why would Scotsmen move to Northern Ireland and back again?

[Burrow Digger]

Reposting this from the Argyll board so I can get an answer.

I took another look at the 1841 census for my family - John McCallum (aged 15) who later married Jeanie McMillan. His parents were John & Isabel McCallum. 

There is a marriage record in the IGI for John McCallum to Isabel Conlly in 1809 in Southend, Argyll (extracted record). But the 1841 census says he was born in Ireland and her birthplace was listed as unknown.

So I checked the IGI for John McCallum born about 1786 in Ireland. There were only 14 born 10 years either side of that date.
One was born in County Down in 1786 - the son of James McCollum and Sarah Kerr. The christening record said "Presbyterian, Boardmills, Down, Ireland"

Does this mean it was quite likely that the family was from Scotland since the Scots are Presbyterian?   County Down is in what we now call Northern Ireland so it was strongly Protestant. 

What possible reasons would have induced any Scotsman to move to Ireland in the late 1700s??

BD

[goggy]

BD
I could be wrong here,but there were Highland clearance's going on in Scotland,and a similar type of event in Ireland.
Scot's were employed against the Irish,and vice versa,in a lot of situation's.Ref; the Gallowglass.
Hope this give's you a new slant,if not actual fact!
                    Goggy.

[loo]

I think you shouldn't assume that they moved to Ireland in the late 1700s.  It could very well have been before that.  There was a lot of English (and, I believe, Scottish, but less sure of that) migration to Ireland in the 1600s and early 1700s.  They could have even come from northern England originally.  Also, Argyll and Ireland are very close together geographically, so it's not such a huge move. 

[RJ_Paton]

In the time of James VI (James I of England) he decided to recolonise ireland with good "protestant" stock in place of the Irish people who were Roman catholic. Large areas of land were given over for this seized from the local population.

Although originally intended for English settlers many Scots took advantage of what was being offered and moved to Ireland to settle ... many if not all retained their presbyterian religion. This was in itself to cause problems during the periods of strife in that country.

Have a look at http://www.theulsterscots.com/

[Burrow Digger]

That Ulster scots site was excellent - thank you for that.

The next question is - how good are County Down & Northern Ireland BMD records??    And can anyone point me in the right direction?

This is a whole new area for me.
I have always though of myself as Scottish and English, never Scots-Irish.

Thanks

BD

[RJ_Paton]

how good are County Down & Northern Ireland BMD records??

varies from terrible to not bad ...census records were destroyed some deliberately (during WW1 due to paper shortage) others in a major fire in the 1920's.

Dublin actually has the majority of records with PRONI having copies of those prior to 1922

PRONI can be found at http://www.proni.gov.uk/
Oifig An Ard-Chláraitheora(Dublin) can be found at http://www.groireland.ie/

The bad news is that there are few records online

[Nick Carver]

One thing we cannot possibly know is how much our ancestors knew about their own ancestors. In the days before people could read, they probably knew their lineage back to the year dot as it would probably have been related by the fireside. So, if they knew that Jock McCullum took his family to Ulster in 1600s, did they know Jock's grandchildren, g grandchildren etc? I have seen some instances where I have wondered how on earth a connection could have been made between branches of the family in the days when nobody could read or write and post was ridiculously expensive,.

[bonjedward]

There are actually quite a lot of transcribed BMD records online for Antrim and Down, at:

http://www.ancestryireland.com

[aghadowey]

BD- very few birth/baptism records from Northern Ireland survive for pre-registration (1864) times, so you can't assume that one of the entries you found on the IGI might be your ancestor.
Also, many of the IGI records which are submitted are not accurate and the extracted records can often have mis-spelt names of people and place.
It was quite common for people to move back and forth between Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In the mid 1800s one of my husband's relatives and his daughter drowned on the crossing from Scotland during a blizzard (they had gone to visit Glasgow relatives for the New Year).
In the late 1800s-probably 1920s many men from Ireland went over the get work in Scotland when the linen industry collapsed.