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Hi there. I am currently in pursuit of two (2) Family trees.    One tree is my side of the family and the other tree is my wife’s side.   Firstly, I would like to concentrate on my wife’s side.

My wife’s maiden name is Dick.    I have discovered that her 3rd Great Grandparents were William Dick (1795 – 1849) and Esther Taylor (1791 - 1865).  The only information I know of is that they were born / baptised in County Tyrone in Ireland with their 6 children, James 19, Robert 15, Martha 12, Eliza 10, Sarah Jane 8, Thomas 4, (2nd GGF), and they all boarded the “Royal Saxon” from Liverpool, England and departed on 29th September 1834 arriving on 2nd February 1835 at Port Jackson, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

I have found details that William and Esther Taylor were married approximately around sometime in 1821 in County Tyrone, but I do not know what Parish they come from.    For what intrigues me, is the fact that William’s parents hail from Fife, Scotland (John Dick & Janet Ramsey) and I would not have a clue of where to look in the Parishes in County of Tyrone.

I would appreciate any information you can find regarding my wife’s Ancestors.

Thank you and Regards

Colin Morrissey.

Colin Morrissey

Friday 8th Oct 2021, 10:07AM

Message Board Replies

  • Attached Files

    Colin,

    The attached may be of interest to you in relation to your wife's family. Civil parish of Ardstraw is in the Barony of Omagh West and Strabane Lower, Co. Tyrone. It appears on the road map as North West of the town of Newtownstewart and towards the border with County Donegal.

    Credit: Subscription site  www.findmypast.ie

    Regards,

    McCoy

    Friday 8th Oct 2021, 03:34PM

  • Colin,

    You say that William & Esther married c 1821. However their eldest son James was apparently 19 in 1834/35 when they emigrated. That suggests to me they may have married around 1814/15. But who knows?

    There is a record of a John Dick marriage to Janet Ramsey in Wemyss on 19.1.1789. That’s viewable on the Scotlandspeople site. Wemyss is a parish on the south side of Fife. Latterly a coal mining area. There is also a record of 3 children born to that couple:

    David Dick 1.3.1794 (probably died young as name re-used)

    David 5.4.1795

    John 5.3.1797

    All 3 births were in Auchtermuchty. Again they are all available on Scotlandspeople. No sign of a birth for William Dick c 1795. There was one in Abernethy 17.10.1805 (father John but no mother’s name recorded).

    I looked for John & Janet Dick in the 1841 Scottish census. There were 5 possible matches in Fife. You would need to pay to view them to see if any might be that family. (They might have died or moved away from Fife by 1841 of course).

    The Fife marriage and the 3 childrens baptisms were all Church of Scotland (ie Presbyterian). Looking at the 1901 census of Co Tyrone, there were 24 people named Dick and all but one were also Presbyterian (which, in Ireland, normally points to Scots origins). It wasn’t a common surname and there were in fact only about 4 families in the county in 1901. Living in the townlands of Moyle, Douglasburn & Lislea. (Some of these are near Ardstraw which is where McCoy’s Dick military records relate to).

    http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/

    In the absence of any other clues, you might want to search Presbyterian records in Tyrone for those townlands. The records are unlikely to be on-line, and you would need to get a researcher to go through them in PRONI in Belfast.

    If you think your family were farmers in Ireland, then they are likely to be listed in the tithe applotment records. These are the only William & John Dicks in those records in Tyrone in the 1830s:

    Dick, John-Tl: Churchtown Yr: 1834-Ardstraw-Tyrone

    Dick, John-Tl: Knockanulla Yr: 1834-Ardstraw-Tyrone

    Dick, William-T: Claggin Y: 1826-Derryloran-Tyrone

    Dick, William-Tl: Knockanulla Yr: 1834-Ardstraw-Tyrone

    Dick, Wm.-T: Lisnagleer Y: 1829-Pomeroy-Tyrone

    T/Tl means townland. Again this gives you possible places to search. You might also want to go through the various Dick entries on this Co Tyrone website to see if any relate to your family:

    https://cotyroneireland.com/index.html

    Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘

    Friday 8th Oct 2021, 09:43PM

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