I have been doing family history research for coming up to 15 years, seriously since 2009. I live in Scotland and my family has been in Scotland for, depending on the branch, from 150 - 200 years, and more, but I am nearly 100% Irish, with relatives in records in Scotland from about 1800, or even slightly before that date. I have succeeded in tracing all primary branches back to Ireland, as well as most 'straggling' branches too!).
I have managed to trace relatives either from Ireland directly, or subsequent to living in Scotland, to the 4 corners of the globe, but it is not so easy to trace where you family lived in Ireland, unless the family was particularly diligent! For example, being basically illiterate untill close to 1900, we did not have any sort of 'family bible' tradition! We knew the origin of maybe 4 of the 8 great grandparents, in terms of the county for some, and more details for others, but never as close as a townland.
Anyway, the one family that we thought was probably Scottish, is my paternal direct line, which is Allison, however as I managed to draw up my family tree back to mid 1800's, back in 2009, with amazing ease, actually, I discovered on the 1861 census, that they too came from Ireland. Even luckier, 2 of the near grown children married in 1854, and one of them had a baby in 1855. On that child's birth certificate I discovered that Joseph Allison was born in Tyrone (about 1832). I understand that does not mean they 'came' from there, of course, but 16 years later, one of the younger siblings, William Allison, born about 1840, must have said he was born in Co. Tyrone, when he gave details for the 1871 census, and they actually wrote that down! The official entry should have simply been Ireland. So they may or may not have been from Tyrone,but they evidently lived there for some time!
Having my DNA done, and then my 94 year old fathers too, was in an attempt to find out where in Ireland my various branches came from, in more detail. I had some luck in tracing matches I did not know, but mostly they were in USA, and like us in Scotland, things were hazey about their family history before emigratrion.
I had little luck with the Allisons, only finding matches descended from the branched descended from James Allison and Maggie Baxter, the parents of Joseph & John above. However when I looked at my fathers DNA matches, I found a particular match, whose family had been in Boston, USA and then Ontario, Canada from the early 1830's (child born in Boston 1834). This family's Allisons linked back to Killeter, Tyrone, near Castlederg. Subsequently I have found other low level matches to my Dad, resident in North America or Australasia, with Allisons originally from Castlederg area. Many of these Allisons had left Ireland during the 1700's, or before. Interestingly, these families, especially the original Killeter' tribe, may not to have been RC, looking at the family tree & gravestone details attached to them, even though my family, when they came to Scotland appeared to be RC. When talking to people from the old mining /agricultural village, where my Allisons were based when they came to Scotland, and where Allison's still live, the name was originally/still pronounced Ellison by some, which may be of significance. I now think it likely that these Allisons had earlier been incomers to Ireland, perhaps from Scotland, or parts of England, who subsequently moved back to Scotland, as in my case, or on to the rest of the world, in the case of my Dad's matches.
So after that background information, on to my request. I would like to investigate Allison's in Tyrone and around about as there look to be some over the border into Donegal too. I understand that full civil registration did not begin until 1864, though non-RC marriages were recorded from 1845, and that by and large, there are no civil census returns available to check, but I wonder if any one could advise me of any less well known databases I could check, or any other advise on how others might go about looking for links to Allisons in the Castelderg area. Is it possible to try and trace back from living Allisons?, if there are any still in the area! I have looked at the Tithe applotment records, only 1 Allison found there, but he too is from close to Castlederg, and the Griffiths Evaluations, from which there are only about 5 relevant entries in Tyrone. Any advice would be appreciated!
I can give more specific family details if that helps, but I have already gone on far too long on this post!!
