Ballyscullion

Gail,

The river Bann separates County Antrim from Co. Londonderry/Derry. (The county is known by both names. The explanation is too tedious to relate here). As you say there is a Ballyscullion in Co. Derry and another in Co. Antrim. I think that at one time it was all one parish (divided by the river) but that at some period long in the past it was split into two separate parishes, one in each county. The one in Antrim is much smaller than the one in Derry.

Yes the name Scullen can be spelled many different ways and will even vary within the same family. The idea of a single or correct spelling for a surname or a place name is very much a recent phenomenon designed to meet the needs of modern officialdom. Before that, especially in Ireland, there was no consistency. Names were spelled phonetically and each variation was down to the whim of the particular person recording the information. You will often see the spelling change as the records go back. This rarely indicates a deliberate decision to alter the name, nor even a mistake. Not everyone was literate, but even when they were, exact spelling simply wasn’t something they bothered about.

Gail  I am also researching the Scullion family from Co Derry from the Maghera and Magherafelt parishes.  Their surname has had various spellings but the oldest i have traced is a Felix Scullion/Sculin  from the early 1800’s   Felix or Phelix emigrated to,Glasgow Scotland around 1850 with his wife and family.

Hope we have a connection

Hi -  I have a real brick wall with my Irish relatives.  I'm not sure we are from Ballyscullion.  I just looked there as it had the greatest number of Catholic Baptisms of Scullens.  My surname is Scullen but I noticed that the same person in the baptism records had their name spelled as Scullen, Scullin and Scullion.  I also found one of my ancestors in the US with the Scullion variation.  I can only trace back for certain to my great-grandfather.  He was born in the US in NJ and wound up in Baltimore, Maryland as a young child, where his twig of the family has stayed.  Supposedly there are relatives in Philadelphia but I can't find the connection.  Are you in America?  Have you a connection to any of these cities?  Do you have DNA results on any of the genealogy websites?  I would love for us to be related.  Thanks so much for writing - Gail

Gail yes the Scullion name has many spellings and my Phelix Scullen appeared in the Glasgow census of 1851 but unfortunately died a few years later.  He left a widow and several children but I have never got any further back than Phelix/Felix nor traced his parents or sibliings.  We have traced his marriage record to Elizabeth Quinn in the RC church in Magherafelt in 1832.  The parish of Magherafelt is quite a big area and is consistent with my grandfathers memories of going to the River Bann area for family holidays.  He was told his family originated from that area.  

We know of three of his children which seems a small number in comparison to other larger families so feel there are more children to trace.  Also the eldest child on the 1851 census is 14 leaving quite a gap between marriage and this child Mary.  As they emigrated to Scotland around the time of the famine there is a strong possibility some of his older children (as yet names unknown) went elsewhere.  Indeed some of Phelix siblings may also have travelled to other destinations in the world as they were encouraged to do so by the landlords and government of the day.

So we may well be connected and yes I have my DNA on My Heritage but have purchased through Ancestry a kit so at some stage in the future will be accessible through Ancestry.

So please email or message me on  chesford5@gmail.com and we can exchange more specifics.

Hello Everybody. I have come across this site (November 2019) while looking up the birthplace of my wife's great-great-grandfather, Denis Scullen. We are looking to travel to Ireland next year so obviouslt interested in seeing where 'things started'. The information we have is that he was born in Bellascullen, Magherafelt, Londonderry about 1811 or this is more likely 1816 as the date fits better with a Scottish Census record for 1841 which has him at the Cannongate Barracks in Edinburgh. His surname was variously Scullen, Scullin or Scullion (I see there has already been an expalnation given for the variations in this discussion). Bellascullen it seems was either the name of his house (most unlikely) or is another mis-pronunciation/spelling of the place Ballyscullion. He died 26 September 1886 at his home in Jervios Road, Ponsonby, Auckland, New Zealand. He joined the British Army as a young man. His regiment was sent to Ireland (what is now the Republic) presumably because of 'troubles'. There he met and married his first wife Ellen Tynan in St Pauls RC Church in Dublin on 13 March 1842. She died in Auckalnd on 11 February 1860. They had five children. The first Roseanna (Susan) was baptised at St Pauls in March 1842 (yeah, big shotgun!). The cam John who was born in Chatham, UK in 1844. The regiment had been transferred there from Ireland. They were then transferred to the penal colony in Sydney NSW, and a short while later a contingent was sent on the New Zealand to deal with the Land Wars. The thrid child Sarah was born in Auckland 16 July 1848, the fourth Mary Ann in Auckland 11 January 1851, and the fifth Ann in Auckland on 13 May 1854. Denis left the army in 1853 and received a pension as a Chelsea Out-pensioner; he worked as a carpenter and in the latter stages of his life as a sexton for the Symonds St Cemetery in Auckland. As stated earlier his first wife died in 1960. He married again to Anne Kenny on 14 August 1861 and she died soon after on 25 April 1866. He married a third tme to Mary McIherney on 26 August 1867 and died 10 years later on 10 June1877. Mary Ann is my wife's ancestor. I can provide a good deal of the 'tree' from there. Roseanna (Susan) marrried James McCabe a 58th Reg army mate of Denis. A decendant of James lives in Cincinnati Ohio (my last contact was 2013 but she still has a LinkedIn page). Hope you find this interesting and useful.