Hi, it’s by a long time since I last posted, but have been beavering away at this tough family history nut, and think I’ve cracked part of it, though have limited documentary proof, so see what you think.
Many years ago I discovered the earliest references I could find to the Hilditch family were from Staffordshire. At the time my brother lived in Stafford, so I was able to spend quite a bit of time in the Stafford record office. There were references to the Hilditch family of Betley, some of whom were also listed in the recusancy rolls of Elizabeth 1st. I then found details of a farm called HILDITCH (now long gone) but being a new researcher didn’t know enough to record the details. Nevertheless it was old enough to suggest it was probably the source of the surname.
Fast forward a few years and DNA comes in, and lo and behold I discover I have DNA connections to the Staffordshire/Cheshire Hilditch family. So now I think I can suggest a fairly accurate link to how they ended up in Ireland, especially given that so many of the Hilditch family in Ireland say the family originally came from Holland.
First for those that don’t know, here’s a bit of background history. James II became king after the death of his brother Charles II. James was married twice. By his first wife, Ann Hyde, he had two daughters, Mary and Anne. (Both later inherited the throne). Mary married William of Orange (in Holland) and moved to Holland to be with her husband. Following the death of Anne Hyde, James remarried, but this time he converted to Catholicism, and married a Roman Catholic. This did not go down at all well with the English who remembered the Protestant burnings of (‘Bloody’) Mary Tudor and were concerned as they watched as James started to persecute the Presbyterians. However they knew that his Protestant daughter Mary was next in line to inherit, so bided their time. Then, late in life, James had a baby son, a son that would inherit the throne as a catholic king (the ‘warming pan’ baby, who later became father of Bonnie Prince Charlie). That was the trigger for the population to think of revolution. In the end, in 1688 William of Orange came over with an army in the ‘bloodless’ revolution, James left by the back door and fled to France, and William and his wife Mary became joint king and queen of England.
I believe that by then certainly at least one branch of the HILDITCH family had become Presbyterian. They were persecuted by king James. It’s widely documented that many Presbyterians fled to Holland at this time, to seek protection from William and Mary. I think that one of them was William Hilditch together with at least one brother, most likely called Robert. (There is documentary evidence to this effect in one branch of the family). They then returned to England with William when he became king in 1688. They certainly went with King William when he invaded Ireland in 1680, as about then is the first time they appear in Irish records, when William Hilditch is recorded on the lease of land at the Commons, which is near Carrickfergus Castle. (confirmed by the Ulster Historical Foundation). William Hilditch is also recorded as being a Burgess of Carrickfergus Castle - a representative of the borough with a right to vote. It also appears he was heavily involved in the setting up of the first Presbyterian church in Antrim.
At about the same time adverts exist for a Robert Hilditch who was trading out of Belfast. This must have been either William’s brother, or son.
From then on the family start slowly to spread out, but invariably centred out from Carrickfergus, so you see them in Belfast, in Ballyclare, Ballyeaston and about as far north as Ballymena - but almost all are mostly found in that roughly triangular area of Belfast, Carrickfergus and Ballymena. This is undoubtedly the same family, despite the alternative spellings of the surname.
There are certainly plenty of alternatives in my own twig of the tree. I was very fortunate indeed, given the appalling state of Irish records, that my grandfather stayed in contact with his uncle , and namesake, Thomas who had emigrated to Montreal about 1880 and as the French Canadians couldn’t pronounce Hilditch had changed it to Hillrich/ Hilrich, as witnessed in family letters and by the visit of a cousin in WW1. Likewise another cousin, John, had emigrated to the USA as Hilleridge, ending up in Cedar Rapids. It was also my grandfather who related that the family had first lived in Ayrshire, before moving to Glasgow for work, though he hadn’t realised they had cone from Antrim to Scotland.
Think I can now have a better stab at my Irish Ancestry, though much must be surmised from surviving scraps and some assumptions, the main one being they followed the Scottish naming pattern, first son names after paternal grandfather, second after maternal on, and so on. I’ll post more on this later.
So what do you think? Does all make sense?
I’d love to hear back what you think.
