John ROSS, Drummacritten, Fermanagh

drfeiler:

The townland is Drumacrittin in Clones civil parish Co. Fermanagh. The RC parish of Clones was a border parish covering both Fermanagh and Monaghan. You don't mention the religious denomination but if RC that would explain the records.

Roger McDonnell

The tithe applotment records for 1832 list Alexander (Alick) Ross in Drumacrittin. He had a farm of 7 acres. 

http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/index.jsp

There were no Ross families in the townland in Griffiths Valuation of 1862, indicating that Alexander had either died or moved away. Drumacrittin is about half a mile east of Rosslea, in Co Fermanagh. In the 1901 census there were 4 houses there and a population of 17 people. It’s 100 acres of farmland.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Fermanagh/Rosslea/Drumoeritton/

If Church of Ireland, the Ross family may have attended Aghadrumsee church, a couple of miles west of Rosslea. It has records from 1829 onwards so may have Alexander & Ann’s burials, if they died there. The church has a graveyard. There's a copy of its records in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. Personal visit required to view them.

Thank you for these responses. I am almost certain that the Rosses were Protestant. My understanding is that they came from Scotland one or two generations prior. Is there a way to research that migration? They were definitly farmers once they were in Ireland, I read somewhere that their crop might have been flax? In addition to my direct ancestor, John, I know at least two of his siblings also emigrated to the United States, one to Canada and another to England, so it is not surprising to me that no Rosses appear in a valuation dated 1862 as their parents would have passed by then. What records exist in Ireland related to emigration in the 1840s?

The term Protestant embraces quite a range of denominations in Ireland eg Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Baptist, Moravian, Methodist etc.  However in the case of Fermanagh, in the early 1800s, the majority were church of Ireland. (The majority of the Scots who settled in Ireland were Presbyterian but in the case of Fermanagh where many of the settlers came from the Scottish Borders, and had no religion, they became Church of Ireland. So if you want to search church records try Aghadrumsee and Clones Church of Ireland’s. (Copies of both in PRONI plus I think some of the Clones records are on rootsireland).

Neither Ross nor Nixon is a native Irish name. That, combined with being Protestant and living in Fermanagh points very strongly to both families being incomers. They will have arrived in the 1600s, so may have been there 200 years by the time they left for pastures new.

Nixon is a common name from the Scottish Borders. It’s widespread across Fermanagh and so I’d say without hesitation that the Nixons originated in the Scottish Borders. They were known as Border Reivers (reiver being the word for a robber). Tens of thousands of them were compulsorily re-settled in Fermanagh (and elsewhere in Ireland). Half the population of Fermanagh today has the same origins.

The broad historical background to the Reivers arrival in Ireland is that when King James I became King of England in 1603, he was already King of Scotland and so then became the first King of both countries.  For hundreds of years the Scottish Borders had been fairly lawless and travellers were routinely robbed, and cattle often stolen and herded across the border by moonlight.  James was particularly keen to stamp this out because he saw it as an obstacle to commerce between the 2 countries, and being joint ruler that bothered him more than his predecessors.

At the same time he had the problem of Ireland. The Spanish Armada had recently attempted to invade England and further invasions by the Spanish or French were feared. Ireland was seen as a possible jumping off point for such an invasion and understandably, the native Irish could not be relied on to support the English or resist any invasion. So the solution was to plant trusted settlers from England, Wales & Scotland in Ireland, in large numbers, to subdue the native Irish and be on hand to deal with any invasion. King James I was a Scot and so particularly favoured his fellow countrymen. Much of Ulster, was heavily settled by Scots. During the 1600s, some 200,000 Scots settled in Ireland representing something like 15% of the entire Scottish nation. They didn’t all come as part of the Plantation. Some settled in the 1640s when General Munro's 10,000 strong Scottish army was disbanded at Carrickfergus after the 1641 uprising, and a further batch came in the 1690s due to famine in Scotland.

As far as the Reivers were concerned, King James I decided to move large numbers to Ireland around 1610 onwards. He needed settlers in Ireland and he wanted to get rid of the Reivers from the Borders, or at least stop the criminality by breaking their control of that area. So moving them to Ireland was a bit of a masterstroke which killed two birds with one stone. So if your ancestors are Reivers, they probably arrived in the first 20 years of the 1600s, as part of the Plantation of Ireland.

There are no records of individual settlers at that time. We do know the names of the big landowners (Scots & English) but not of their tenants and others who followed them. 

If you visit Border towns like Selkirk, Hawick, Galashiels & Jedburgh today, you will find a strong Reiver tradition with folk & food festivals every summer.  You can go for a Reiver walk by moonlight and have a 16th century banquet. (The usual tourist nonsense but good fun all the same). For example, see:

http://www.hawickreivers.com

If you want a detailed read about the Reivers, a good book is Godfrey Watson’s “The Border Reivers” published in 1974, ISBN 0 709 4478 4. Plenty of bloodthirsty, cruel tales. The Nixons get mention, especially the villainous Cuddie Nixon, normally known as “blanketlugs.” (Lugs is a Scottish word for ears). The Reivers lived on both sides of the border and so your Nixons might be from the very north of England, rather than the very south of Scotland. You’ll likely never know which. 

Ross is not particularly a Border name, so the family probably came from some other part of Scotland. I would not be able to say precisely where.

Yes, your ancestors are likely to have grown flax. Most farmers in Ulster grew some flax (as well as potatoes, oats and some other crops, depending on the suitability of the soil). Flax was the basic raw ingredient for linen, and consequently there was a big demand for it. Ireland had a strong weaving tradition going back thousands of years, originally using materials like wool. In the 1700s the main item being woven commercially was cotton (Imported from the southern states of the US). However the War of Independence cut off the supply and Irish weavers were left with no raw materials. Cotton won’t grow in Ireland (the climate is too cold & wet) and so they switched to flax (which grows very happily here) and made linen instead. Hence the Irish linen industry.

There are no comprehensive records in Ireland relating to emigration in the 1840s. (The authorities had no real reason to keep records). There are various databases you can search, compiled from assorted sources eg adverts in newspapers in north America reporting safe arrival, or some shipping companies passenger records, and so on. Try the Irish Emigration Database on the DIPPAM site:

https://www.dippam.ac.uk

Brief description of Rosslea (your ancestors’ nearest town) in 1837:

https://www.libraryireland.com/topog/R/Rosslea-Clonkelly-Fermanagh.php