireland appears to be Lendrum.  In fact there are no Landrums anywhere in Ireland in the 1901 census. Lendrum was, at that date anyway, evidently the favoured version. It’s also the one MacLysaght refers to, and of course since surname appears to be named after the place the family may have originated in Scotland (again Lendrum) then it’s probably more accurate. But having said that, the spelling of both place and people’s names in Ireland varied all the time. Best to keep an open mind. The idea of a single “correct” spelling is not something that troubled our ancestors very much. It sounds as though the spelling got modified when the family moved to Canada. That happens a lot with Irish and  Scottish names.

Hello Elwyn,

Thank you for all this information.  It is good to know that Lendrum and Landrum are probably the same.  Interestingly, later records have even listed Lendercom for the same individual.  No wonder research can be challenging.  It's disappointing that so many of the parish records were lost in the fires, but I knew that that might be the case.  As you suggest, hiring a professional to check the PRONI records may the best plan.  Are you able to suggest a professional that has experience with County Tyrone, or are they usually experienced with all counties?  I also have a line of Jackson's in Armagh. 

Best wishes, Lynn

Lynn,

Changing spelling of names that you mention is very common. Quite apart from folk who moved to Canada or the US, I see many where they just moved the few miles to Scotland or England but you still see the same issues there. Names get revised to fit in with local pronunciation.  The forename Ellen is very common in Ireland but less common in Scotland where Helen is the preferred version. So when an Ellen moves from Ireland to Scotland she often appears in records there as Helen. McDonnell becomes McDonald (they are the same name anyway so it really doesn’t matter).  And then when you get to names like McIlwrath, there are endless spelling options, especially if the Irish person isn’t very literate, and the person recording the information in England or Scotland or wherever just writes down what they think they have heard. (A lot of our queries are about Irish place names as recorded on English censuses. Can we work out what the place was really called from basically a soundalike version?).

McKinney & McKenzie are actually the same surname. In the 1600s McKenzie was pronounced McKinney. But when the Academics came to write this down they came up against the problem that there’s no Y in Gaelic, so they used a Z instead (just pronounced as a Y). What could go wrong? Over the years, not understanding this, non Gaelic speakers in Scotland started to pronounce the Z as a Z, thereby completely altering the name. Whereas in Ireland in general it was always spelled McKinney, being closer to an anglicised version of the correct sound. Dalziel/Dalyell, Menzies/Mingus and so on are further examples of variants of the same name. So Lendrum, Landrum & Lendercom fit nicely into that pattern of confusion. 

In some countries, records are kept on a county basis but in Northern Ireland they have nearly all been centralized in Belfast. Mainly in PRONI though the Linenhall Library and Belfast Central Library are also good repositories. But as a result most researchers tend to be in the Belfast area, and will usually do research for all counties in Ulster including Tyrone & Armagh.

I can’t really single out any specific researcher but as far as I know those on the list are all well regarded.  Check their fees and terms first. Prices may vary quite a bit.

The position with the Church of Ireland records is that back in the late 1800s they were, ironically, worried about their safe keeping. Many smaller churches didn’t really have secure storage, many were damp and some were closed. So the church gave instructions that where there were no good local storage facilities, they should send their pre 1880 records to the Public Record Office in Dublin.   The bigger parishes tended to have decent storage and kept theirs. The smaller were mostly the ones that sent their records to Dublin.  As you probably know, in 1922 during the Civil War, the IRA used the Public Record Office as a munitions store, and the inevitable happened. About 50% of the Church of Ireland’s records (plus many other important public records) went up in flames. Some parishes had duplicate or partial copies and so the total loss was only about 40% of the Church’s records. But very significant all the same.

No other denomination stored any records there (save for a handful of Presbyterian churches) and so the likes of Methodist records were not affected.

The majority of the church records in PRONI are on microfilm. (A few are the paper originals, usually for churches that have closed). Pre-Covid, you just turned up and pulled out the film you wanted. When you were finished with it you replaced it and took another one, and so on. Nothing to stop you looking at 100 films a day provided you had the time & energy. And if you missed something you could go back and get a film back out again with no delay. Under Covid that has all changed. When I last visited in August, only about 8 people a day could visit, and we all sat miles apart. You had to send in a list 3 weeks in advance. You were restricted to a maximum of 10 items per visit (plus 3 reserves in case your first choices weren’t available). You used them, and then they went into quarantine for a week or so (meaning no-one else could use them).  You could only make one visit a week. So searching all of Tyrone will be a slow process if that is still the system when PRONI re-opens.

At the moment PRONI is closed (Covid) and it clearly won’t be re-opening within the next few months as we are going into a tighter lockdown.  So you have plenty of time to discuss the arrangements with your chosen researcher.

Good luck.