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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2006-09 > 1158434319
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Subject: Re: [S-I] Early ANtrim Surnames
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 19:18:39 +0000
Hi Fred,
Usually when you start with a new country, you download the LDS guide (free)-- good for starting on new states as well!...though of course you don't do this any more than I do <grin>! We're eager...we jump in.
Well it sou nds like your Freddie was at least respected by a few people who didn't know him TOO well if he witnessed a wedding in this church. As opposed to being what is called a "redneck". I have been told that is a young boy whose dad smacks him on the back of the neck and says "Son, it's time you went down to Dublin and got yourself a job". zBut young,
as he's still an apprentice, and a good trade too. Most people wore shoes then, as now.
Maryland is a great place for early records. Most marriages are in either the Quaker or the parish records or in your case, even the Reformeds had records. A paradise of records.
There's a lot free on line at the state website. You can often do a lot with land records, taxes,
and probates. If you haven't, then embark on a full scale attack and do a diligent job of finding this man's dad. If he was a young man in 1787, then he probably is at least 40 himself.
Find out if any with this su rname fought in the Seven Years/French and Indian War.
Check all probates, etc, from then on forwards and then far enough into the 1800s that
if he died very old, you'd find the will.
Ship families, merchant families often had wide spread ties and often made dynastic alliances 'far away' with other families. So Thomas may be a relative but not, as you say, a direct
ancestor because his brother or uncle was the agent in Baltimore. They might have had
an agent in Bordeaux, West Indies ports, a port in Spain...where ever they did business.
So unfortunately, that Thomas was born in Tyrone doesn't necessarily mean yours was.
Tyrone is the home area of Hagans, as you no doubt know, it's a north coast sept. Also
back then ships could use many small ports that now we cannot as the ships are too big
and the ports silted up. They'd go around the coast of Ireland from little port to little
port. Not from point A to point B like now. It is very possible that they maintained
contacts in County Clare, for example.
The name of Clare for the MD estate would seem a good clue. But maybe his wife was from there and he named it for her?
You might find O'Hagans on the Ulster list or Tyrone list...most would probably not think of themselves as Ulster Scots. There were two O'Hagan septs originally, one in Oriel (more
Armagh/parts of Downish )and one the Tyrone group, which McLaysaght says 'merged'.
So you would seem to be looking for old clan leaders who were able to maintain their status after the flight of the earls, who assimilated into the new world order. More likely there are records of them that survive.
We definitely need a way to connect with cousins in Northern Ireland who we can talk into DNA testing. I emailed a newspaper over there about posting an ad but they didn't even respond, passing up the opportunity of making a pittance on my ad!!
The usual advice is that you cannot leap back all those years, about 100 in your case.
You must find records to bridge the gap from 1787 to the 1600s. This research needs to
begin in America. It's not hard to do colonial research with CDs, etc, that would id any Hagans hiding in other colonies. Yours would be fairly prosperous and they would stick out.
You can check the indexes at least to wills and deeds in Tyrone and Clare to see if any
names leap out at you too. Many will indexes (Irish) are on Cds.
Linda Merle
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