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« on: Monday 26 October 09 20:23 GMT (UK) »
The evidence appears convincing that Rachel Henry (b. abt 1767) came from Flower Hill (Newton Limavady) in Derry County; her parents were Matthew Henry and Jennie Long; and she (Rachel) married (in 1787) John Henry (b. 20 Mar 1763), bore his children, and in due course emigrated to the U.S.
And the family lore I'm familiar with says that John Henry came from somewhere in Derry County - presumably within 'courting' distance of Flower Hill - and that his parents were Robert Henry and Mary Woodburn.
In trying to gain more specific info about the origins of John, I looked at the family trees in Ancestry.com which include John, AND show his parents as Robert Henry and Mary Woodburn. (There are a number of contemporary John Henrys, so I narrowed the search to specifically include Robert and Mary as his parents.) There are on the order of 20 family trees recording 'our' John Henry - and the variances in his reported locations of origin are worth noting. You can't weight them according to the number of times used because many are presumably just copies of the others - and I suspect there is no proof for any of them. While about half said John was from Derry County, the others either said he was from Antrim, or Derry, Cavan.
As I understand it, both Antrim and Cavan are other counties in Ulster. Does this suggest that perhaps we should be looking in those two counties, in addition to Derry, for 'our' John Henry? Or I wonder if 'Derry, Cavan' means something else - such as perhaps he was born in Cavan County but later moved to Derry County. Have any of you heard of Antrim or Cavan Counties somehow associated with John Henry or his parents, Robert Henry and Mary Woodburn?