Surname McDonald, McDonnell, MacDonald etc.

J. Buller:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

Can you provide names, their parents names,  and approximate years of birth for ancestors who left Ireland for England? We may be able to locate a baptismal record since I presume, they left prior to 1864 when civil registration of births started. In the mid-19th century McDonnells were found in many counties but Mayo, Antrim, Dublin, Louth, Cavan and Roscommon had the most households. So your family notes may be accurate.

Roger McDonnell (family from Co. Mayo)

Since Roger is a McDonnell himself, I'm slightly hesitant to jump in here, but I can add some info about the family, and I have a McDonnell great-grandmother from Mayo myself.

The surname McDonnell in Irish is Mac Domhnaill, which means “son/descendant of Donal”.  According to MacLysaght’s Surnames of Ireland, the McDonnell surname is of three separate origins:  (1) a gallowglass (in Irish, gallóglach, or “foreign fighter”) mercenary family living in the Glens of Antrim; (2) a sept native to Thomond (an area lying south of Mayo, including several counties on the other side of Galway); and (3) a west Ulster sept.  In his Lore of Ireland, Ó hÓgáin mentions the sept from the Glens of Antrim, who were related to the Scottish MacDonald clan (in Scottish Gaelic, MacDhòmhnaill, or the Clann ‘icDhòmhnaill), and says that the Mac Dómhnaill clan first settled in the Glens of Antrim in the 13th century, and by the 15th century controlled all of North Antrim.  He goes on to say that a large number of them were brought from Antrim to Mayo in the late 14th century to assist the ruling family of that area, the Anglo-Norman Burke family (In Irish, de Búrca, although branches of the family took on other surnames as time went on).

As you can see, in Irish and Scottish Gaelic there is no "d" at the end of the name.  That change happened in more modern times, when the anglicized forms McDonnell, McDonald, and MacDonald were created.  MacDonald is more commonly used in Scotland, but McDonnell and McDonald are both used in Ireland, often inconsistently from generation to generation in the same family.  The priests who wrote down names in the parish registers, and the officials who recorded names for other purposes, were often not very careful and sometimes did not understand Irish well, so spelling discrepancies were common.

Kevin:

Nice work on the surname origins.

Roger

Thank you so much for replying!  Working on the brick wall for 15 years. Marriage certificate, West Derby, Aug. 21, 1876, Michael McDonnell, age 32, widower, labourer, father James McDonnell (deceased), Farmer, to Mary Anne Sherriff, age 30, widow, father Joseph Smith, bricklayer. Children born have birth registrations in West Derby with variations of Mc/Mac and Donnell/Donald.  Census entries are the same. They were married at St. Anne’s RC Church and was told many years ago Michael converted to the Catholic religion just prior to marrying Mary Anne. 

Mary Anne Smith/Sherriff/McDonald had a son during the Sherriff marriage.  He is listed on the 1881 census as George Sheriff, step son to Michael, age 18, yet occupation is scholar (?) and born in Liverpool.  If that is correct, Mary Anne should be on the 1871 census or there should be a birth registration, can find neither.  Suspect any reference to point of origin would list Ireland and that would be all.        

Also have doubts regarding Michael’s birth year.  He was 32 on marriage cert, still 32, 5 years later on 1881 census, and 40 on 1891 census. 1901 he is 52.  

If you have any suggestions on where I can look for further information I would be grateful.

Thank you again for your time.

Judy

Kevin, thank you for the history. There have always been two camps in this family, one - we are Irish and the other we are Scots. Made for a lively discussion. Considering many of the Scottish men married Irish women, I sit on the fence, we are both. LOL

JBuller:

I did a search on Roots Ireland from 1839-1849 for all of Ireland and there were around 20 Michael McDonnell baptismal records with father James. I would assume most if not all were RC records. In addition many RC parishes do not have records back to the 1840s.

Have you considered DNA testing. In  addition to some ethnicity info, you will get matches and possibly you will locate someone with McDonnell connections.

Roger

Thank you for checking Roger. I came up with the same results, nothing definitive. This one may remain a mystery. Have considered DNA and encouraged by others to have it done. I do have some skepticism after reading articles on the results of this testing. Identical twins taking the tests from several different labs having different results. This is the latest link I have seen from Canada.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dna-ancestry-kits-twins-marketplace-1.4980976  

Have read of several of these kinds of discrepancies.  After too many wild goose chases I am hesitant to pay for another one.  Perhaps technology will advance within the next few years.

Thank you again for your time and effort.

Judy

I do have great uncle micheal Macdonald and changed to Mcdonnell but I am not sure if the same guy u are talking about ? He moved here in America from Ireland. Contact me if we can find out if we are match on our dna? My email is msd.mamae@gmail.com.