Author Topic: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?  (Read 11066 times)

Offline owenc

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #9 on: Friday 12 November 10 23:12 GMT (UK) »
I have a relative in that who married there (six times removed great grandfather), i wonder if he was scottish is there any way of telling if he was born here? Its starting to seem that everyone in this county is actually english i always thought everyone was scottish.. if everyone is english why are the vast majority of protestants are presbyterians. Also was there an influx of planters in the ballykelly area at that time?

Offline owenc

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #10 on: Friday 12 November 10 23:30 GMT (UK) »
Was just about to tell OwenC about those brilliant books by JS Curl - also good is "Coleraine in Bygone Centuries" by TH Mullin.

Also I disagree that there weren't many english settlers in the Londonderry plantation - I've found lots (although admittedly many more Scots have come since the initial plantation).  Also the London companies had estates covering ALL parts of the newly created "Co Londonderry", not just in the 2 main towns.  My ancestors were Church of Ireland and, by marrying mostly within their own church, many of the family names in my family tree are of english origin.

I would also have thought that most english settlers of a humble background would be likely to be the Londoners who came out as construction and other workers on the Company's estates.  Those from further afield are likely to have lived on the english estates of the more affluent settlers who acquired estates in ulster, like the Beresfords who came from Kent and became Marquises of Waterford with large estates around Coleraine.

Hi thanks for the help but i don't think that book would be useful because my family aren't originally from Coleraine because they moved here in the 1800s they are actually originally from magilligan and i'm not too sure but ballykelly as one of them got married there in the early 1700s. I never knew there were so many english settlers here i always thought there were only a few english settlers as i always thought that most of the church of ireland people around now converted from being presbyterian to save money on taxes etc in papal times but there you go.

Offline Julesleeke

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #11 on: Monday 15 November 10 06:28 GMT (UK) »
A huge thanks for all your replies to this topic.
There certainly are surname distribution ‘patterns’ that emerge when exploring the settlement of Ulster by the English and Scottish during the 17th and 18th centuries and I now know that comparative studies have been made. On a quick surfing session on the net, I came across an excerpt from a book called Finding Your Irish Ancestors: Unique Aspects of Irish Genealogy (Mitchell). He reiterates that large numbers of English families settled in the southern counties of Ulster and were of predominantly northern English origin – Cheshire, Cumberland, Lancashire, Northumberland, Yorkshire and Westmoreland, and were concentrated along the Lagan Valley, whereas the Scottish arrived at Coleraine and the Foyle. He also states that the London Companies had difficulty keeping the ‘ill-prepared and ill-suited’ English planters to stay in Ulster, so that the Companies looked to the more tenacious and adaptable lowland and border Scottish to tenant their estates, obviously resulting in the high density of families in the northwest with Scottish origins.

In this book the author makes reference to the research of W. Macafee‡. The two texts he cites indicate that “the evolution of predominantly English or Scottish settlement areas in Ulster was established from the earliest days of the 17th century Plantation of Ulster” and that the marked changes in surname distribution between the 1631 muster rolls and 1666 hearth money rolls indicate “a high level of internal mobility and population turnover”. In the second manuscript Macafee examined surname distribution in south Derry over time by comparing the 1659 census, the 1663 hearth money rolls, the 1740 religious census returns and the 1831 census. He likewise concluded that after 1700, changes in protestant settlement in Ulster were the result of “internal movements of population” and not the result of further migration from Scotland and England.

The geographical area that I have been primarily interested in establishing the surname origins within is Magilligan/Tamlaghtard. There were a number of English families there from the 17th and 18th centuries, amongst them: Gage of Raunds, Northamptonshire, Lane, Reynolds, Chase, Church, Cust of Yorkshire (Henry b:1646 d:1717) and Moorhead. I think there were more English families than those mentioned here. My own family, the Leekes/Leakes, appear to be of English origin and the surname was quite widely distributed across England by the 17th century in such places as: Shropshire, Tyne and Wear, Yorkshire, Nottingham, Cambridge, Gloucester, Berkshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, London, Kent, Devonshire, Cornwall and elsewhere (everywhere it seems!). To date I have been unable to source any records of their being in Magilligan before 1740. Senior members of my family have claimed that the Leekes were indeed English and arrived in Magilligan sometime in the early 1700s, after the Siege of Derry. They were a 'lowly' tenant farming family who appear to have first settled in Upper Doaghs.

‡The Movement of British Settlers into Ulster During the Seventeenth Century, published in Familia, Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast, Volume 2, Number 8, 1992

‡The Colonisation of the Maghera Region of South Derry During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, published in Ulster Folklore, Volume 23, 1977

Offline Julesleeke

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #12 on: Monday 15 November 10 06:29 GMT (UK) »
In 1740 there was a widow Leake in Upper Doaghs on a rent roll of William Bacon’s (D1550/149/1/4). It would appear that she died in 1752 leaving a will and that her name was Elizabeth. She had two sons, Thomas and James. The former is mentioned as living in Ballymargy on the 1740 Protestant Householders Survey. I think the same son later had a farm in Lower Ballyleighery according to his will index and the Gage survey mentioned below. James meanwhile took on the tenure at Upper Doaghs with his wife Catherine when his mother died in 1752. The only English record that I have found for a Leeke family who are contemporary, with a mother called Elizabeth and sons called Thomas and James, are the Leekes of Swallowfield in Berkshire (nr Reading) who must have remained in Swallowfield until at least 1717 when their Daughter Mary was married (All Saints Swallowfield) to one Edward Phillis, then whisked off to start their married life in nearby Stratfield Saye. Apart from the birth records of Elizabeth's (and husband Thomas') five children born in Swallowfield, there does not appear to be any later records of the Leeke family in that parish, no burials, suggesting that they moved on somewhere... To Ireland? I wish it were so! If the widow Leeke (of Doaghs) was the mother of that Swallowfield family then I have calculated that, having started her family in her early twenties, she would have (hypothetically) died in Doaghs aged around eighty, with Thomas and James dying in their sixties. The Ordinance Survey Memoirs (1831-1835) state that around that time "ther were 15 persons alive in the Black Row, Magilligan, the average age of whose ages was 90 years". Black Row was in the Doaghs.

The Gage family of Northhamptonshire were leased the whole of the monastic lands of Magilligan by the Bishop of Derry, which were in turn inherited by the half-brothers Thomas and William Gage and divided into a north and south estate in 1713 (Kirkham 1913). There are a large number of documents kept at PRONI pertaining to the Gage estate and comprising of title deeds and rentals (T1201 and D673). I would love to hear from anyone who has looked through this collection in order to find out how much information there is on the small tenant farmers. I know there is a book in the collection which is a survey of Hodgson Gage’s half parish in Magilligan in 1768 by Alexander Calhoun mentioning Miss Leake of North Ballyleighery division, a daughter of the above named Thomas, and his heir to the Ballyleighery holding after he died in 1766.

The question remains: From where did the English settlers of Magilligan originate and when did they arrive there? I had an interesting discussion with a Coleraine historian recently who suggested that, perhaps, some of the English families were brought there by the Gage family from Northamptonshire in order to work the land. When I investigated the surname Leeke in that county during the 17th and 18th centuries I found that there were indeed several families from around the Kettering area, close to Raunds where the Gage family hailed from.

On this topic Gortinanima said “It is very difficult to trace these early settlers back to Scotland or England - farmers and craftsmen leave little trace unlike the gentry and nobility” – how true! I would, however, be very interested in hearing from anyone who has managed to trace their ancestry back to England from Magilligan/Limavady and elsewhere in Co Derry/Londonderry during the period of history here discussed.


Offline owenc

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #13 on: Monday 15 November 10 08:28 GMT (UK) »
If you buy the book scotch Irish origins you will find a list of tenants for the gage and Bruce estates I had ancestors in that for 30 years or so and I'm thinking these English ones bought it.... Not only that my ancestors are indeed Presbyterian so all religions had land taken off them not just Catholics

Offline Julesleeke

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #14 on: Thursday 18 November 10 16:37 GMT (UK) »
If you buy the book scotch Irish origins you will find a list of tenants for the gage and Bruce estates I had ancestors in that for 30 years or so and I'm thinking these English ones bought it.... Not only that my ancestors are indeed Presbyterian so all religions had land taken off them not just Catholics

Hi Owenc
Yes I checked out the Scots Irish Origins book (Forrest) and a lot of the earliest info I have on my family in Magilligan came from that brilliant wee book. I now know exactly where in PRONI I can find The Gage Estate records which, I suspect, may turn up even more info from the 1700s than what I've seen so far. Thanks for the 'heads up' though! ;)

Offline wyanga

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #15 on: Saturday 21 October 17 03:39 BST (UK) »
Julesleeke,
                   I have just found your post although it is a number of years old, but it is topical for a problem that I have at Present.
       My Ancestral family is Taylor and I have that they were at Aird, Billy Parish Antrim from 1734. They were C of I in the Religious census for Cary. 
       More than 20 years of searching had failed to find where they had come from before Aird. There were no Taylors there in 1669.
       Just recently I have had a match to my YDNA test with an individual (Taylor) in the US. His immediate ancesters came from Coleraine Barony in Londonderry. His gt grandfather James Taylor was married at Aghadowey presbyterian Church in 1868.
       The DNA experts tell me that this match is older than the 9 or 10 generations that I have back to 1734 at Aird. This has raised the possibility that my Taylors at Aird have moved there from somewhere in Coleraine, i am looking at that being about 1700.
       We have always assumed that the Taylors at Aird were likely English as they were C of I. However this match that we have from Coleraine is obviously Presbyterian.  I have seen some references to Taylors in Coleraine from as early 1630, mercers muster Roll 1655 Dunboe Summonister Roll. Also in the 1663 hearth Money rolls. 
     I have no Idea How I might find which family of Taylors mine came from.
  Have you any suggestions ?
Wyanga 
 
Ireland: Taylor, Clark, Doyle, Pollock,Boyle
England: Toogood, Long, Ford, Lander, King, Dye,Copeman, Heness, Gardner, Robertson, Cameron, Sherwen, Bell 
Scotland: Campbell, McNaughtan, McKellar

Offline owenc

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #16 on: Tuesday 07 August 18 20:03 BST (UK) »
I thought i’d come back into this thread a bit older and wiser.

I traced back my Smith line, and came up with the following surnames: Thompson, Irwin and Sinclair by generation.

All of these families lived in Bovevagh.

The Bovevagh area appears to be quite interesting in that it seems to be English rather than Scottish.

Would this be the case for all of these families that I have found?

The Sinclair, I believe is Scottish and I am not convinced that they’re from Bovevagh. But certainly Thompson and Irwin (I know of people from bovevagh/limavady with this name anyhow) would seem to be a local name there.

I would also like to say that I have an Ancestry DNA account and a lot of my matches from Limavady are very distant and related to American colonists.

I have no proof of this, but I keep coming across the Patton family, Campbells and Fultons. They seem to be prominent families, from England and Scotland. I have about 20 matches with those surnames in their tree.

But it is interesting that all of my ancestry matches from Limavady are from back in the 1700’s, despite having a great granny from the area. Aside from two Irwins.

Offline owenc

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Re: Where did the English settlers in Derry/Londonderry come from?
« Reply #17 on: Tuesday 07 August 18 20:13 BST (UK) »
A huge thanks for all your replies to this topic.
There certainly are surname distribution ‘patterns’ that emerge when exploring the settlement of Ulster by the English and Scottish during the 17th and 18th centuries and I now know that comparative studies have been made. On a quick surfing session on the net, I came across an excerpt from a book called Finding Your Irish Ancestors: Unique Aspects of Irish Genealogy (Mitchell). He reiterates that large numbers of English families settled in the southern counties of Ulster and were of predominantly northern English origin – Cheshire, Cumberland, Lancashire, Northumberland, Yorkshire and Westmoreland, and were concentrated along the Lagan Valley, whereas the Scottish arrived at Coleraine and the Foyle. He also states that the London Companies had difficulty keeping the ‘ill-prepared and ill-suited’ English planters to stay in Ulster, so that the Companies looked to the more tenacious and adaptable lowland and border Scottish to tenant their estates, obviously resulting in the high density of families in the northwest with Scottish origins.

In this book the author makes reference to the research of W. Macafee‡. The two texts he cites indicate that “the evolution of predominantly English or Scottish settlement areas in Ulster was established from the earliest days of the 17th century Plantation of Ulster” and that the marked changes in surname distribution between the 1631 muster rolls and 1666 hearth money rolls indicate “a high level of internal mobility and population turnover”. In the second manuscript Macafee examined surname distribution in south Derry over time by comparing the 1659 census, the 1663 hearth money rolls, the 1740 religious census returns and the 1831 census. He likewise concluded that after 1700, changes in protestant settlement in Ulster were the result of “internal movements of population” and not the result of further migration from Scotland and England.

The geographical area that I have been primarily interested in establishing the surname origins within is Magilligan/Tamlaghtard. There were a number of English families there from the 17th and 18th centuries, amongst them: Gage of Raunds, Northamptonshire, Lane, Reynolds, Chase, Church, Cust of Yorkshire (Henry b:1646 d:1717) and Moorhead. I think there were more English families than those mentioned here. My own family, the Leekes/Leakes, appear to be of English origin and the surname was quite widely distributed across England by the 17th century in such places as: Shropshire, Tyne and Wear, Yorkshire, Nottingham, Cambridge, Gloucester, Berkshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, London, Kent, Devonshire, Cornwall and elsewhere (everywhere it seems!). To date I have been unable to source any records of their being in Magilligan before 1740. Senior members of my family have claimed that the Leekes were indeed English and arrived in Magilligan sometime in the early 1700s, after the Siege of Derry. They were a 'lowly' tenant farming family who appear to have first settled in Upper Doaghs.

‡The Movement of British Settlers into Ulster During the Seventeenth Century, published in Familia, Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast, Volume 2, Number 8, 1992

‡The Colonisation of the Maghera Region of South Derry During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, published in Ulster Folklore, Volume 23, 1977

I have a few surnames in my family tree that look English and are in areas that were planted with English people.

I have found the families in the 1663 Hearth rolls listed as Planters. How do I tie down these families to a particular area in England?

I have looked into the surnames and they are both distributed all over England.