Thursday, December 07, 2006

Research and compiling

I have spent many hours since the beginning of November researching and compiling all of the data and information that I accumulated in Ireland. I tried to be very thorough about collecting information but I have a lot to learn in how I keep track of things. When we were in Dungiven, Northern Ireland I got information about the Douglas, Irwin and Millar families. I think I will need two or more trips to do a good job and hooking it all together.
I was able to find the parents of Hugh Irwin that married Susanna Hull, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Hull. Hugh was from the townland of Ballyness which is where Janet Kerr lives. Hugh's father was Samuel Irwin and his mother was a Maria Hull. Susanna probably lived with her uncle William in Scriggan because Thomas and his family had already left for Scotland and were in Pennsylvania on the date Hugh and Susanna were married-21 February 1856. Scriggan is the townland next to the townland where the Hull farm was. Susanna and Hugh moved after marrying to first Australia and then on to New Zealand where their descendents now live. We met some Irwin people who still live in Ballyness.
The Douglas family and the Carnichael families lived to the East and South of our Hillfoot farm. Robert Hull, who was the one who bought our farm in the late 1870's. He married a Margaret Douglas from the farm just to the East of his. This Douglas family is a prominant family even today in the area and several Douglas men and women married into the Carmichael family the family just to the South of our farm. I guess if you live around each other long enough we would all be related. The Semple family bought the Hull farm in the 1960's and also had married into these same families. I collected a large family tree of the Semple/Carmichael families and I continued to increase the tree of the Douglas family. I am including a map that shows the position of the farm on the townlands of Ballymakeever and Tergoland.

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