Dungannon McAteer family

You would expect a farmer to be in the tithe applotment records. I can only find 3 William McAteer households in the tithes for Co. Tyrone.  As you can see they were in just 2 townlands (The Donamoney ones were probably father & son). Have you investigated to see whether these families might be yours? (If you know their denomination you could search the local church records if they cover the years in question):

McATEER William, Jun. Donamoney Clonfeacle 1833

McATEER William, Sen. Donamoney Clonfeacle 1833

McATEER William Tamlaght Tamlaght 1827

Hi Elwyn,

   Well, first,  thank you very much for your research, and for your quick reply.   I looked over the parish map of Tyrone, and sort of eliminated Tamlaght because it's too far away from Dungannon.  Donamoney is perfect though.  It's close to the area in which we were looking, and in fact we did find McAteer farms there, on Killyliss and Reaskmore Roads. 

   Would you be able to find the two William McAteer farms on a map of Donamoney?  Family lore has it that the family farm was named "Dunnywood" and that could easily be a shortened version of Donamoney Wood, or it could be a corruption of that name - that kind of thing happens when information is passed down for generations.   If I knew where the farms were I could look for churches and cemeteries in the neighbourhood, when we come over in the spring.  It may be that grave stones are the only surviving record of our stay in Ireland.

   Thanks again for your kind assistance.  It is a great pleasure to meet you, and we look forward to working with you from time to time.

   Cheers,

   Brian

Brian,

I had a look at Griffiths Valuation for Dunamony in 1860. There were no McAteer properties there but there were 2 McEntire, and I’d guess that’s how the name was recorded at that time. James McEntire had plot 3 which was a total of about 13 acres. William had plot 15 which was just over 2.5 acres. The properties were adjacent to each other, on the modern Dunamony Rd, near the junction with the B35. (You can see where they are using the maps on the Griffiths site).

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml

You can follow changes of occupant for the 2 properties up to 1929 on the PRONI Valuation revision site.

There was just the one McAteer household in the townland in the 1901 census:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Tyrone/Derrygortrevy/Dunamony/1738723/

None there in 1911.

The 1901 census family were Church of Ireland. Derrygortreavy Church of Ireland early records were destroyed in the 1922 fire in Dublin and they have nothing earlier than about 1875 now.

Not everyone could afford a gravestone and the majority of the population were buried without one. Farmers were slightly wealthier than the average person and so were more likely to have a gravestone, but neither of the 2 Dunamony farms is very big, so they weren’t particularly very well off. So I wouldn’t count on finding any gravestones.

Hi Elwin,

   Perhaps its time to check out my strategy.  Here it is.

   The name Dunnywood Farm came down to us through the family.  It may or may not have been corrupted - either way it suggests "Dunamoney Wood," so that was where I looked first, and found the farm of Catherine McEntire (known to the locals as the McAteer farm.)
   So, two assumptions here already.

   A third assumption was that if someone had left Ireland in 1847, they would be in the Tithe list but not in Griffiths.   Seemed reasonable, but it eliminated William Jr. who had the farm across the road from Willian Sr.  It also eliminates James, of lot #3.

   But Dunnywood was our best clue, and I hate to give it up.   Should we forget about it, and concentrate on the other Cormullagh McAteers who do disapear from Griffith's, or assume further that William Jr emigrated, and his father kept up his ownership of his farm across the road, for some unknown reason?

   Another question is:  where were the other McAteer farms in Cormullagh?   The Tithe books don't give lot numbers, do they?

   Your learned counsel in these matters will be very welcome and much appreciated.

   Brian

Brian,

My experience of farms in Ireland in the mid 1800s is that very few had names. Even today not all do. So if you were writing to someone, you just used their name and the townland. That was sufficient to get a letter delivered and to identify you right up until the 1960s (and even more recently in some parts). So when people were asked where they came from, if it was a rural area, you just gave your townland. That was all that was required. So my feeling is that “Dunnywood” is the townland, or part of the townland, where the family lived rather than the name of a specific farm. As you say it’s likely that the name has been corrupted slightly.

Given that there is a place called Dunamony Wood and it’s in Dunamony townland and that the 2 McAteer/McEntire farms are close to it, it does strike me this is probably where your ancestors originated.

PRONI have the complete tithe records for Dunamony.  They show the actual size of each farm and are numbered, and show the order the properties were in. Note that the acreage in Griffiths is Imperial measurement ie 4840 square yards to an acre. However the tithes were compiled in Irish acres (7840sq yards to an acre) and occasionally Cunningham acres (6150 sq yards to the acre). Cunningham acres were used widely by farmers in the north of England, Scotland and Ulster. They were abolished by statute in 1824 but often lingered on in leases and other land records for some time after that. So comparing the tithes to Griffiths there are usually two different forms of measurement in use of an acre. So you are not comparing like with like.

There are sometimes maps that go with the tithes, and they sometimes show where the individual plots were. Usually in the FIN/5 series of maps in PRONI. They are not on-line so you need to go there in person to view them. You can also look up the Griffiths clerks’ notebooks used in the 1830s for the Primary Valuation (VAL/1 series of records). They sometimes contain extra bits of information about each landholder. Again they are not on-line.

Tradition with Irish farms was to pass the farm to the eldest son. The rest of the sons usually had to make their own way in the world. (The farms were too small to subdivide, and there was little other work in rural Ireland so emigration was often the only solution).  Sometimes a brother helped run the farm. I suppose it’s possible that when William left in 1847, he passed the farm to a brother. Could that be the James McEntire in Griffiths?  Looking at the Valuation revision records he had gone around 1864 and the land redistributed between adjacent tenants. There’s a couple of James McAteer deaths in the Dungannon registration are that you might be interested in. 1864 aged 77 and 1865 aged 47. They are not on-line free yet. You can view the original certificates on-line on the GRONI website, using the “search registrations” option:

https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk

You will need to open an account and buy some credits. It costs £2.50 (sterling) to a view a certificate.

You ask about the Cormullagh McAteer farms. The only one I can see in Griffiths is Catherine McEntire (probably a widow) who was on plot 23 in 1860. That was a 10 acre farm. That farm today is on the Killyliss Rd at the point where it crosses the A4. The boundary on one side was Wood Lough. The access road to the A4 goes through the middle of the farm but it looks as though the site of the farmhouse might now be occupied by Ewing Brothers premises. Or the farm was very close to that anyway. There’s a Catherine McAteer death regd Dungannon 1872, aged 73.

1901 census:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Tyrone/Derrygortrevy/Cormullagh/1738687/

David McAteer married Henrietta Lucas on 3.1.1865. You can view that certificate on the PRONI site.

Probate of the Will of David McAteer late of Cormullagh County Tyrone Farmer who died 27 December 1913 granted at Armagh to Henrietta McAteer the Widow

The above will is on-line on the PRONI wills site.

McAteer Henrietta of Cormullagh county Tyrone widow died 7 May 1923 Probate Londonderry 5 March to George Watt farmer and Hugh McAteer warehouseman. Effects £239 15s.

The above will is not on-line but should be in PRONI in paper format.

Hi Elwyn,

   Thank you so much for all the information you have dug up.  It is all useful, but some of it is indispensable, and would have escaped my notice completely.  The conversion factor for acres, for example.  Interestingly, the early Oxford had a wonderfully practical definition of an acre - it was "that quantity of land that can be ploughed by one man in one day, with one yoke of oxen."

   A family member, who wrote books about birds, wrote one about the McAteers as well.  He spent weeks in Ireland searching for the family farm, and he searched title all along the old Dungannon - Ballygawley Road.  He never said why, but he must have had sone information pointing to that road.  He found nothing.   My wife and I found the Catherine McAteer farm  - "whereby hangs a tale."

   That farm belonged to Mr. Leslie Beavers, who lives just the other side of the A4.   We have visited Mr. Beavers, and spoken by phone too.  He was very hospitable, but did not know the history of the McAteers at all.  He did describe the original house, which he sold off for the stone, a few years back.  The house sat where today there is a round-about, I believe.  This was an especially attractive  candidate for "original homestead" because its geography almost perfectly matches that of the family bridgehead here in Canada, with a road in front and water behind, and a wee hill down to the water.

   One of our mysteries is that while the whole family knows that William McAteer, father, arrived in Canada with his children, there is no record of his ever having been here.  No one seems to know what he did for a living, or whom he lived with.  It is agreed that he married a Mrs. Wilson, who may have been with him on the boat over from Ireland.   When he married her, and when he died is unknown, as is his grave site.  The LDS Church experts suggest that he may well have married on the boat to Canada.  Apparently, that was a very common thing for a widower  with children, to do.  It is known that he shared the voyage with some Wilsons, who settled and farmed beside his sons farms.

   So, I reinvented him statistically, using average McAteer male life-spans, marriage ages, dates of first-borns, and so on.     My invented dates for him are 1800/1/31 to 1876/5/1; marriage 1828/6/10; first-born 1830.  This makes him 47 on arrival in Canada.   Catherine McAteer would have been a good candidate for sibling to William, according to her dates, as would the elder James McAteer (1783 - 1864).  The second James (1818 - 1865) could have been James' son.  He was a perfect age for a first or second-born McAteer.  

   David McAteer would nicely fill in a gap in births among William's children, but he would have been about 12 when the rest of the family emigrated.   Would the family have left a 12 year old behind, maybe with relatives?   There was no mention of a missing sibling in the family lore.   However, there is today a Lucas farm on Reaskmore Road, just across the fields from the Catherine McAteer farm.   I wonder where Henrietta Lucas lived.   

    Thank you again for all this information, and for your learned counsel.

   Brian McAteer

Brian,

I don't think the family would have left a 12 year old behind if they were in a position to take everyone else with them. Perhaps he had died?

​​​​​Hi Elwyn

    
   First, many thanks for your helpful comments to date.  We are in the midst of moving here so we have been a wee bit distracted, which may explain my slow responses.

   Here is what I did to figure out the family "social footprint."   Surveyed 11 parishes near Dungannon and Dunamoney Wood.   People moved around, so various connections may have been picked up over decades.   There were few farms around Dunamoney Wood, so most connections were probably made around the church or on market days.   Chances of connection probably increase as the number of people present from each group increases.   A bit naive, but you have to start somewhere.  I came up with two different algorithms.   The first makes family connections most important, and the second lends most weight to recently made, possibly neighbourly connections.   Of the 11 parishes, 5 had no McAteers, so they were not included.   The six remaining were ranked first to last.   A funny thing - both algorithms ranked the first three or four parishes in the same order.   Here is the list of parishes considered:

Aghaloo
Canteel
Clonfeacle
Desertcreat
Donaghmore
Drumglass
Killeeshil
Killyman
Pomeroy
Termonmaguirk
Tullyniskan

   Here are the two algorithms.  Wilsons are prominent in the second because they were on the same boat as the McAteers, and that could have been arranged between neighbours latterly before emigrating, and of course that would be more indicative of where the McAteers lived.  Marriages between these two families seemed to happen later on, in Canada.  Most recent marriages are given more weight than historic unions.

1.    Probability = [(Burrows+Stewart) + 1/2(Wilson) + 1/4(Lucas+Somerville)] x McAteer
2.    Probability = [(Wilson) + 1/2(Burrows+Stewart) + 1/4(Lucas) + 1/8(Somerville)] x McAteer

Rankings were remarkably similar for both algorithms:

!st - Drumglass - 63 and 64.5%
2nd - Desertcreat - 32 and 48%
3rd - Donaghmore - 27 and 33%
4th - Clonfeacle (once tied with Tullyniskan)  - 24 and 26%

   Desertcreat places second because it had the most McAteers, but it does not seem to be related to Dunamoney Wood in any other way, so I ignored it.  Clonfeacle looks like a place removed from the family's habitual stomping ground, so I'm thinking that the family  church was probably in Drumglass rather than in Clonfeacle.

   William McAteer married Jane Burrows, who died before 1847, after bringing forth at least five children.  This and the above stats, suggest to me that my research should first try to find where Jane Burrows is buried, and then to see if there is any record of a McAteer family around Dunamoney Wood who disappear around 1847.  At this point I don't believe the McAteers and the Burrows were neighbours.   

   This kind of thinking may not appeal to you, but I have found it to be quite effective in resolving similar questions sent in to the Clan McAteer website, over the years.   We use a "Canada-USA test" and an "Australia - New Zealand test" to determine how other surnames may be related to ours.    

Do you think we will be able to find records of marriages and deaths, or of farm tenancy locally, or should we concentrate our searches at institutions like PRONI?  I really don't know what information is available where, or even where to start digging.   I look forward to hearing your thoughts on all these points.

Brian McAteer
Ottawa

Brian,

The idea of people marrying locally is pretty sound. Before the arrival of the bicycle in rural Ireland (around the 1860s) nearly all courting was done on foot, and so you tended to marry locally. Often the girl next door. Literally, in some cases. Especially for farmers who couldn’t afford to spend much time away from the farm. Of course there were plenty of exceptions eg people in mobile occupations such as soldiers, policemen, stonemasons, carriers. But in rural areas, it was common to marry “within an asses bark” of where you lived (ie the distance an ass’s call would travel. Half a mile, if that.) That’s how I heard it described once.

The other thing is that folk who were farmers didn’t move home much. You don’t spend 30 years improving the land, just to throw in the towel, move to another farm and start all over again.  Wherever possible, farmers stayed put. Farm labourers on the other hand (a huge chunk of the population) were always moving about to follow available work. But if your family were brought up on a farm, statistically, they and their ancestors are likely to have been in the same spot for quite a long time.

Regarding records, the vast majority are held in PRONI. The original Church of Ireland records are sometimes held by the church, sometimes by the RCB library in Dublin and in a few cases by PRONI. If they still have them, you can consult the originals at the church. You need to make an appointment and there is a fee to pay which is usually £12 an hour, per church. On the other hand in most cases, you can consult a microfilm copy of the same records free in PRONI. So going to PRONI will save you both time and money.  The PRONI church records catalogue  (which is on-line) will tell you what records exist for each church, and where they are held if they don't have them.

http://www.proni.gov.uk/guide_to_church_records.pdf

For farm tenancy records, there was never any requirement to keep a formal record of who tenanted each farm. Some bigger landlords kept quite good records, often in estate ledgers. Some of those were sent to the Public Record Office in Dublin in the 1800s and early 1900s and were lost in the 1922 fire. Some were given to PRONI post 1922 and have survived. The thing to do is to search the PRONI e-catalogue for the landlord’s name and see what comes up. Likewise search under your own family’s name to see what it throws up. You can narrow the search by adding townland names or at least “Tyrone”.

If a landlord and tenant agreed a lease, there would normally be 2 copies, one held by each. In many cases, once the lease had expired, the 2 copies got thrown away. But in some cases at least 1 copy survived, either in the estate office or sometimes in some solicitor’s office, and these have often made their way to PRONI. So sometimes you will find a lease there. Another option is the Registry of Deeds records. From about 1709 onwards the Registry of Deeds (in Dublin) provided a service whereby you could send a legal document like a lease to them, and they would keep a formal record of it. It was a fairly detailed summary, called a memorial, and was entered into ledgers. The idea being that if the originals were lost and there was some need to refer to what had been agreed, this duplicate was publicly accessible. There was a fee for registering deeds, so understandably not everyone bothered but many millions of leases and other documents such as marriage settlements, mortgages, loans and some other more obscure papers are recorded there. The originals are in Dublin, but there’s a duplicate set on microfilm, in PRONI. You can search by townland and by name. It’s fairly time consuming but obviously worth it if you strike lucky.

The first fairly comprehensive set of land records were the tithe applotment records. Compiled in the late 1820s or early 1830s (depending on location) they list most land in Ireland, and who the tenant was. They were compiled for tax purposes.  Some tithe records are missing, and some land was exempt eg church owned land, and so no records were kept for it. The surviving records are accessible on-line. In the case of Tyrone, you can find them on the Co. Tyrone link further down this message.

The next assessment was Griffiths Valuation. There was an initial valuation in the 1830s. These were recorded in notebooks which (for Northern Ireland) are in PRONI. They aren’t on-line, and you need to go in person to view them. They are in the VAL/1 series of records at PRONI. Then in the years 1848-1864, the Primary Valuation was compiled. That’s on-line on the Griffiths site. It lists many houses, as well as farmland. It shows you who the superior landlord was for most land, or if it was owned outright (as just 10% of land was in the mid 1850s) that is shown too. After Griffiths, changes were recorded in the Valuation Revision Books. They cover up to 1929. For Northern Ireland only, they are on-line free on the PRONI website. Not every home is in Griffiths. Houses of too poor a value to be worth taxing were ignored. And it only lists head of household. You rarely know who else lived there. So if folk were living with relatives, or were working as servants, they won’t be listed.

Statutory records of births, deaths & RC marriages started in 1864. Non RC marriages were recorded from April 1845. They are all held on-line now. You used to be able to inspect the originals at GRONI in Belfast but that has stopped to protect them from damage, and instead you have to view the originals on-line.

Records of baptisms, marriages and burials prior to those dates are patchy. The church kept them, if they were kept at all. Generally only the Church of Ireland kept any burial records but even they don’t appear to contain all burials. Where they exist, those records are in PRONI. Some graveyards also have burial plot records (ie details of who is in each grave). You need to enquire locally for them. But the further back you go, the less likely you are to get any. Most gravediggers were illiterate so paper records weren’t much use to them. Only a small number of graveyards have burial records for the early or mid 1800s. PRONI has some burial records, particularly for civil graveyards in and around Belfast.

Some graveyards have had their gravestones transcribed, and these are on-line on various pay to view sites. But many have never been transcribed.

Some countries have a system of county record offices, whereby records for that county are concentrated in that one location. Northern Ireland isn’t very big and so here the decision has been to keep most records in PRONI. Tyrone does not have a county record office. There is a local studies section in Omagh library, and that’s quite useful for background reading. For example there will be books describing what it was like to be a farmer in Tyrone in the mid 1800s, or what the linen industry was like. Old newspapers perhaps. But they don’t keep personal records as such.

I have attached a link to a website which has quite a lot of Tyrone records on-line. You might find it helpful.

https://cotyroneireland.com/index.html

Hi Elwyn,

    Thanks once again for your help.  Took me quite a while to go through the references, etc.   I will have to look go through the PRONI website some more.

    An important consideration has occurred to me - we will soon be in Ireland, and I hope we will have a chance to meet up with you.  That would surely be a highlight of the trip.

    Brian

Good evening, I am a descendant of Dasvid McAteer and Henrietta Lucas.   They were the parents of my great-grandmother, Sarah Thorne, nee McAteer.   Sarah McAteer was born in 1865, and subsequently emigrated to Maine, where she married Charles Thorne.  In 1893, she gave birth to my grandfatehr, Fred Thorne..  She may have come to America by herself or with other relatives or friends.  Look forward to helping all, Don Hubbardr