McCloskey in Ireland and Glasgow 1851

[MonicaL]

I think that James might have gone on to be a coal miner? From 1851:

John Hannah 33
Cathrine Hannah 20 b. Kirkcolm, wigtonshire
Jane Hannah 10 Months
Jane McCluskie 56 mother in law b. Ireland
Thomas McCluskie 22, brother in law, coal miner b. Kirkcolm, wigtonshire
James McCluskie 17, brother in law, coal miner b. Kirkcolm, wigtonshire

Address: Henn's Park, Kirkoswald, Ayrshire

Colleen, just a question from me...

Why do you think your James is the James lodging with Hugh Hefferon in Glasgow in 1851? Apart from his occupation and Ireland! This James shows as born c. 1828 in Ireland. Your James from what I can is fairly consistent around the mid 1830s.

Monica

[cmccloskey56]

My James is born in Ireland, as is this one.
It is conceivable that he was apprenticed to Hugh in Ireland, as Hugh and all but one of his children were born in Ireland. Hugh's youngest, Hugh, was born in Glasgow in 1850. There is a five year gap between his youngest daughter, born in 1845 in Ireland (pre-famine) and the baby, born in elsewhere at the height of the famine in Ireland.
 
Hugh is a tailor, his wife and oldest daughter are seamstresses, his son James (age 10) is a tailor apprentice. My James is a lodger, not a relative. Another lodger, John Blair, is also a tailor. It sounds like a family-run business where the family et al live above the shop.  The other members of the household, the Chandler (sp?) family are all lodgers with a complementary trade (boot maker) and came from Ireland.
This fits with a scenario where a desperate man (Hefferon) moves his family and livelihood out of Ireland in the famine years and needs the combined financial resources of this household to establish himself elsewhere. James may have been apprenticed to him in Ireland and stayed with him when they moved.
This makes more sense when you consider the possibility that James may have had ties to Scotland. Or, better yet, the Hefferons.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I cannot explain the discrepancy in dates. I have read in different places that ages in early censuses were rounded up or down to fit reporting categories. I don't think this is the case here.

I see a lot of Scottish McCloskeys with various spellings engaged in the mills, as sewers, machine operators, cotton debris gatherers from mill floors (mostly children). This is not to say that my James worked in the mills, just that McCloskeys were poor and had to go where the work was.
James has always said he was a tailor, which was a skilled trade and theoretically not manual labor such as operating machinery.

Monica, the real answer is that I'm researching any leads that I get. It seems that my James was alone.
I've tried to connect him up to different Philadelphia McCloskey trees and the link just isn't there. I know that I am *not* related to people who can trace their line back to Derry/Dungiven.
So I go farther afield in my search.

I found a ship from Glasgow to New York and examined those links. And had to discard all of them; they just didn't hold up or the link was too tenuous.|

I have considered all the James' in the 1845/1851 census abstracts but have no proof one way of the other.

If there are Antrim or Donegal McCloskeys please chime in!

Colleen

[MonicaL]

Colleen, I am just commenting on the possible 7yr +/- year differential for James, tailor in 1851, no more 

As you say, at this stage you are looking at all possibilities and nothing is cast in stone!

Regarding census ages, the most erratic census for ages is the first UK census used for genealogy purposes, the 1841 census. People over 15 yrs of age were supposed to have their ages rounded down to the nearest 5yrs. Children under 15 are supposed to show at their actual age. As always though, census ages can be variable always, regardless of the year.

Monica

[cmccloskey56]

The seven year gap bothers me.
But when I search on rootsIreland or any of the other paid sites, I don't find anyone with the exact dates that I'm expecting.
It's a drill.

BUT there is a family story saying that the family is Scottish.
That may have been a backlash from the 'Irish need not apply' stigma in the US in the 19th century.
Or something else?
I've investigated different family stories and find a grain of truth in them.
For this one, the DNA results matching James with Scots supports that story.
Now if only I could find other documentation...

The search continues.

Colleen

[sancti]

Is the dna from the paternal line?

Maybe his father was a Scottish soldier

[BrightonDCO]

Colleen,

I am a descendant of Catherine McLusky, who was born in County Antrim in 1826.  She married Hugh Donnachie at St Joseph's Chapel in Kilmarnock  on 4 Jun 1847.  Hugh was born in County Donegal.  Catherine died in Kilmarnock at 27 Fore Street on 25 Apr 1896, aged 70.  I haven't had mcuh luck finding her siblings but I know her parents were Bernard McLuskey and Hannah Rodgers.   

[cmccloskey56]

Sancti - yes, the DNA is from the paternal line.
Two options here -
1. find McCloskeys with ties to Scotland but with my James born in Ireland
2. consider that his mother was a McCloskey, had a child with an unknown man, and gave her name to her child.

Illegitimacy is hard to prove. There was no civil registration in the time period mentioned (1830s) and it is unlikely that an illegitimate child would have been baptized. Therefore, not in old parish registers. The only search would be for a female McCloskey with a child James with a father not named (blank) or not named McCloskey. The only facts are Ireland, James McCloskey and 18302.

That leaves option 1 - find McCloskeys with solid ties to Scotland that could have been in Ireland for the birth.
Without Irish census records this, too, is hard to prove.
I have looked at the census substitutes for 1841/1851 to try to find James and possibly Catherine but the information is inconclusive.
Scottish census records that could let me construct a family for James/Catherine don't have enough information for 1841, at which point I'd expect to find them in Ireland anyway.

I've got a lot of theories at this point and am looking all over for facts that will let me pick one to dig into.

Colleen

[cmccloskey56]

Colleen,

I am a descendant of Catherine McLusky, who was born in County Antrim in 1826.  She married Hugh Donnachie at St Joseph's Chapel in Kilmarnock  on 4 Jun 1847.  Hugh was born in County Donegal.  Catherine died in Kilmarnock at 27 Fore Street on 25 Apr 1896, aged 70.  I haven't had much luck finding her siblings but I know her parents were Bernard McLuskey and Hannah Rodgers.   

Brighton - great! Three facts that support my guess - name, Irish birth and Scottish marriage. Her Hugh was born in Donegal but found his way to Kilmarnock. So this progression does happen.
Unfortunately, this is not the Catherine that I found in the New York ship lists. But then again, this ship lists are 'soft', not conclusive.
I found a record for Catherine's death in Philadelphia in 1857, which explains why she isn't a part of James' life afterwards (marriage, baptisms as witnesses). But again, this could be another Catherine.  (sigh).

One other 'fact' - we don't have any Bernards or Hannahs in the family. At all. My family repeats first names with confusing regularity. Plenty of James, Edward, John, Joseph, Francis - no Bernards.
So, while I take great comfort in this information, I don't see a direct connection just yet.

Thank you, everyone, for all the ideas!

Does anyone have a favorite website that I can search for verifying data? I know the US-based sites - Ancestry, FamilySearch - and others - rootsireland, Scotland's people, Amazon UK.
And yDNA sites like FamilyTreeDNA, YSearch,org, Haplozone.com

Now I'm looking deeper on the European side, figuring that UK sites would have more UK data like family trees.
Bryan Sykes's DNA site is hard to crack (ancestors...something) - he doesn't accept yDNA from outside labs.  Yet his database should be mostly UK yDNA.

I got off-topic.
Thanks for your help, everyone!

Colleen
 

[surene]

New to this site, my father was also a James McCloskey.  His father emigrated from Ireland.  How did you come across the genotypes you described in your post? What site is that from.  Thanks.  I know next to nothing about my father or any of his family.   Have been curious.