Can you help me find my Blair ancestors?

[RubenBlair]

Dear Rootschatters,

I'm trying to fulfill my late fathers work to find out more about my Blair family roots. He past away in 2018 and I'm trying to find out where our family comes from. Seeing our family name I expect a Scottish origin, but we have not been able to find and confirm this connection.

I have been able to trace our family back to Antrim in the person of Samuel Russell Blair who is my 3rd Great-Grandfather (probable birth between 1805-1810). Maybe his parents/ancestors came to Ireland during the Great Plantation. I found that Samuel Russell Blair lived in the Grange of Ballyrobert (Templepatrick) for quite a long time (found him in the Tithe records and Griffith Valuation Records, the 1821, 1851 and 1861 census). He was married to Margaret (Mary) Moore in 1833 (Templepatrick) by rev. John Carson (Non subscribing Presbytarian Church) and they had 5 children that were all baptised by John Carson (John: 1834, Jennet: 1836, Samuel: 1838, Elizabeth: 1841 and Robert 1843). His son John Blair is my 2nd Great Grandfather, joined the Royal Artillery (served for 22 years) and went on to live in England with his wife and kids (North Shields).

Unfortunately I have not been able to find any trace of birth/baptism, death/graves, parents or siblings of Samuel Russell Blair and Margaret Moore. The Church census of 1831-1835 mentions him and Margaret with a "mother" Elizabeth Harper, but I have not been able to find more information about her or who's mother she was. I am wondering if there is a link to the Carnmoney Blair and Harper families. Another interesting point is that I noticed that his second name Russell is mentioned specifically everywhere I find him, indicating to me the importance to him. Could this illustrate a connection to a Russell family (?) he or his parents found important? I know PRONI and Familysearch has some microfilm and documented data on Templepatrick/Grange of Ballyrobert/Carnmoney area for 1800-1815, but as this has not been digitalised yet (for the dates I am looking for), are only available on microfilm in those libraries and I live in the Netherlands these are inaccessible for me at this time.

Does anyone have any family links or suggestions possibilities in finding these birth/baptism/death records or the parents of Samuel Russell Blair? Or is anyone in the area able to assist me in this search?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. It is my mission to finish my fathers work.
Thank you in advance!

Ruben Blair

[lmgnz]

Hi Ruben

Sorry but I cannot help you with those early records. My family also attended the same Church (Meeting House) in Templepatrick  but the only records I can access are the transcripts of the records held in FamilySearch which start 1831. My 3x gt grandparents married there in 1835.  Looking at the, transcripts I can see Samuel's marriage on 10 Aug 1833, though he is recorded as Samuel Russel and the surname Blair is missing.  But the birth of John on  24 Jul 1834 does record his father's full name.

Those transcript records are for actual birth dates not baptisms as I obtained baptismal certificates for both my 2x gt grandparents in the 1980s and those recorded both birth and baptism dates. The birth dates correspond to the dates in the transcripts which I think were made by McKinney. I think you already have seen those records but if not this link should take you there The Templepatrick Church records start on image 518 for baptisms and 535 for marriages. Carnmoney  marriage records start in 1708 at image 450.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS9Y-896F-5?i=518

PRONI has some other McKinney Notebooks and there are 2 Blair families recorded but they do not  seem to match your Samuel. One family, that of Robert Blair and Eliza Kerr, who married 26 Aug 1798, does contain a son Samuel born 1817 who appears to be the youngest in this family. Others are  Elizabeth 1802, John 1805, James 1807, Margaret 1810, Mary Ann 1812, and Robert Morrow 1815.

The other is the family of Samuel Blair and Letitia Guthrey who married 5 May 1805. Their eldest child Peggy b 1806 appears to have married John Blair, oldest son of Robert above. Other children are Betty 1808, Ann 1811, Jenny 1813, William 1816 and James (no date). But no Samuel. These however are probably be the Carnmoney Blairs you refer to as McKinney is known to have accessed those records.

I am even further away from PRONI than you are so I have not seen the originals of the pre 1831 records, though I found them in the  index IGI listings (now FamilySearch) in the 1980s.

Cheers

Linda

[Elwyn Soutter]

I'm trying to fulfill my late fathers work to find out more about my Blair family roots. He past away in 2018 and I'm trying to find out where our family comes from. Seeing our family name I expect a Scottish origin, but we have not been able to find and confirm this connection.

MacLysaght’s “The Surnames of Ireland” says of Blair: “A Scottish territorial name very numerous in north Ulster.”

Presbyterianism was brought to Ireland by Scots settlers. If your family were Presbyterian, lived in Co Antrim and had a Scottish surname, then I think you can be pretty certain they originated in Scotland (which is a mere 25 miles away). They almost certainly arrived in the 1600s. Some reckon about 200,000 Scots settled in Ireland during the 1600s. That was something like 15% of the entire Scottish population.

Co Antrim wasn’t part of the formal plantation. It and Co Down were excluded because so many Scots had already arrived due to other schemes eg the MacDonalds on Islay encouraging their tenants to move over, plus the Hamilton & Montgomery Settlements. General Munro disbanded a 10,000 Scots army in Carrickfergus in the 1640s. Many of them chose to stay in Ireland.  Many Covenanters fled to Ireland in the 1680s and then there was also a huge influx in the 1690s due to famine in Scotland. In general we don't know the names of those who arrived in the 1600s, and other than  through DNA it’s fairly hard going to trace back that far.

I am sure three quarters of the population of rural Co Antrim share the same Scottish origins. Even today Presbyterianism is the most common denomination in the county.

“A Kennedy Chronicle” the biography of Alexander Kennedy of Ballycahan 1818 - 1885 by Hugh Alexander Hezlett. Hezlett quotes Dr Bryce, a local Minister (and a Scot) on page 13.

Dr RJ Bryce provides a contemporary description of the district around Killaig and Ballycan at the time of Alexander’s childhood as centre “over a space of 15 to 20 miles from east to west, and about the same from north to south, Scottish surnames, a broad Scottish dialect, and an almost universally diffused Presbyterianism indicated the title of the people to call themselves ‘Scotch.’ Episcopalian Protestant ie Church of Ireland were few and a Roman Catholic was almost as rare as a black swan.”