Norton (Naughton) and Cooney Family

James:

I had no success searching for your Nortons and Cooney ancestors. RC church records for both Achill and Burrishoole(Newport) RC parishes start later than you need for Neil Norton and John T. Cooney. Civil registration of births in Ireland started in 1864. I searched on the free site irishgenealogy.ie but did not find a record for John T. Cooney. Possibly he was born before 1864 or maybe the birth was not registered. I also tried to find records for possible younger siblings using the parents names but no records found.

The 1855 Griffiths Valuation records for Achill parish show three Patrick Cooney records in Pollranny, Owenduff and Derreen townlands. Possibly one of the three is the father of John T. Cooney. There were no McLean records in the Griffiths in Achill which raises the possibility that Patrick and Bridget were not married in Ireland.

Let me know if you have questions or additional information. By the way, if you have not done so already, could you complete this form https://www.irelandxo.com/meet-and-greet  regarding your May trip. We likely do not have a volunteer for Mayo but we may have a volunteer for the Newport area.

Roger McDonnell

Roger McDonnell,

Thank you for your quick reply and thorough research of the RC church records, civil registration of births, irishgenealogy.ie, and1855 Griffiths Valuation records. Per your suggestion, I completed the meet-and-greet form. It appears that there may be a volunteer for Achill Island.

Best regards,

James Norton

You may already be aware of them, but there are records for what appears to be your Neal Norton, his wife Mary Ann Curran, and their children in the FamilySearch database [https://www.familysearch.org].  If you search there, you can find Neal under ID number K8TY-4PV, and can access the records for the others easily through that record, as you will see.  Neal’s parents are shown as Michael Norton and Mary Campbell, and he is shown with eight siblings.

FamilySearch is operated by the LDS church, and is free to use.  You have to create an account to use the database, but they don’t ask for much personal info, and no missionaries will contact you or anything like that.  The database does not have separate family trees, and is essentially one huge tree of linked records, in which there is a single record for each person, with a unique identification number (although sometimes people unknowingly create duplicate records for the same person, which you can merge when you spot them).

Michael’s parents are not shown, but Mary Campbell’s parents are shown.  In case you were wondering, though Clan Campbell originated in Scotland, and Campbell’s are found extensively in Ulster among the descendants of Scottish settlers brought in during the Plantation of Ulster in the 17^th Century, a branch of the Scottish Campbell’s had come to what is now Mayo earlier in the Middle Ages as “gallowglasses” (gallóglaigh in Irish); foreigner warriors who were brought in to fight for one side or the other in local wars.  While the Scottish and Ulster Campbell’s would be predominantly Protestant, the ones in Mayo are descended from people who came before the Reformation, and they have largely remained Catholic.  I have Campbell relatives there myself, though they live in East Mayo.

The informants for the info at Family Search do not appear to know much info about the family in Mayo, but in each record, at the right hand side of the screen, you can see the screen names of those who have created or modified the record, and can send them private messages, so you might be able to get more info by contacting them (and perhaps also locate some relatives that way).

The Irish surname Ó Neachtáin originated in and around Connacht, and is common in Galway and Roscommon, as well as some nearby areas in Clare and Mayo.  It was anglicized in a number of ways, such as Naghten, Naughton, Nocton, Knochton, Natton, and Norton.  McNaughton (as opposed to O’Naughton) is generally of a different origin, principally Scottish, although anglicizations of one surname were sometimes used for similar names as well.

kevin45sfl,

Thank you for your reply. The Campbell and Norton surname histories are very interesting. Yes, Neal Norton is my great-grandfather. Also, I was able to add the following to my family tree at FamilySearch:

Patrick Cooney - 1839 > Ireland (possibly Pollranny, Owenduff, or Derreen townlands) to Cleve

John Cooney

Mary McCafferty

Brigid McLean - 1843 > Ireland to Cleve

John McLean

Mary McNeeley

James McNeeley

Ann O’Donnell