Well, well, well, why haven't I found you sooner, and I think I may recognize a contributor or two! I, too, am seeking to place my surname ancestor, who is an immigrant to the United States from Co. Antrim 1800-1803, a James Strahan b. 1777, who married an Ann Jane Blair in Donegore Seceder (sp?) Church ca 1800, dau of Hugh Blair and Jane Thompson. I've been working on this ca 39 years, and have corresponded with a number of researchers over the years and am finally getting around to trying to sort out conflicting reports of wives and relationships and to pin down places and times of events and if possibly to find the 'bones.'
There are several comments by several persons in this exchange that I would love to jump in on, but I'll try to take one at a time.
Like others of you have various Samuels with various wives and sometimes the same Samuel with different reported wives:
1) there's the Samuel who is the freeholder in Rathkenny/Skerry in 1776 who may be the Samuel married to Jean Martin's father (the birth order and naming of the Sam married to Jean Martin's children would suggest that his father was a Samuel)—this is the Sam w/ the sister Ann married to Robert Crawford and the daughter Mary married to a Daniel McKay;
2) one researcher held that there was a Samuel in Lisnacrogher (Rathkenny?) who was a brother of George d.1784 Lisnacrogher and that this Samuel had three sons—a James, a George, and another Samuel, the Samuel of Rathkenny married to Jean Martin. Apparently Ann married to Robert Crawford would have been their sister. [I think there may have been another son John] Does anyone out there know anything about a James Strahan and John Strahan, farmers in Inshamph in 1783? I have wondered if these could be sons of the Samuel who is in Rathkenny in 1776.
3) then there is Samuel and Jean Martin's son Samuel married to Mary Hyndman, who is also a Sam of Rathkenny.
4) the there's a Samuel of Syndenham, Co. Down, who dies 1889 and is an executor for another of Sam married to Jean Martin's sons;
5) and there's this Samuel of Dunbought or Clough, depending on researcher, who is married either to a Sarah Mary Alexander or a Mary Brown or both [grandson born in US is Samuel Brown Strahan]—depending on researcher this Samuel is either s/o George d.1784 Lisnacrogher son James or the brother Samuel's son James or the son of an Alexander born 1750 Aberdeen.
So my question does anyone out there has dates for any of these Sam Strahans and/or their spouses?
I can report that both a child of Samuel married to Jean b. 1822 Rathkenny and a child b. 1825 Dunbought/Clough of Samuel of Dunbought/Clough married to Mary Brown/Sarah Mary Alexander in the 1880 census report that they and both of their parents were born in Scotland! So presumeably none of them were in Co. Antrim in 1776!