High Crimes and Misdemeanors

One of the best quotes I have ever read is this: "The Irish are a fair minded people, they never speak well of one another." I would love to give credit to the source of that quotation, but I read it so long ago, I just don't remember the source.

Now to the point. The 1641 depositions provide eye-witness accounts of what was happening in Ireland in the aftermath of the 1641 risings. The deposition of Alice
Campion (Champyn) of Shannock, County Fermanagh, of 14 April 1642 states that one of those involved in the killing of her husband, Arthur, was Redmond mc Owin Maguyre of Annaharde. On the evidence, in light of the opening quotation, I take it that Alice herself was Irish to say such a terrible thing. (Still, she is just as likely to have been English).

An investigation held in Fermanagh in 1641, during the reign of Charles I, provided information on the leasing policy on the estate in the county that was originally granted to John Sedborough in 1610. It was recorded that the tenants in possession of Tateconnell, Gallan and Dromsur were Redmond McOwen McGwire and Rosse McGuire.

Without more information, which may yet be forthcoming, it sounds as if the property might have been under the over sight of an agent of an absentee landlord. And, it may turn out that Mr. Campion (Champyn) was that agent. It may also have been, in the eyes of the perpetrators a justifiable homicide. I await the rest of the story from William Roulston of the Ulster Historical Foundation.

At this point, there is no proof that I am descended from said Redmond, and on his behalf it must also said that this statement is true of me as well. This is just one example of the unexpected things that are found when poking around genealogical resources.

Upon Further Review, there will be a slight delay.

The good news first. The Ulster Historical Foundation (UHF) has just received a major new project with new funding. The selfish downside, is that things will slow down on the McCown project for about a month. That does not mean no progress, however, because Dick McCown continues his document searches online through the UHF Guild and other sources as well. Also, the UHF is considering adding another source
asset that would give close up scrutiny of the Clogher Diocese which includes information on Fermanagh, Monaghan, Southern Tyrone and Southern Donegal counties.

If that venture is succesful, membership in the UHF Guild will become even more important to the study of areas important to Maguire researchers. A tip o' the hat
to the fair Coane for this lead. Speaking of the fair Coane, Dick found a record of a will for one of her ancestor's before 1835. This ancestor is one of two named Thady
Coane, which she refers to as Thady I and Thady II. She also continues to turn up instances of McOwen and Maguire in combination, mostly in south Tyrone. I reported in the previous blog that the UHF has turned up the same combination in Fermanagh as well.

Dick, the Research Dynamo, McCown

Brother Dick is coming up with some big time McCown results using Google Genealogy.
We have a record of the following marriages and births and please note that missing info is truly missing, not just left out.

Births:

McCown, John, 1806, Father's name McCown John. Co. Antrim
McCown James, 1809, Father's name McCown William. Co. Antrim
McCown Mary Ann, 1836, Father's name James. Co. Armagh
McCown, John, 1839, Father's name John. Co. Armagh

Marriages:

McCown, John, 1823, Co. Down
McCown, Eleanor, 1827. Co. Down
McCown, Ann, 1830. Co. Down
McCown, Robert 1849, Father, Alexander, Co. Antrim
McCown, Sally Ann, 1852, Father Thomas. Co. Antrim

I believe that is reason enough to use Google Genealogy, don't you?

I believe that people listed above are of Scots descent, but don't know that for sure.

Just to wet your whistle a bit, there is more coming from places not considered
Maguire areas such as Louth, Offaly and even Galway. Dick is finding results from the mid 1500's and much more from about 1742 to 1839 from various other sources. I put that in to echo reader Brad McGuire's dictum "I don't care who lived in which Ice
Cave, I want to know about my ancestors from 1600 to 1800". Amen to that.

I can't wait for the Galway information myself because it has records of changes in religious affiliation and related marriages and I expect some variations of Maguire and McCown to be among them.

Linen by McOwen

My younger brother, Dick, hit something of interest in his first day as a researcher of the Ulster Historical Society Guild.

He gleaned this from the Index of Flaxgrowers Bounty List of 1796.

Surname First Name Parish County No. of Looms

McOwen Hugh Ballysakeery Mayo 4

McOwen Michael Lemanaghan Offaly 4

McOwen William Port Louth 1

Now, I will admit that I would like to see my namesake, William, doing better,
perhaps he was young at the time. It will be interesting to see if any of these could be related to our line. I believe that England tried very hard to undermine
Irish flax and linen industries to favor English growers and linen producers in about 1790. That by the way is the year that our earliaest known ancestor, Lawrence, was born in South Carolina and his first born son was also named William.

Redmond McOwen McGwire

This just in from William Roulston of the Ulster Historical Foundation:

"I have just returned from the Linen Hall Library in Belfast where I checked a volume
entitled "Inquisitionium in officio rotulorum cancellariae Hiberniae asservatarum
repertorium" which was published in the 1820's. Basically, it contains abstracts of government inquisitions held in the 17th century."

"Under County Fermanagh I noted that a Redmond McOwen McGwire was a tenant on the estate granted to John Sedborough by King James I in 1610. The entry is in abbreviated Latin and so I was only able to get the gist of it." (editorial comment:
That is why William is doing this sort of thing and I am not) "But now we have a combination of the names of McOwen and Maguire in Co. Fermanagh in the 17th century.
I'll add this information to the website in due course with some explanatory material."

William Roulston also sent my brother, Dick's, credentials and instructions for getting access to the UHF Guild resources. I hope Dick turns up some good stuff there and doesn't have to intuit his way through Latin, Middle English and Gaelish. I can hope that, but still think there will be a lot of intuiting going on.

Eoghan Dubh MacAmhlaimh

From Patrick MacAuley (except for the first sentence)

You must admit that the title is an attention grabber. "It means Owen MacAwley the Black. His sons could have used a McOwen surname. His death is mentioned in the Annals of Ulster for 1505. Unfortunately, he is not included in the Geinealach Fermanach, and not much more is known about him. He was probably the son of Brian MacAwley Maguire (d. 1466)or Philip Reagh MacAwley (d. 1480). It's remotely possible that this man's descendants would have used the name McOwen as a "local
patronymic" which could have eventually become a legal surname."

I had written to "Walter McCauley" because we have a spectacularly high percentage of a probability of a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) within the last 12 generations. Again quoting Pat MacAuley "Father Walter is a retired Jesuit priest, who is living in a seminary and is a fourth cousin of my father, and can trace his ancestry to Glangevlin in County Cavan circa 1800. (About one mile from Maguire's Chair.)."

"Father Walt is a 36/37 match with the Donn Carrach Maguire profile. His only mutation is one that the three of us share--at CDY-b we have 38 instead of 37. I'm still not sure whether this means you are from the ClanAwley line, or whether you are from another Maguire line which independently acquired the mutation. Since Daniel Warrington McCauley has the "correct DCM" 37 at CDYb, the mutation was probably acquired after the McAuley sept had formed."

"I read with great interest your latest discovery in southern Tyrone. There are a lot of Maguires in southern Tyrone and my Uncle Paddy's mother was a Maguire from Tyrone. Parts of present day Tyrone, especially Kilskerry Parish, were probably part
of Maguire Fermanagh until about the 1560's when they were seized by O'Neills. Although the Tyrone lead should be examined, my feeling is that Edmond McGuire McOwen
of Tyrone will probably not be the man we are looking for."

My thanks to Patrick MacAuley for his guidance and encouragement during my McCown line research. Every body needs friends, and I am very grateful to Pat, a good friend indeed. Good friends such as Pat, Barry McCain, the fair Coane and many others are a benefit I didn't expect from genealogy. Also, the efforts of William Roulston and the Ulster Historical Foundation are greatly adding both their research talents and discipline to the process. See their website at www.ancestryireland.org.