93% Irish with almost all from Donegal: researching Waters, Devenney, Bonner, Devlin, Harkins, Ennis and Boyle

In addition, I did fill out a request to meet a volunteer in Donegal. When I tried to put in Ardara as a meeting location, the form would not accept the town.  I tried a second time with the same results. We are willing to travel to meet someone.

Kathleen:

Thanks for trying to complete our trip form. You will need to show the civil parish for Ardara which is Killybegs Lower. The form will not accept a town name.

Co. Donegal is the most difficult parish to research if your relatives go back before the start of civil registration (1864). Many of the RC parishes in Co. Donegal do not have records back before 1860. I did try to find a baptismal record for Sarah on the subscription site Roots Ireland but was unsuccessful.

The Griffiths Valuation was completed in Co. Donegal around 1857. We don't know for sure if John Owen was leasing land at that time. I did look at the head of household listing for the county and there were ten John Devenney (or variant) records as follows:

Source Surname First Name Townland Parish County

Griffith Devanny John Roshin, South Templecrone Co. Donegal

Griffith Devanny John Cleenderry Templecrone Co. Donegal

Griffith Devanny John Carrowmullin Fahan Upper Co. Donegal

Griffith Devany John Meenderryowan Templecrone Co. Donegal

Griffith Devany John Rinnafarset Templecrone Co. Donegal

Griffith Devany John Mullanasole Drumhome Co. Donegal

Griffith Devany John Village Of Kilmacrenan Kilmacrenan Co. Donegal

Griffith Devany John Clougherachullion Inishkeel Co. Donegal

Griffith Devany John Cormullin Drumhome Co. Donegal

Griffith Devenny John Moneyhaughly Raymoghy Co. Donegal

Can you confirm that John Owen and Ellen stayed kin Ireland?

I will try to check out records and get back to you.

Roger McDonnell

Kathleen:

I'm still struggling to find records for your family. There is a Ancestry tree (Hartzell family Tree) which shows that the parents of John McCormick were Charles McCormick and Annie White. You have Catherine Bonner marrying John McCormick. You may want to review that tree.

Roger

Hi Roger, 

Thank you for looking at all of this.  At one point we had the paid subscription to Ancestry for World use but since I had no way of knowing who was actually related, I found it difficult to navigate. 
 

Yes, we believe the John and Ellen Devenney stayed in Donegal.  Other than that, we know little.  I will check out the links your sent to see if anything rings a bell, but given we know so little I’m not feeling very positive about trying to make the connection.  I wish I understood the DNA links better! 😂

We are looking forward to our trip but I’m wondering if it is worth the effort when we are over there to try and learn more.  Many of the passenger manifests only list last names and so I’ve no way of knowing what the first name is and where they come from, other than Ireland.  
 

Do you have any other suggestions for us?

Kind regards,

Kathleen

I found the following records on Ancestry but I am not sure if they belong to our John McCormick in the USA.  Scranton is a distance from Philadelphia although it is still the same state.  The death certificate is for Philadelphia and the naturalization papers were signed in Scranton.  Lots of the family all stayed in Philadelphia which makes me hesitant to think they are who I am looking for but the naturalization papers have some info that might help.

Do I need to go in and filling in another form for meeting with a volunteer?

Kathleen:

Here is a link to the trip form  https://www.irelandxo.com/meet-and-greet if you did not successfully complete the form earlier. Not sure we have a volunteer in the Ardara area. I looked for death records for John and Ellen on the free site irishgenealogy.ie  but did not find any good leads. Civil registration of deaths started in 1864. Currently, we only have index records for 1864-1870 but full records from 1871-1972.

In my experience unless you know the exact area where your ancestors are from, it is very hard to do any meaningful research. I wanted to share a couple links for places to visit in Donegal but for some reason the system won't let me. I will try later.

Roger

Kathleen:

Two places to visit.

Roger

https://www.slieveleague.com/

https://www.nationalparks.ie/glenveagh/

Thanks so much Roger. So I’m new to your group. Should I ask to meet with a volunteer? We will be in Ireland for 6 weeks so we can meet anyone anywhere. I guess I was thinking a volunteer helps introduce us to the area where your relatives used to live. Correct? 
Any advice for us would be appreciated. 
kathleen 

Kathleen:

You are correct! Our volunteers where available, are able to meet with visitors and show them where their ancestors lived. Sometimes they even find distant relatives.

  Here is an example of one recent July visit  https://www.irelandxo.com/success-story/boston-castle-county-cork   

In your situation as far as I can see, you don't know where in Co. Donegal your Devenny ancestors came from. I also suspect that the Bonner and Devlin ancestors also came from Donegal since those surnames are common in Donegal. 

Where are you visiting after Ardara?

Roger

Baltimore MD

Hi Roger, 

After Ardara we will go to Carrigart. Do you live in Maryland? We live in Strasburg PA. 

Kathleen:

Yes, north of Baltimore. I know Strasburg is near Lancaster.

Roger