May Family

Do you know where in Co. Armagh they lived and what denominatioin they were?

They were Roman Catholic. The baptisms state Armagh Parish and nothing else.

I now know my third great grandparents, Michael May and Susan McAree, parents are; Thomas May - Margaret O' Donnel (there are variations)  and  James McAree - Mary Downey. 

This brings me back to my 4th great grandparents born in the late 1700s.

Would "May" have been an Irish name or Scottish/English? Anyone have any of these people in their families?

Looking at the frequency and origins of the name MAY, in 1901 there were 988 people with that surname in Ireland. 643 were RC and 345 other denominations (ie a mix of Protestants). So two thirds were RC. I looked in the Muster Rolls for Co. Armagh and there was one May listed (c 1630). He was Edward and lived on the Calfield estate. So there was at least 1 May family that came to Co. Armagh as a part of the Plantation of Ireland.

You can use this site to see where the surname was found across Ireland in the mid 1800s:

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname

The site comments about the surname: “numerous: in three northern provinces, especially Connacht, S Midlands & South East. While the name May is both English and Scottish, a substantial proportion of the present population must be indigenous: Ir. Ó Miadhaigh, miadhach, honourable. Originally a sept of W Meath, which appears also as Mee. This name extended into Scotland, where they were associated with the Mac Donalds in Kintyre.”

So in my opinion, based primarily on their denomination, I’d guess your family were native Irish whilst some of the other May families near them would have been descendants of Scots or English settlers.

I looked for a marriage, post 1864 for Margaret May and for John May in Armagh or nearby but did not find one. Presumably they either moved away or stayed single. Probably moved away, I suspect.

Likewise I looked for deaths for Michael and Susan May in Armagh post 1864 but did not find any adult deaths. I did find a Susan who died 8th March 1864 aged 12 in Armagh. You might perhaps want to look at that in case it’s a sibling to your 3 ancestors.

I looked for a will for Michael May but the only 1 listed was for a farmer in Co. Down.

Elwyn,

I apparently did not get notification of this last post, but I am thankful to you for looking up all this information for me. It's very kind of you.